In Noblesville, every classroom is a special ed classroom

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) - There are five Noblesville East Middle School students in teacher Blair Morwick's sixth grade classroom who traditionally would have been labeled "special education."

They have what are considered to be severe cognitive disabilities but sit next to students of all abilities, including gifted students, and learn the same things, just modified to a level that works for them.

For example, earlier this year when the class did a solar system scavenger hunt, one group of students was hunting easy-to-read facts that teachers posted around the room while their classmates looked for papers with QR codes that, once scanned with their iPad, took them to a more complex online text.

A couple of years ago these students' disabilities would most likely have stopped them from being in Morwick's general education classroom. Instead, they would have been separated into a special education room for most of the day and earned a certificate of completion, many of them simply for showing up to school, a roadblock in their path to the workplace.

They may have learned about the solar system. Or they may have not.

"In the past a student could have slept all day," said Mark Booth, Noblesville Schools' special education director.

Over the past six years, Noblesville Schools has pioneered a major shift in Indiana's approach to special education, abandoning decades-old practices to help students meet new academic standards.

This is the first time Indiana's certificate of completion includes mandated academic standards for special education students, which was approved in June 2018 and will go into effect for next school year's freshman class.

The change was spurred by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which emphasized the requirement for challenging academic content standards that apply to every public school student.

As an early adopter, starting in its two middle schools, Noblesville continues to perform above the state average in inclusion, which measures the percentage of students in general education classes.

So far, teachers say Noblesville's students have risen to the challenge, which one administrator thinks could help reverse the country's chronically low employment rates for people with disabilities.

"Students view themselves differently," said Amanda Thorner, a special education teacher at Noble Crossing Elementary. "They see themselves as learners."

Teachers said the change initially was overwhelming.

When Zella Hendrickson started in special education around 20 years ago, she said "mainstreaming" special education students meant allowing them to eat lunch or go to recess with the rest of their peers.

Best practices shifted over the years, as well as school culture, accelerating in the past decade with the rising popularity of programs like Best Buddies, which pairs students with and without disabilities, and Unified Sports, in which teams are made up of students with and without disabilities.

Now Booth said about 85 percent of Noblesville's 1,852 special education students are in general education classes full time - for 80 percent or more of their day.

Before, Hendrickson said her students at Noblesville West Middle School were in one or two regular classes, still spending the majority of their day working with her in a special education classroom.

Teachers said special education largely worked like this: A teacher would find out what level the student was at, often well below grade level, then they would work on learning the basics that are vital to life, such as addition, multiplication, money, time and how to recognize patterns.

They would keep working on it over and over until the student understood, which often resulted in them working on the same skill for years.

The new standards are a modified version of the expectations for all students and meant to measure the knowledge and skills of students with significant cognitive disabilities.

"I remember thinking, 'Well, she can't pattern. How can we do this?'" said Angie Durbin, a special education teacher at Noblesville East Middle School.

The key is finding workarounds, which takes a lot of collaboration, teachers said. For example, if a student struggles with memorizing multiplication, the student is taught how to use a calculator or how to draw an equation on paper to get an answer.

In middle school, special education students spend around five out of seven classes in regular rooms, accompanied by a special education teacher or instructional assistant.

Students with cognitive disabilities may not understand the concepts as fully as their peers, but by having the opportunity, teachers say, the students are grasping far more than they ever thought possible.

"Once you give them that expectation and you expose them and you modify it to their level, I'm amazed at the things they can do," Durbin said.

If things hadn't changed, Durbin said she and her student would probably have been stuck on patterning until graduation. Now they have just finished an algebra lesson.

"You may have a kid who can pass that algebra test but may not be able to read that time on that clock," Booth said.

The difference is, now they have a chance to try.

Students are still sometimes pulled out from the classroom to work on those basic skills they may be missing. Middle school teachers said they have seen success scheduling the small, remediation groups right after the regular class, so the information is still fresh in their minds.

The number of general education classes each student is in also varies based on individual needs and behaviors - decisions that are made with the student's parent and put in to an "individualized education program."

Booth said all of the district's middle school special education students who were introduced into more general education classes passed the alternative state standardized exam, ISTAR.

The district now plans to expand the model to elementary and high schools.

Booth, who is also the president of Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education, believes the new standards will add value to the state's certificate of completion in the eyes of employers. Now the piece of paper comes with the promise that students not only showed up to school but acquired certain skills.

In 2018, the national employment rate for people with disabilities was 19.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Booth said Noblesville Schools has a job placement rate of around 35 percent among students with cognitive disabilities who participate in its work-study program - a number he hopes to increase. The district partners with Riverview Health Hospital and other businesses.

"Now there's actually some teeth in the fact that when I hand that certificate of completion to an employer it says I can do these things, I've done these things, I've passed these courses," he said.

Other students benefit, too, teachers agree. Fourth grade teacher Gina Mertens said she has only heard positive feedback from parents at Noble Crossing Elementary after she began co-teaching six years ago.

"When you group kids of different abilities, different backgrounds, you've got a melting pot right there that you learn to accept others for who they are," Hendrickson said.

The district has gone beyond "mainstreaming" students, teachers agree. They also have gone beyond "inclusion" models, they say. The word they use to describe their special education: unified.

"When I first started teaching, special (education) was always the last room at the end of the hallway," Hendrickson said. "I'm not. I'm in the middle."

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Source: The Indianapolis Star

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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com