Charlene Roach-Glymph: It’s time to support students with disabilities
As Mayor Muriel Bowser, the city and our schools prepare for the upcoming budget deliberations and schools embark on an equitable recovery from a disjointed year of learning, the city must ensure students with the greatest needs get the support they require to thrive in school and in life.
It’s time that all DC schools — both DC public charter schools and DC Public Schools (DCPS) — support students with disabilities.
Schools must ensure that educator mindset, funding, curricula and other resources are all aligned to focus on students with disabilities. By doing so, DC’s special education population — and all other students — can recover from the learning loss of the pandemic and thrive.
For too long, special education in DC has been thought of seemingly last and least. The outcomes of students with disabilities lag behind their DC counterparts. All too often, students — especially Black and brown children — are “over-labeled” as having a disability and end up segregated from their peers.
That said, DC has made significant strides when it comes to special education compliance: The Early Stages program has ensured that DC students with disabilities are appropriately identified early and receive required services. Specialized schools like DCPS’ River Terrace Education Campus exist specifically to serve students with the greatest needs. Compliance is critical and required, but isn’t our only goal: Access and learning acceleration are just as essential.
There is still much work to do in every public school and in every classroom to serve students with disabilities. Here’s how we can place special education at the center of our focus — and, in doing so, ensure that all public school students receive the support they need.
First, all educators and school staff must believe that children with disabilities belong in every school and in every classroom.
No educator sets out to undervalue students with disabilities, but without the right tools and support, our students with disabilities are frequently left behind. Schools must equip teachers with the tools needed to remove the barriers that students with disabilities face and to address their exceptional learning needs — because students with disabilities are exceptional. It is critical that every educator and staff member in DC see the inherent value of all students and provide an inclusive learning environment.
As part of Relay Graduate School of Education’s program for inclusive schools, we partner directly with a number of DC schools, including Thomas Elementary School in Ward 7, Barnard Elementary School in Ward 4, and Friendship Public Charter Schools in locations across the city. One of our goals is to help all adults in schools shift their mindset about students and to equip them with the knowledge and skills to effectively support the success of students with disabilities. Relay does this by providing staff training that focuses on mindset shifts where staff engage with case studies and then practice the learned skills through role playing and planning activities.
For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, schools had to essentially reinvent special education for distance learning. We helped schools like Stanton Elementary in Ward 8 think through virtual classroom observations, engage students with disabilities online, and encourage co-teachers to check with students with disabilities via chat or “breakout rooms.”
Second, schools must focus on providing access to opportunity and routes to success for students with disabilities. In doing so, all students will benefit.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires all publicly accessible buildings to have ramps and be equipped with elevators to ensure equitable access for our neighbors with disabilities. Those same access opportunities also help the parent pushing a stroller or the newly walking toddler who isn’t quite sturdy on their feet yet. Better access helps everyone.
That’s also true when it comes to teaching and learning. By designing the classroom environment, the curriculum and the lesson around the needs of students with disabilities, all students benefit. When a teacher provides students more time with a book in advance of a lesson, for example, that can meet the needs of a student with disabilities as well as those of everyone else in the classroom.
This is why, when our program partners with schools, we start by speaking to the school leader about their goals for students and how their team is helping to meet those needs. We discuss how to remove barriers to learning that will help students with disabilities, as well as other students in the classroom. We think about assistive technology, social emotional learning and much more.
Our goals are to ensure inclusivity and access for learning, and ensure that disparities do not exist across attendance, discipline and school culture. Our work is targeted to support students with disabilities. But when fully implemented and embraced, these supports are infused throughout the school and make a difference for all learners.
Many have called to make next year the strongest year yet for DC students. Let’s do that for all students, including our students with disabilities.
Charlene Roach-Glymph is the associate dean of special education at the Relay Graduate School of Education, a not-for-profit institution of higher education serving 4,000 teachers and 1,200 school leaders across the United States.
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