School Story
Principal Martinez:
Feeling Isolated
Principal Martinez is in her fifth year serving as the principal of a large-sized high school. Over time, she begins to notice a growing disconnect between general and special educators, which impacts the supports provided to students with disabilities.
Despite their best efforts, teachers struggle to find time in their busy schedules to plan together, which hinders effective collaboration and co-teaching. Principal Martinez understands that without dedicated collaboration time and structured feedback opportunities, the school cannot achieve its goals for creating an inclusive learning environment where all students with disabilities receive the services they need.
She feels that she must lead by example and start building trusting and positive relationships among her staff, bridging silos to ensure that general and special educators work together without creating additional burdens on their already heavy workloads.
Unlock Strategies
Principal Actions
Dedicated to enhancing collaboration, Principal Martinez starts implementing several immediate and targeted supports. She starts by uniting her staff around a shared vision for inclusion, highlighting the value of diverse learners and the importance of every student’s success. She conducts surveys to gauge educators’ perceptions of collaboration opportunities and proactively reviews existing structures in the school, including the master schedule.
Staying informed about various collaboration methods, she ensures that general and special educators have protected time during their workday for planning and co-teaching. She continuously promotes collaborative efforts across the school, involving staff in developing communities of practice, engaging in peer-to-peer discussions, and encouraging them to participate in nonevaluative peer-to-peer classroom observations. She also provides both structured and unstructured opportunities for educator feedback and monitors student and teacher data to ensure effectiveness.
In addition, Principal Martinez establishes a Special Education Task Force, including administrators, special educators, general educators, support staff, and students with disabilities and their families. The task force regularly reviews compliance indicators and identifies areas for improvement. Its mission is to streamline IDEA-related tasks, support IEP development and implementation, and address compliance challenges without overwhelming the special education team. Led by the principal or the assistant principal, the task force focuses on understanding and strengthening the implementation of IDEA across the building, serving as a liaison between the district’s special education leadership team and school-based IEP teams.
Principal Martinez is creating learning opportunities to build knowledge and competencies in effective inclusive strategies for task force members, ensuring that all general and special educators are well versed in evidence-based and high-leverage practices for supporting students with disabilities. Through these efforts, Principal Martinez successfully bridges gaps between general and special educators, promoting shared ownership and collaboration to ensure that students with disabilities learn and thrive.
Unlock Strategies
Toolkit
Promoting Shared Ownership and Collaboration
Explore strategies that research and best practices highlight along with short, medium, and long-term solutions, as essential for enhancing shared ownership and accountability for the progress of students with disabilities. .