Learning from the Students Not Yet in the Room: Using Inclusion Planning to Promote Organizational Learning, Equity, and Innovation

Abstract

The American preK-12 education system is struggling. Challenges resulting from navigating the global pandemic, the growing consciousness of the education system’s role in perpetuating cycles of inequity for students furthest from justice, and the continual inability to scale innovation across a wide breadth of student profiles, are all evidence that the education sector needs something different. These challenges point to the need to rebuild school systems with a better foundation — a foundation built on collective learning gained through inclusion.

In many school models, specific groups of students are separated into their own self-contained programs based on their home language, ability level, or behavioral needs. Schools often do this without first exploring how general education environments could change to meet these students’ needs in inclusive ways. In my work with educators in Highline Public Schools, a traditionally organized public school district outside Seattle Washington, I developed a strategy and acted as lead facilitator on a team charged with reimagining how schools would look, feel, and operate if they reorganized around the inclusion of students in historically self-contained settings. We did this by telling stories. We talked about the experiences we hoped these children would have in their schools in the not-too-distant future. Then, we named the skills we would need to learn, the instructional strategies we would need to deploy, the fresh ways we would need to team, and the new mindsets we would adopt. From these collective storytelling sessions, educators began taking steps toward making these stories reality — starting with being relationally proximal to these populations and learning what it takes to organize around them.

In this capstone, I will share how I partnered with key district stakeholders to employ theories and practices rooted in community organizing, teaming for innovation, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and improvement science to create a mobilized community and a multi-year plan for moving inclusion forward within the organization. I also explore my own leadership learnings, including ways I was shaped by this process and enter the field differently because of my time with this organization.