Seeds of Success

FSU student works with ACE student at the Summer Institute

SEEDS OF SUCCESS

By Josh Duke

If you take a walk down any city street, you will inevitably see little flowers forcing their way up through cracks in the sidewalk. It’s a nice reminder that good things grow even in the toughest of environments. And the last few years have certainly been a tough soil for even the most resolute individuals and best ideas to sprout. Yet despite it all, the partnership between the FSU College of Education and Leon County School’s Adult Community Education (ACE) Summer Institute is healthier than ever and has flourished into a remarkable success story.

Established in the summer of 2021, the partnership helped provide the ACE Summer Institute with educators and gave FSU special education students an opportunity to gain experience. Since then, the program has grown and adapted to various challenges and has truly begun to realize its vision as a model transitional service program for Florida.

BREAKING THROUGH

The ACE Summer Institute had to contend with concerns and restrictions regarding COVID. That should come as a surprise to no one; what aspect of life did not get changed or altered in some way by the pandemic? What did surprise Jenny Root, associate professor of special education, was just how important their work with the ACE Summer Institute would turn out to be.

“In the summer of 2020, we pivoted to virtual classroom, and that was when everyone was just figuring out what that meant and what to do,” she said. “And those teachers that year, they were the first teachers in Leon County to think about, ‘How can we provide synchronous instruction all day to students with disabilities?’ and they did an awesome job.”

Using evidence-based practices, the team from FSU, headed by lead teacher and FSU doctoral student Deidre Gilley, found ways to make sure that students with disabilities received not just an education, but engagement during the challenging times of those first months of the pandemic. Their approach was so successful that the paraeducators then went on to provide training to all the other paraeducators in the district. When classrooms returned to in-person instruction, educators were so impressed with the success of these engagement plans that they began to incorporate them into their face-to-face instruction.

The challenges faced by the institute also made Root aware of key areas that needed to be taught to students, including digital literacy skills. The team quickly realized the “importance of [the students at the institute] being able to navigate and understand interacting in a video or digital space, so we talked a lot about etiquette for video calls, a lot of focus on social skills, like what are appropriate topics of conversation when you’re talking to a new colleague versus a friend versus your boss.”

Finally, now that instruction has returned to face-to-face, Root is excited for the return of in-person, community-based instruction. These experiences involve taking attendees to local destinations and businesses like Publix or the park for them to practice skills. Furthermore, thanks to the lessons they learned during virtual instruction, the special education program will be able to have students in FSU’s online autism spectrum disorder master’s program participate in virtual instruction to give them experience as well.

FRESH GROWTH

With the challenges facing everyone, no one quite knew how successful the ACE Summer Institute would be, and yet Gilley says that the program has grown every year—not just attendees, but increased staff and peer mentors as well. Gilley, who is also the director and mentor coordinator for the Institute, believes that much of this growth can be attributed to the partnership with the FSU School of Teacher Education: “The partnership is a huge reason why the summer institute is as successful as it is today.”

Deidre Gilley addresses the audience of legislators and community members at the 2021 Summer Institute

And it’s not just the program itself that is growing. Both Root and Gilley say that they watch everyone involved grow as people, too. “I’ve seen a great range of accomplishments from our attendees, including obtaining and maintaining a job, increased confidence in their abilities, independence in the community, increased self-determination skills, and more,” said Gilley. “I cannot put a number on the amount of times that families and caregivers have reached out to our staff and expressed the observed growth of their attendees.”

Root also added that the FSU students involved in the partnership flourish during and after working at the institute. “Every year, we ask students, ‘What do you want to teach?’” said Root. “They’ll say elementary, and they often are very unsure about working with adults with disabilities and with middle and high school students.

“I think some of that just comes from the fact that they’re very close in age. What we try to really provide [at the institute] is an opportunity to feel comfortable with young adults with disabilities, how to talk with them and teach them in a way that’s age respectful.”

Root pointed out that this is particularly important, as students earn a K-12 license in special education, meaning that they must feel comfortable working with students at a variety of age levels.

PROPAGATING THE INSTITUTE

The partnership with Leon County has given Root and Gilley a new perspective on transition programs like the ACE Summer Institute. It has always been Root’s intention to make this partnership a model that can be replicated across Florida, which is why on top of documenting the success of the partnership and collecting data, the pair has been presenting at several conferences on the success of the program.

Root has been working with individuals in Leon County Schools (many of them FSU graduates) on creating plans to manualize the program, as she calls it. “There are many universities with teacher preparation programs in special education. They all have transition courses, so how can we work together for that?”

SUCCESS IN BLOOM

Gilley knows firsthand that working at the ACE Summer Institute leads to unexpected growth. Having started with the program in 2020, she has watched her dreams branch out in new directions. While she always knew she wanted to work in special education, she now dreams of starting her own transition program at the university level, on top of her dream of being a tenure-track faculty member.

ACE students at the Summer Institute

It is the everyday successes that fuel her aspirations, the simple beauty of everyday moments working at the institute: when an attendee has a breakthrough; when a family member thanks the team for their work and talks about what a difference they have made; when, despite all the challenges and tribulations, young adults gain the skills they need to live a better life.

These are not moments that will make headlines in the turbulent times that we live in, but like the little yellow flowers breaking through the sidewalk slabs, their beautiful resilience offers deep-rooted hope that even the toughest times cannot deter good ideas—and people.

Interested in working at the Summer Institute? Paid and volunteer mentorship positions are available. Those interested should contact Deidre Gilley at dgp17c@my.fsu.edu or visit summerinstitutetally.org.

ACE student learning how to navigate video calls