Where Everyone Belongs
By Julie Fabrocini

When National Public Radio visited CHIME Charter Elementary School to do a story on inclusion, we marveled at the reporter's frustration as she tried to get first graders to identify each other by their differences. She tried desperately for a sound byte from students using words related to ability, but the students responded: “She's the one with glasses,” “He's the one with red hair,” or “She likes Sponge Bob.” In essence, the kids have become so acclimated to each other that it's their similarities that define their relationships.

In celebrating diversity, the students' real life experiences make the difference. I watched a third grader ask a question of his friend who uses a voice output device to speak. Jose realized when he asked Oliver a question that the device was over on Oli's desk. He didn't bat an eye—but simply walked over, retrieved Oli's “voice”, and put it near him. Off went the conversation. Jose wanted to know what his friend had to say.

On occasion, visitors to our school seem interested in identifying students who have disabilities. This can be difficult. Twenty percent of our students have disabilities ranging from mild to multiple to severe. Most of our students are typically developing, and some are identified as gifted and talented. These demographics are not where CHIME stands apart – many public schools are varied in this way. For CHIME, this diversity in ability acts as the foundation of our philosophy. Our faculty was attracted to this model four years ago because of the commitment to high quality education for all students.

How many educators have thought, “There has got to be a better way.” One of the killers for teaching professionals is the torment of waiting for systems to change. When I walk through the classrooms at our school, the commitment, community, and quality pervade the air. It's the charter process that has made this possible.

We don't question who belongs. We only debate how to support belonging. We have worked to remove the “mystery” surrounding disabilities. Children naturally do this much more readily than adults.

At the CHIME Charter Elementary School , 190 students are educated in collaboration with faculty and their families. CHIME stands for Community Honoring Inclusive Model Education. In many ways, the school looks traditional until you visit the classrooms. You will find a team of educators, related service providers, paraprofessionals, and families who are committed to the education of all children. You'll also find an amazing group of students who teach us everyday about diversity in ethnicity, language, culture, socioeconomics, and ability.

CHIME has taken the layers that have been generated throughout special and general education, and has combined them for cohesive instruction that meets the unique needs of all students. The effects of pullout instruction have long been discussed in education. We do what we do not only because it is the right thing in accordance with IDEA, but also because it is the best practice.

Practices Specific to CHIME

Co-teaching. In a co-teaching model, special and general education teachers are partners in planning, teaching, and assessment. All children have two teachers, just as all faculty members have a responsibility to every student. This team brings a variety of strengths to the classroom and addresses curricular adaptations. While no one has all the answers, we remain available to each other. Together we are better. High quality instruction is based on scheduled planning, embedded at the beginning of each day. Teachers meet to share plans in advance of teaching to address curricular extension and modifications. It's never a surprise that those adaptations lend themselves to all students.

Related Services. By embedding supports in general education classrooms, related service staff provide targeted support for students with disabilities, which benefits all students. Picture a language and speech pathologist in a heterogeneous reading group, providing therapy in strengthening oral motor skills. What if that same therapist worked on social and pragmatic language during natural turn-taking events like a conversation over lunch or during a handball game? The results are targeted, less artificial, and provided with role models who themselves learn during these processes. These experts train our teachers how to provide customized therapeutic support throughout the school day. Again, the adults keep learning.

Paraprofessionals. In segregated settings, we too often see that a hovering one-to-one assistant can isolate students from their peers and inadvertently foster a classroom within a classroom. When students are supported daily by different adults, we remove the perception that a peer is so disabled that he needs the same adult at all times. These valuable partners become a component of the team as a whole, and all children see them as a source for help with learning.

Family Partnerships. We look to families to provide leadership as the experts on their children. Families provide love and are the keepers of hopes and dreams. They look to us to provide leadership in instruction, to assess individual student's learning needs, and to develop students' long- term educational careers. CHIME families not only trust us with their children's education, but they also help us make it happen.

Schools Attuned Methodologies. In partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning at California State University at Northridge (CSUN), and All Kinds of Minds, developed by world-renowned learning expert Dr. Mel Levine, CHIME teachers have been trained in the Schools Attuned program. Schools Attuned helps struggling students measurably improve their performance by providing training for teachers that integrates our understanding of variation in learning with a model for promoting student success.

Special education models are not changed overnight. As educational leaders, we need to begin this process with a commitment to all students. We look to our charter colleagues and to models that are equitable for everyone. This discussion about whether children belong in our school communities has gone on long enough. If we are calling ourselves the best available in public education, then we need to be this for all kids, not just a select group.

Administration is critical, and as school leaders, it is up to us to set the tone about who belongs in our schools.

Walk through your school; look at the supports in place for all children. Ask yourself: Is special education a place or a service? Isn't every child's education supposed to be special? What happens when we educate students separately from peers with whom they are expected to share the community as adults? Do we as educators acknowledge through practice that our population represents diversity in ability?

Often I am asked, “What about disturbances to the classroom from children with behavioral challenges?” I inquire, “Whose learning is expendable: the kids in the special day class where we send those students?” It makes much more sense to simply address behavioral needs in natural environments by identifying what a student's behavior is communicating. Solve the problem where it's happening. Develop a plan to teach more effective ways for students to communicate. Ask: Are we fulfilling our obligation as teachers to be on top of a lesson design that is meaningful and motivating? Ask again: Are curricular adaptations implemented consistently to provide accessibility to content and to state tests and other assessments?

As our school changes, we better our practice everyday. Our students thrive in academics, in developing social consciousness, and in understanding diversity. In 2003, again in collaboration with CSUN and LAUSD, the CHIME Middle School opened. In 2004, CHIME Charter Elementary School made one of the largest test score gains in all of Los Angeles . The message that all children belong and cannot learn what they need to learn from each other unless they are together is a powerful one. We communicate the importance of understanding diversity to children when we as adults work together to see that everyone belongs and gets what they need to learn.

Julie Fabrocini has been a special and general education teacher in a variety of instructional settings in elementary and secondary schools. She is currently the principal of the CHIME Charter Elementary School as well as a part-time faculty member in teacher preparation programs in the College of Education at California State University Northridge. Visit Chime Charter at www.chimeinstitute.org

Note from the Author:

The development of CHIME (Community Honoring Inclusive Model Education), in many ways, reflects California 's charter movement. We knew we could make a difference, given the removal of large bureaucratic constraints. A CHIME teacher, who taught for nineteen years with our local district, put it well when she left, saying: “How could I not come along? This school is my dream.

For fifteen years the nonprofit CHIME Institute has run an inclusive preschool program in collaboration with the Eisner College of Education at California State University Northridge. This program was the genesis for a strong movement of families of children of all abilities who knew the benefits of an inclusive education. These families tenaciously pursued a partnership with CSUN College of Education faculty until parents and faculty members were together developing CHIME's charter. During this process, representatives from our authorizing agency, Los Angeles Unified School District , joined us for the charter development.