Sustaining Inclusive Classrooms

This research brief describes structural ways districts hard-wire inclusion initiatives, in which students with special needs attend general education classrooms, into the district culture.

Summary This research brief describes structural ways districts hard-wire inclusion initiatives, in which students with special needs attend general education classrooms, into the district culture. The brief also discusses professional development opportunities for teachers around inclusion practices and other ways that administrators achieve buy-in from teachers and principals. Finally, the brief discusses methods to respond to disruptive student behaviors in inclusive classrooms. Key observations from our research 1. Align district structures with inclusion goals to establish a culture that supports inclusion. 2. To ensure that school stakeholders view students with special needs as general education students, target advocacy efforts toward IEP teams. 3. To receive support for inclusion from teachers, present inclusion-related instructional methods as general instructional best practices, rather than additional tactics specific to special education students. 4. Establish behavior response teams to provide teachers and school administrators with a reliable and robust option to delegate behavioral concerns to experts. 5. Strategically define achievement and communicate success of inclusive classrooms to sustain initiatives. Download the Report