General education teachers don’t always get a lot of training around how to serve students with disabilities. But that’s starting to change.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Students with disabilities are spending more time in regular classrooms. Federal law encourages schools to teach these students alongside their peers as much as possible, but regular teachers aren’t always trained to serve students with disabilities. Beth Wallis from StateImpact Oklahoma reports.
BETH WALLIS, BYLINE: At Frontier Elementary in Edmond, Oklahoma, fourth-grader Kellen Hedler is in a general education classroom, working in a small group with his teacher, Adam Frederick. Today, they work on subtraction.
ADAM FREDERICK: Nine take away six.
KELLEN HEDLER: That’s hard.
FREDERICK: That is a hard one.
WALLIS: Kellen has Down syndrome. This small-group time is a chance for Frederick to give students like Kellen more attention, while others work independently.
FREDERICK: Do you want the number line for it?
KELLEN: Oh, yeah.
FREDERICK: OK. Two, three, four, five, six.
WALLIS: Kellen works with a tactile aid called a number line.
KELLEN: One. Two.
WALLIS: Basically, a set of blocks that help with counting. They help him get to the right answer.
KELLEN: Three.
FREDERICK: Three. Write it down.
WALLIS: Kellen spends over 80% of his school day with his general-education peers. That means all of his teachers have to understand his learning style. But Frederick says he doesn’t remember taking any courses on special education when he got his teaching degree. Adapting his teaching to all kinds of learners was something he had to learn once he was in the classroom. He says that’s paid off for everyone.
FREDERICK: I do have students who are still doing addition with finger counting, yet I’m trying to teach multiplication. That gives me the opportunity to try to teach multiplication through addition for those students, and it gives our students who are on-level or above-level another strategy.
WALLIS: Federal data show that more and more students with disabilities are spending at least 80% of their school day in general-education classrooms. That’s a benchmark often cited in federal datasets. In the last 35 years, the share of students who meet that benchmark has more than doubled. But how are teacher prep programs at universities changing to meet the needs of more inclusive classrooms?
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LISA DIDION: When we think about students with disabilities, I want you to think about them as all of our students.
WALLIS: Lisa Didion is teaching a class on special education to education majors at the University of Kansas, or KU.
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DIDION: A lot of times, when you get in school, sometimes they’re like, those are your students. These are my students. And we want to get rid of that kind of mentality.
WALLIS: The class is discussing how to advocate for their future students with disabilities – like actively participating in the process around individualized education programs, or IEPs. Those are documents that outline services a school is supposed to provide for each student with disabilities.
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DIDION: Who in my classroom has a disability, and how can I better allow them to access that material? Questions about that?
WALLIS: Benjamin Erickson, a junior majoring in elementary education, raises his hand.
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BENJAMIN ERICKSON: In many ways, it’s very individual, of…
DIDION: Yes.
ERICKSON: …Trying to figure out – with IEPs and stuff and trying to figure out, like, how do we make the environment least restrictive for this student, even if it might not be the same for another student?
DIDION: Yes.
WALLIS: At the end of the class, Didion makes a pitch for students to join a new kind of major called Elementary Education Unified. It has eight more required special education courses than a regular education degree at KU, which only has two.
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DIDION: You will be able to have access to more strategies and go in-depth so that you can learn the skills to support all learners.
WALLIS: Erickson is considering switching to the unified program.
ERICKSON: I’m somebody who has a couple disabilities. I have ADHD. I was born with some brain disabilities.
WALLIS: He says he still has more to learn, and it matters to him to be part of a better system for kids who learn differently.
ERICKSON: Knowing that about kids who are coming into my classroom and learning how to support them is really important. But also, when you have an inclusive classroom and you make sure that everybody feels supported and everybody has what they need, everybody’s able to succeed.
WALLIS: Unified programs are flourishing in Kansas, and not just at KU. Wichita State, Pittsburg State and Fort Hays State offer them. The University of Northern Iowa debuted a unified degree in early childhood education last year. Oklahoma State University is working to launch a similar program. There’s just one catch – for students with disabilities to start benefiting from these new teacher programs, people have to choose to enroll in them over traditional education programs.
For NPR news, I’m Beth Wallis in Tulsa.
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