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JUSTICE, EQUITY FOR OUR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

BY JULIE WILLOUGHBY, PH.D.

Students with disabilities need educators who strive for equity by providing necessary academic and social/emotional supports. The Urbana City Schools District Leadership Team formed a Students with Disabilities Subcommittee to find ways to provide these supports. This subcommittee has initiated many positive changes including bringing co-teaching professional development to the district and asking district staff to find ways to move to a more inclusive setting for our students with disabilities.

The subcommittee studied ways to increase student motivation and engagement and sought ways to find ways to increase our students’ self-efficacy. Students with high self-efficacy believe that they can learn and are motivated to do the work necessary to achieve goals. The subcommittee is now completing multiple book studies on topics related self-efficacy.

The first book we read, Self-Esteem and the 6-Second Secret (Podesta, 2001), focused on the importance of giving positive attention. Spoiler alert, the 6-second secret is to spend more time giving compliments than giving complaints. Podesta (2001) provides specific examples of how we can make this change.

After reviewing our second book, 15 Positive Behavior Strategies to Increase Academic Success (Johns, 2015), staff walked away with golden nuggets such as the following:

Encourage students to make statements that connect their success to their efforts and reinforce those statements. Plan out how you will intersperse difficult work with easy work. Add student learning choices. Be an active listener: Ask, how can I help you? Tell me what you’re having trouble with? Let’s review the directions together. be discussed at an upcoming subcommittee meeting, is a great resource for new teachers and for teachers who are looking for ways to improve their classroom environment. Khalsa (2007) provides multiple examples of how we can strengthen our relationship with students by being empathetic, even with the toughest of students. Teachers reading this book are provided with strategies, lessons and activity sheets that could be used throughout their career.

As our Students with Disabilities Subcommittee wraps up this school year, our next likely discussion will be how to share what we have learned to the rest of the staff. The dispersion of what we have learned from our study (see the references below) has the potential to increase our students’ self-efficacy and in turn provide justice and equity to our students with disabilities.

Dr. Julie Willoughby is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Urbana City Schools. She has twenty-six years of experience in PreK-12 Education, including eleven year experience as an elementary principal and four years as curriculum director. You can contact Dr. Willoughby julie.willoughby@ urbanacityschools.org and via Twitter @JulieWilloughb1.

References:

Johns, B. (2015). 15 positive behavioral strategies to increase academic success. Corwin Press.

Khalsa, S. (2007). Teaching Discipline & Self-Respect. Corwin Press.

Levenson, N. and Cleveland, C. (2019). 10 best practices for improving special education. Retrieved April 6, 2022 from https://dmj.dmgroupk12.com/ articles/improving-special-education