The Benefits of Inclusive Classrooms for School Districts

Marisha (00:01)

Hello there and welcome to the Special Ed Leaders podcast. I am really looking forward to another episode. Today we are focusing all on inclusion and co-teaching and we have Dr. Paula Cluth with us. She is the founder of Inclusion Rules and she is a consultant, author, advocate, independent scholar.

And she works with teachers and families to provide inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities and to create more responsive and engaging schooling experiences for all learners. And she has an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience. She's worked as a K through 12 special educator. She's also worked at the university level. And this bio does her absolutely no justice.

But let's hear a little bit from Dr. Pollack-Cluth on her story. So, hello. Hi.

Paula Kluth (01:03)

Hi,

I'm really excited to be with you. I know we've been had many months in the planning. This is great. And that's already just a fantastic bio. But I'll just add the more personal piece to it is, you're right, I've been working as a teacher and working in education settings for a long time. And that's the course of piece that I'm most proud of. And I've been working in teacher ed for quite some time.

Marisha (01:09)

Okay.

Paula Kluth (01:32)

most recently doing in-service work with folks. I really, I love telling kind of my origin story with this because I feel like it's so relevant for what we do in schools. I really got started in, my interest in this because when I was a senior in high school, kids with kind of more complex support needs were brought back from kind of a separate setting into my high school. I wouldn't call it exactly inclusion.

But I became connected, I got connected to that teacher because she was so good at reaching out to kids and she had a great big influence on me. I always say that she wasn't even supposed to be my teacher and she was my best teacher and so think that's a lesson for all of us. We're not gonna probably get into this this workshop, but in this session I should say, but I always say that 100 % of the adults in the school should be there for 100 % of the kids, at least in ideology and.

in the sort of the spirit. And so she was really there. those were also my first friends with disabilities and she was responsible for that. So kind of got the bug. And so I always talk about when people say, are the, what's the impact of inclusion on other kids? Like I, I'm so passionate about that. Cause you could say I'm one of the other kids and it's just given me this great, great experience and career. But we'll of course go beyond some of the anecdotal evidence as we chat.

But yeah, I've been doing kind of a little bit of everything. And as you said, I was at the university, most recently Syracuse University. And so I am interested in those elements of research. And I've been very interested in practice as much or more so in the last few years. But basically everything I've been doing is coming into schooling environments.

and helping folks to either solve problems or kind of have a vision about what environments, what we can do in school settings to open our doors wider and create like sort of the healthiest and most accessible and appropriately challenging learning experiences for all kids. And so that's, guess, what brings me here to be chatting with you.

Marisha (03:47)

Yeah, what an incredible mission. I love that. so for, so it sounds like you do some really amazing consulting work and supporting with districts, but some districts might not be as familiar with inclusion and all of the things that we're talking about today. So can we make sure that we're all on the same page and chat about like what the, your definition of inclusive?

an inclusive classroom or an inclusive education is and kind of what that might look like.

Paula Kluth (04:19)

Sure.

So, you know, think that most, the shared definition I think that most folks have is that, you know, inclusion is about bringing students with and without disabilities into a shared context, you know, of course, with supports and services, you know, as we are reminded of in the law. But a lot of times that language is about, you know, just space itself.

And that kids learning together, not just in the classroom, but in all kinds of contexts, right? In extracurricular activities and even beyond. So that's important and thinking about placement, but there's also sort of a spirit to this work too. So what's sort of the, you know, the essence of it or your goal? And so what's really exciting in the last decade or so as the United Nations has even weighed in on this, which again, it's mind blowing how much evolution there's been since I started.

And the United Nations have talked about barriers. They've talked about the sort of the social model of disability. so in reminding us that inclusion isn't just about what we're doing in the space or where kids receive services, but thinking about the spaces differently. So that's about, you know, we want to think about the removing of barriers. Inclusion is about assessing bias in, you know, in these spaces. It's about systematic reform. It's about, you know, creating the

best possible spaces for all kids, including those kids without identified needs. So it's about how we think about families, you all families and being welcoming. So I'm paraphrasing, of course, from the UN, but I like that idea that it's not just about, you know, the focus isn't just on families, you know, of kids with disabilities or kids with disabilities, but like, what is the, you know, the universal design of it all? Are we thinking in advance about, is this truly a community for all?

And so that's really helpful. And then I also think there's an element of like looking at just communities and democratic learning communities and looking at inequities. so, you know, I just finished, did, I have a book called, You're Gonna Love This Kid, which is about autism and inclusion. And so I just had to kind of rewrite the definition and it was really nice to see after, you know, all these years like,

That definition has really evolved a lot from thinking about sort of the basics to thinking about a dynamic. It's like what we do as educators and then how we're thinking about kids and it's about sort of not just, you know, what those elements about planning, but it's also about having a vision about what is possible. Can I add one thing to that? I know I'm talking a lot about the first question.

But one of the things that we had talked about as we were prepping is you said, do you think there's confusion about the definition? And I just always like to add that I think it's really important. So the answer is yes, because I thought that was a really good question that you had. And the answer is yes. And I think it's really important to always be talking about what we mean by inclusion, even if we're two colleagues. Like I'm a special ed director and you're a principal.

What do you mean when you say inclusion because we could be having a dialogue for ten years and we're not even on the same page and we don't even realize it and in fact I mean, this is this sounds like a shameless plug, but it's really just I'm really just trying to say how much I think about this is I have a whole book called don't we already do inclusion because I found that everybody was saying this is inclusion or that's inclusion or don't we already do this and really it came down to the shared definition, so I always say

your definition might not be mine. So it's really important that not only we have a shared definition, but that we have to realize, yes, we're doing inclusion, but that target is a moving target. And this work is aspirational. And what I mean by that is the technology is changing and how, and it is helping us to uncover ability in so many kids. You know that as an SLP, what we thought was possible 10 and 20 years ago, what we're seeing kids, what they're able to do on some of these, you know.

augmentative communication systems that they're now getting access to, it's a different person. And so that technology is evolving. The law is actually changing and evolving. Our definitions are evolving. Our understanding of these principles, like justice, are evolving. we're, I always say, I'll borrow from Nike, we, there's no finish line. We're just always gonna be looking at this target. So we have to constantly talk about it.

Marisha (08:51)

Yeah. And it's interesting because I've had some conversations in previous episodes regarding inclusion from a legal perspective. And that is about as clear as mud when you're analyzing that. So I love that you were able, like, this will be a really great snippet to remember of just when we're thinking about what inclusion is and how we're implementing it and that there is no finish line. I love that.

Paula Kluth (09:06)

You

That's right.

Marisha (09:21)

why is inclusion so important for SPED administrators to focus on? We obviously have the legal aspect.

Paula Kluth (09:33)

Yes. Well, and I think that's one of the most important. I mean, I think this is a very good snippet. And I know that you have a lot of administrators listening. I always think that what's really hard for administrators is that there can be a misconception. I'm not saying everywhere that I have to get everybody on board and we have to believe in this work. And even if that term isn't used, it's sort of.

you know, it's sort of lives there a little bit in some spaces. So I even work with this and I'm telling you, incredible administrator. And she had a whole event that was like, you know, it was sort of focused on this idea of like buy in and beliefs. And I love that. I mean, I'm not going to lie. Inclusion is part of my own value system. So I'm not going to lie about that. That's true. However, if we as administrators are focusing our, you know, our energy,

around this idea of getting the buy-in in the way that we're talking about in terms of values, that might be some wasted energy because the minute I meet somebody that says, I'm so sorry, that's just not part of my, I'm not into that, I'm not into inclusion. We are defeated in a sense, right? So there's nothing wrong with sort of putting your ethic out there, but really this boils down to two things. And whenever I feel like push comes to shove or somebody says I'm in it with this particular, I'm in it with a, you know,

another professional and they're challenging me around this. I say, take all that stuff out of it about your own. Go right to the two core elements, the research and the law. And that's where you live. That's all it is. We don't have to debate it because the as you said, there is a lot of there's, the law can be there's some wiggle room there. On the other hand, it is a solid of a foundation as we have right now. And

there's a lot of nice language in there. I mean, starting with FAPE, of course, but also looking at LRE and even some of the more recent circuit court decisions. There was a great, I don't wanna go too far down this road, but if your listeners don't know about the Hyde decision, H-Y-D-E, Hyde, the Luca Hyde, I think I'm saying that right, decision, that's a circuit decision that's a handful of years old. And I wanna say it's...

I'm not going to guess. I think I know where it is, but I'm not going to guess. But I, this judge was so clear about what LRE means in terms of this was a child with Down syndrome. But essentially the district was making the claim that this child could not be included because he's basically, he's not anywhere near the other students. He's not, he doesn't look like them. doesn't act like them. his, standards he is accessing are different.

that kind of thing. And they fought and fought and this went on for years. And finally the family prevailed, actually twice there was an appeal. And the judge essentially said the yardstick is not about catching up. You don't have to be even close in terms of grade level. The yardstick is can the child achieve growth and success in their own IEP, in their own personal goals. And of course these kids are gonna be accessing general ed standards as well.

but that's one of the more recent victories. And so I think there is some legal language that we can hang on to there. And then the other element going to the research is there's just such exciting research right now. And so I don't have to get blue in the face like I had to maybe 30 years ago. The study that I think everybody needs, the two studies I think everyone should know about, and I normally wouldn't do this on the podcast, but you know your district administrators want these because they don't have time, right?

But the Sandy Cole study, COLE out of Indiana, and there's a couple there that are actually incredible. And it's sort of a, it's a long-term tracking of these, I call them sort of developmental twins, kids that were matched on all kinds of criteria. And they looked at this group of kids that looked very, very similar in elementary school. They caught up with them later in late middle school. And they looked at these kids that were identical nearly.

in terms of these characteristics. And then what did they look like later and what were their placements? And they found that the kids that were included far outperformed kids that were not included and that was across all disability groups. I can't do it justice, but if you look up the Cole study, think Edutopia, I think did a nice piece on it. There was a high school study that was paired with that that showed very similar things. And then the other study that I think everybody needs to know about in terms of...

inclusion is the Cathy G study, GEE. And that's a piece that looked at kids with complex support needs. So these kids are not at grade level. They're not taking those assessments. And so they had to do a lot of observation over the years. I think, I believe the Cathy G study on inclusion and inclusion environments was a 2019 or 2020 study. And again,

Same kind of thing. We're seeing kids that aren't, they're not at grade level, they're not even close. And their outcomes in terms of all of these measures, academics, what they could assess, but also related skills. And so that's where we have to keep the conversation. It's not like it's not, I mean, I love to connect with others that have those values, but really when we're in the schools making these, especially in public schools making these decisions, that's where we have to center everything.

As you can tell, I feel quite passionately about that because you run into lots of barriers and so it's a safe space in many ways.

Marisha (15:20)

Yeah, and I really appreciate this conversation too, because I've heard a lot of conversations on the other side where you have to get your staff in alignment with your values. Like you have to hire in alignment with that. But you're saying that, no, it's the law and there's research supporting it. so we don't have, I mean, it's always nice to have in alignment. Yeah.

Paula Kluth (15:42)

That's right. It's always like, you don't always pick your staff. And there is

a difference between, think somebody could have like really great values around kids, but just for some reason, not know the research or not understand the law and think, I think this is, they're the kind of person that you want, but they just, they're unaware of that. And so that happens too. So I don't disagree with the idea of building culture. I guess I should clarify that or having folks that have similar ways of thinking about the work that all makes sense to me.

Marisha (16:01)

Mm-hmm.

Paula Kluth (16:12)

I guess I'm just trying to say that if we're always having a conversation about inclusion as it, then it's just my values against yours. Like we have to take it down to the same place that we take literacy instruction or any other conversation is why are we ignoring this, these two bodies.

Marisha (16:28)

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And then what are some of the best, and we, so I think you already shared these, like the Sandy Cole study, the Cathy G study. Do you have any other favorite examples of like the documented benefits of inclusion? Okay, let's talk about it.

Paula Kluth (16:47)

Do I? How long do you have? Yes, well,

the other, I I am, I'm not even like a big, know, I'm not like as, I should say, like as severe as some of my colleagues about like scrolling away research, but I do like, I do love collecting this because it ends up being the bread and butter for a lot of other conversations. So those are studies that I'm super excited about at the moment, but you know, there's also this,

I just have to go back a little bit in my history. So my history is that I am a teacher by training of kids with complex support needs. when I, I'm 55. So when I was getting my certificate, it was in severe and profound, you know, that's what we called it. And so all of these families that I would meet through those first, like especially 20 years, they would be sold a story. And the story was you can either have really great, you know, training for life.

I mean, that was sort of the language. can, we can either teach your kid how to live, you know, interdependently or independently. We can teach your kid life skills. We can teach your kid functional skills, or you can have inclusion. But you can't have both. And so that, even if that wasn't said, it was always the spirit of this. And I mean, I've worked with so many parent groups and if I've heard this once, I have literally heard it a thousand times. Is like, have, you know, we have to, we.

We can't be focused on all of those things, essentially. And so parents would sometimes feel almost bullied, like I can't have it, so they're telling me, so you don't want your kid to have a good life? You just wanna put them in inclusion? So they would be like, what should I do? And so it's always hard to guide a parent because I'm not there working with that school and I'm not that teacher and things like that. But what's so nice now is to have this research that is very much flies in the face of that way of thinking. So there was this...

analysis, I guess an Australian consortium or something like that, that put together this great collection of inclusion resources a handful of years ago. And one of the

the, I guess, pieces of information in their, in that collection is this glimpse at benefits for kids with disabilities that go beyond academics. So things like kids with disabilities are, who are included are less likely to have a disciplinary.

Kids who are included are more likely to belong to a school group. Kids who are included are more likely to have competitive employment. Kids who are included are more likely to live independently. So that kind of flies in the face of some of those messages that folks are getting. And the other piece that I think is interesting is, know, we just keep seeing other, I don't spend a ton of time in those circles around like, you know, transition. I mostly work with school-age kids.

But there is a researcher named Leslie Shaw, and I just emailed her this week. She's in Cornell, at Cornell, and she did a study, or she's engaged in a project, I should say, that looks at transition and outcomes and success, specifically in autism. That's what she's doing.

So I just asked her, there a white paper yet? And she said, we're working on that part. We're working at getting the data out. So I just found a press release and she said that it will come, but we don't have it yet. So it's Leslie Shaw at Cornell for those who are listening. And she looked at all of these markers. So like, what are all of the things that help somebody have a successful post, you know, post-school outcome? And it was over like something like two dozen things that they looked at.

and what is the number one element that pointed towards this positive outcome, inclusive education. So that was another, so I asked her, said, I need that information. She said, it will come, it's coming. But again, just another tally in the column to say, like, this is really important for families to know as much as it is for teachers to know. So it's important for all of us to understand that it can feel sometimes, you know, that,

you know, that this is sort of a path away from preparing for living for certain kids, but we just don't have that kind of data. We also see other kinds of outcomes, you know, for you being an SLP, that Cathy G study that I referenced, amazing outcomes around communication for kids with complex support needs, kids that learned new systems, new vocabulary, had more language.

And that makes sense to me when you're in this robust context. I wrote a whole book, this is like old, this is not even a recommendation, but I wrote a book called A Land We Can Share. was like maybe the first book on autism and literacy. And so we wrote all about like, what does that context mean for kids, especially kids with complex support needs or higher needs. And so it wasn't surprising to me at all to see that data, that kids who were eavesdropping on conversations, kids that were having, they were with competent communication partners all day long.

Other kids are interested in the tech, so they're modeling some of these things. That wasn't a surprise to me at all to see some of that. So we see achievement. There was a study from Jenny Curth at Kansas a handful of years ago looking at literacy outcomes for kids with disabilities. that was autism. And again, just the same kind of story over time. So I think, again, it's really important to understand that this isn't just about academics and then

just about, or just about some of these adjacent outcomes, like they're all important to talk about and they're all relevant to this conversation.

Marisha (22:52)

Yeah, I absolutely agree. thank you for kind of, I'll add to the different articles and things that you've mentioned in the show notes for anyone who wants to dive in deeper, but having these resources as a jumping off point is beautiful. I love it.

Paula Kluth (23:03)

Yes. And I can help you too, Marisha.

We can build some of those other links in that for the show so that if we, if you can't find anything, let me know.

Marisha (23:12)

Okay, awesome. And then, so you talk a lot about co-teaching. So where does that fit into all of this?

Paula Kluth (23:20)

Yes.

Yeah,

you kind of understand my background now, so what I do. So I do a lot of work with schools around inclusion. This is definitely an area of study for me and a lot of work in universal design for learning and co-teaching. the strands here are that inclusion's at the center, but all of these other elements kind of feed in because it got to a point where I'm sort of on the soapbox, as you can imagine.

Marisha (23:54)

Thanks

Paula Kluth (23:54)

about

inclusion and then it comes to but how do you do it? So that got me down, also I was a co-teacher so that got me down that road as well. excuse me. So one of the things that, you know, really got me interested is I go in and talk to teachers and I would see what was possible. Again, also being a co-teacher.

see what's possible when there's that constant dialogue because a lot of these things, you we are teaching in silos a lot of the time. And what I found that there was somewhat of a loneliness as an inclusion facilitator to like bringing my kids from space to space, but never getting to kind of be involved in the lesson design or learn about what was happening in general education. And so that I, you know, in those ways, I couldn't always support my colleagues.

to solve a certain problem because I wasn't in on some of those conversations. When I was in on those, we could, it was very dynamic. There's lots of room for some growth there. So I got really into that. later in my career, was teaching about co-teaching. I taught at Syracuse University most recently. So I was teaching about that. then I was just getting a lot of, like people would, I would come in and talk about.

inclusion, but then I would sort of stay to talk about collaboration and co-teaching. So I ended up writing about that as well. I wrote about a book about that with my colleague, Julie Costin, and just got very interested in what are the possibilities. Again, it can be a very lonely profession when we come together to not only think differently about the possibilities for kids. know general education teachers and SOPs and OTs and school psychologists like in my collaborative roles.

Marisha (25:18)

Thank you.

Paula Kluth (25:43)

expanded my ideas of what was possible for kids, but also helped me become a better lesson designer, better at classroom management, all of those things. So now I do a lot of work in collaboration and co-teaching. That's a big part of my work life.

Marisha (26:02)

Yeah, and so what are the skills that are most important for teachers to start looking into co-teaching?

Paula Kluth (26:13)

Well, I think there's a lot of things that not only teachers can kind of profit from when they get into those environments and share with others, and then there's a lot of things that can be learned. But there are some skills that are really helpful just to kind of bring into that interaction. So things like,

I think collaboration in general, we assume that two teachers can come together and we know how to work together. But the fact of the matter is, most, many of us, I shouldn't say most, but I think for a great majority of folks, there's not room for another class on collaboration. So in other fields you might learn, and certainly when you're becoming an administrator later, you might learn techniques for collaboration. I didn't, I mean, my first job, I had nine paraprofessionals on my team, nine.

I didn't know a thing about like, you know, communication or I mean, it's mind blowing to me to say nothing of working with my teachers. So that idea of just not assuming that I will know how to sit down and solve a problem with you, that we have techniques for, you know, even just for running a meeting efficiently and effectively. That's just a very simple concrete thing. So I have this...

co-teaching event, which we had talked about earlier, this co-teaching kickoff, which is like a virtual event. And I have these sessions where I break down just some of these sub skills because I think, again, it's, when we talk about co-teaching, it's like, okay, here are some different structures you can use to co-teach. And I'm like, yes, and let's back it all the way up to like the simplest of like introduction, getting to know you and what are some of the ways in which we.

we'll know how to interact, not only when we hit a problem, but even just on the day to day. The other skill set that I think is helpful is just understanding how to not only plan together, but again, we're used to being in our own spaces. We are taught typically about how to design those lessons on our own, not with another adult. So this idea of being able to design with somebody else opens up a whole bunch of possibilities.

so that teachers need to understand and get support around, yeah, you can use like typical co-teaching structures like station teaching and parallel teaching and one teach, one assist, but there's also all kinds of other ways to use those, to sort of exploit these all different people in my classroom, different roles. How do we work together in a really smart way when students are in book clubs? What if they're engaged in project-based instruction? What's your role as an SLP, Marisha?

So what are interesting ways to work with our paraprofessionals so that it's like the best bang for our buck? So even that kind of conversation I think is really helpful and that's a skillset that, where would we have gotten that? Because we mostly learned how to plan on our own. And then things like even role sharing, which I'm kind of dipping into there. So what can I learn from you as an OT? What can I learn from you as an SLP? What can I learn from you as a general?

So how do we start to take on some of those other roles? And that gets us back to something that I talked about earlier, which is 100 % of the adults in the school are there for 100 % of the students. But that also, that doesn't have to mean we're all like role sharing everything, but that we are sort of not only having a mindset that, you know, this is our community, but also that over time I'm learning from my colleagues, that there is sort of an ongoing professional development, even very subtly.

that I'm curious about what you're doing, I'm seeing what you're doing, and I'm getting a little bit better because you're near me.

Marisha (30:07)

Yeah, and I absolutely love that quote. 100 % of the adults at the school are there for 100 % of the students. That's a really great mindset of it being our community and we're working together as a whole. And so, and you touched on who can co-teach. It's not just classroom and special education teachers. We've got SLPs, OTs.

Paula Kluth (30:09)

you

No.

multilingual teachers, school psychologists.

You know, some of these folks, like your school psychologist, they're not gonna co-teach all the time, but a lot of those social workers, they're already in the classroom doing mini-lessons with kids. So like, what can we learn from them? Are there opportunities to have a co-teaching lesson now and then so that we're all whetting our whistle about what that looks like? Could we bring somebody in in a stations context so that they can offer extra support now and then, but we learn from them.

So I think like thinking differently, kids can actually co-teach as well. That's a whole nother taught for a whole nother day. But these are skills that are sort of lifelong, life skills, know, they're forever and can be very powerful. The collaborative teams are just a powerful asset to any inclusive school.

Marisha (31:15)

Yeah, and you've talked a little bit about, or you often talk about the benefits of co-teaching to the adults and the students. So what does, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Paula Kluth (31:31)

Sure, I mean, I think there's, when you are operating at that level where, you know, you're, are two teachers together, they're sharing planning, they have a vision for themselves as a team. So this is not like I'm teaching and you're texting or something, you know, where we're really given time to support, to support each other. And there's a, you know,

When we have a true co-ta classroom where it's not just one teach, one float, but we have teachers who are playing together and there's lots of different structures being used in ways that adults are are jelling and working together, we see these academic outcomes. There's a study that I think is around high school kids that's fairly recent.

that looks at just engagement, like engagement is higher with two teachers because I think naturally you get to use a lot of different formats, ways that you wouldn't get to engage otherwise. So we see, you know, that the potential of academics, but we also see that there's an opportunity for kids to learn other things. There's a lot of opportunity for kids to, if I'm in there and I'm having to work with kids around social emotional kinds of things, then there's a model there. Even just two teachers.

So like, let's just say we decide that we're social studies teachers and we want to, we get to co-teach. So every now and then we're gonna model what like respectful discourse looks like. You know, you might disagree or we might model how to give an appropriate compliment because there's two of us. So there's all kinds of these other like tangents, right? That can be actually very helpful and we can be purposeful about that. We wanna show what it looks like to.

talk to somebody else and to ask questions in a certain way. And so another adult is there and that's all possible. So I think it's also just super helpful for teachers. One of the things that I talk about in my sessions is that every co-taught team should be selfish and that they should, we're gonna, like if I was working with you all year long, we would be learning things from each other. Like that we know that. But what I could do is say to you, I could be even more pointed than that.

And I could say, Marisha, really, I know that you're doing something with language when you're with students and I watch you in those literacy lessons. And when you are actually, I know that there's some really subtle modeling going on when you're working with those kids at that center. I wanna learn what you're doing over there. Can you teach me about that? Or I might say like, you are making those anchor charts while you are actually teaching a lesson and I've never.

How do you do that? I've never had a chance to do that. Or you're so good at like when kids are having a hard time and I see that you just step up. Can you like by the end of the semester or year, can I get better at that? You're so organized. So like you can be turned down of course, but this is a perfect opportunity to actually say, it's up to you, but like I know I could learn that from you. You're so tech savvy.

So I always say in addition to just on the spot professional development, we can even be a little bit more selfish and say, I'm gonna ask for something from you and you can ask for something from me and let's get better together.

Marisha (34:36)

Yeah, and so just to recap, you talked about some of the benefits for students, their study showing those improved academic outcomes, the engagement, and there's opportunities to learn things that we might not get to address, like the social-emotional aspects that you mentioned. So those are really great benefits for students, but then it's also really beneficial for the teachers involved or the staff involved.

because it allows them to like continue building their skills. They're not working in a silo. I bet it's a much more fun way to work. Like I love I've loved it when I've been in more collaborative settings because I have more fulfillment in my job and like I've learned so many O.T. and teaching strategies and I'm a much better educator as a whole because of that opportunity to work with other professionals. So yeah, thanks for guiding us through that.

conversation of some of the benefits for students and adults. And at the end of the day, it just makes for a way better results for our students because if teachers are engaged and operating like at the top level that they can, just is like the benefits just keep rolling in.

Paula Kluth (35:55)

Yeah, and I always say, you know, it can be more spirited for sure. And the opposite is also true. Like, I think when COVID hit, I was working with lots of co-teaching teams and they were saying, like, I can't imagine doing this on my own. Like, I'm so glad I have a co-teacher. And so the other is true too. Like, this is a very hard job. Like, let's not.

even try to think it is like anything but it's very, hard. It's very challenging. So having like having somebody to kind of lean on, I don't know if I did that right, you know. And so I love the idea of being able to lean on somebody when it's like I just that was really tough. Like, you know, like I mean, I'd be in tears a lot in, you know, in school. Somebody threw a chair at my head once, not an adult, you know, child. You know, it's very upsetting and if somebody there with you and saying like you did this

best job that you could do, that's so helpful too. And I always say then it's also the other piece is just having somebody, this sounds weird to say, but I always talk about there's even some of their to admire your work, you know, in a sense where it's like, sometimes you just nail it, you just get that lesson, right, something small, you just you were funny, you

the kid just like did something right there and you saw the skill just develop and there's somebody else to say, especially if you talk about doing this for each other, you know, a little slow clap in the back of the classroom, which you, and I know that's kind of funny to say, but I believe it. And so I always say, talk about being those kinds of team members for each other. Cause those are some kind of not so commonly addressed benefits.

Marisha (37:31)

Yeah, that's amazing. So this all sounds really great, but I know conversations that I've had with administrators and educators, it's like, how do we do all these things? And it can feel, when our plates are already full, it can feel like, this is another, just an other thing to add on. And hopefully talking about the benefits got, cause I know a lot of us in the schools are.

heading towards burnout if we're not already there. And so this could be like a really amazing tool for us as well. But what, because I know you have tons of resources, but what recommendations do you have for ongoing professional development and like starting to work on applying this and especially in the context of like overwhelmed teachers and administrators?

Paula Kluth (38:24)

Well, you

I love that you said that it can be really a lot for folks. was I did a virtual session yesterday with a district and one of the it was just such a the only word I can use. It was very warm. You know, I just really had a nice afternoon with these this elementary elementary teachers. And one of the words that we talked about as we were reviewing some of that research that I referenced was that they said it was comforting.

And why was it comforting? Because a lot of teachers just want to know they're doing, you know, a lot of people think teachers don't want to do inclusion. It's not true. You know, a lot of administrators I know will be like agreeing with me. Yeah, there might be some resistance, but for a lot of teachers, it's different. It's not that they don't want to do it. They just have to know that this is hard. It's imperfect in so many contexts. And so just tell me that I'm doing the right thing for kids and I will run with this, but I need to know it's the right thing for kids.

So they were saying they're doing some really sophisticated things in this district and they said that research was really comforting for us. That legal element was really comforting. that was nice. So don't always assume that providing more information will be overwhelmed. So the first thing I say is inclusion is not a one-shot deal. Don't we already do inclusion? know, that book, that whole book was written on the idea that yes, we are doing it, but it's again, it's aspirational and it's ongoing. So that if you had quote unquote,

training on inclusion, like there's probably lots of updates, like whether it's a steering committee, whether it's a group that's constantly having a conversation about related needs, that's not something that we're gonna educate and then move on. That's gonna be constant. How do we create schools for all? That's never-ending conversation. And then of course, along with that, I know we had to limit ourselves today, but I do a lot of work in that area of universal design for learning, so that comes up a lot. That can be another.

question and answer to the question of how do we do this? And so where a lot of folks are saying I can't possibly bring this child in it's not working for this space or what we're doing. Sometimes I'm not going to say every teacher is going to say wow this is super comforting to learn something new but it can kind of help us because instead of saying we're going to try to figure out how we're going to do this for this kid and this kid and this kid you know this language and this model and framework of universal design for learning is going to help us maybe think differently.

about how we can design upfront so there'll be less to think about, you know, down the road. How can we make the space more accessible to begin with? What do we do in our school to make sure that there's already entry points, you know, around activities? And so some of that work gets done upfront and then we don't have to do it, you know, down the road. So that's kind of another way to think about that. And then of course, you know, I'm a broken record on this, but I think everybody needs to have that content on collaboration because

No matter what you're doing, we talk a lot in the Coteach kickoff event about every role, there's collaboration involved. So I talk about even this strategy that I call spotlight co-teaching or collaboration where even if we can't co-teach formally all day, you might say to me,

you know, I'm an eighth grade teacher. cannot figure out this, these two kids, they cannot do the warmups, the bell ringers, they're just lost. And so I just need a solution for that every day. And so I might say, let me get in there and work with you on that for, you know, maybe a couple of times a week for a while. And let's try to find materials or a change in format or some tech that we can infuse or a way that we can strategize around this or.

What's something to point to I can give to a paraprofessional that's in there. Let's try to kind of like spotlight that one idea and then I'll float out and work on something else for a moment. But we have to be able to know how to like even if it's in the small moments how to kind of come together to do some of that problem solving. So I think that's probably got to be part of a conversation for just about every staff.

Marisha (42:29)

Yeah, and you mentioned the co-teaching kickoff. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that is?

Paula Kluth (42:34)

Sure, yeah, so that's like one of my, I don't know, that's kind of one of the centerpieces of the work that I do. It's because it's my only event that's ongoing. So if people go to my website, which is just inclusionrules.com, like inclusion rules, like yay. That's where you can contact me, that's where you can find everything out about me.

Marisha (42:52)

Thank

Paula Kluth (42:57)

But if you go there, that event runs, we have two versions. One is that you can sign up for just the fall. And then we have another one that goes all year long. And so if you were joining, say if this podcast is probably gonna drop in the winter, people can join anytime until I think April or May or something. So it goes all year long and every year it runs. so it's a set of, it's asynchronous. We have like 20 videos.

And you can watch with a partner, you can watch on your own time. there's lots of materials with each session and we've got all kinds of folks. We have high school teachers teaching together, we have administrators, have sessions on, the idea was to go beyond the structures, right? Most people get collaborative training and they understand how to, again, one teach, one float, station teaching, how do we do anchor.

And so we wanted to say those are helpful and we need to know those, but there's so much more to know like lesson planning, like meeting, like how, what are some ideas for high school math? You know, so we wanted to collect that in a place where you could kind of customize. You might only have five sessions that you're going to watch, but you're to watch some of those a few times. And so we put these together and we run it every year with slightly different content, but it's kind of just having co-teaching support in your pocket.

That was sort of the idea because I was getting called to run around and do these same sessions everywhere. And even when I was going in person, even for three days, I didn't get to half of this stuff. So I wanted to make that available so that you can find out more about the co-teaching kickoff and frankly, other stuff, other events, sort of online offerings, all of that's on inclusion rules. And by the way,

There's lots of stuff over there that you don't have to spend a dime on. There's video over there that you can use if you're an administrator and you want to do a mini PD on something. There's video over there. There's lots of downloads that you could use for activities, brown bag lunches, know, internal kinds of meetings. There's little articles and things like that. And you don't have to ask. It's there for you to use.

Marisha (45:05)

Awesome. Yeah, and I shared a link to the website as a whole and then the code teaching kickoff and I mean, your top navigation bar makes it really easy to find all the things. yeah, that'll be an amazing resource for any administrators who are wanting to learn more. Yeah, so was there anything that you wanted to close out with or?

Paula Kluth (45:18)

good, I will tell the tech guy.

You know, I just,

first of all, thank you for having me. And I just want to extend my gratitude to anybody that was listening because I know, again, this is one of those topics where you might say, you know, again, we're doing that already and I've got some grounding there. So I think anybody that's, you know, again, such an overworked role is the director. So I just have lots of gratitude for folks in those spaces and for what they're able to do. And I'll just say this.

All of those outcomes that we're seeing, whether it's the work of Kathy G that I referenced or the work of Sandy Cole study or even the work of Jenny Curth there at KU, all of that research that looked at kids in these inclusive contexts, somebody made a decision at the district level to make that happen. And so when I say that I extend my gratitude for the work that folks are doing every day to give kids these possibilities to see that.

that we have never seen some of these stories and these potential, these possibilities for many of these kids with disabilities. The kinds of stories that we're seeing now, absolutely incredible, some of these opportunities, and that's all because of somebody initially at a district level giving a thumbs up. And so lots of gratitude out to folks who are part of that decision making and to you too, Marisha, for taking this topic on.

Marisha (47:01)

Oh, well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and expertise. This was such a treat and, um, yeah, a great conversation. So thank you. And yeah, I have second the thank you to the, and the gratitude to the administrators who are doing the work out there because it is not easy. So props to you for listening and soaking this in and considering the information and continuing to brainstorm and figure out how to.

Paula Kluth (47:21)

now.

Marisha (47:31)

do our best for our students. So yeah, thank you and see you next time.

Paula Kluth (47:35)

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Bye everybody.