Perfectly Imperfect Advocacy: How to Make Inclusion Work in Schools with Ashley Barlow ~ 1012

Tim Villegas
It’s 2023. I don’t know about you, but my year has got off to a bit of a rough start. I got COVID last week when I was supposed to be catching up on all the work I didn’t do over the break. And our family got a new puppy. Say hi, Jupiter. Sleeping at night has been a challenge. But otherwise, I can’t complain. We’ve got a great episode for you today, an interview with a slight twist.

My name is Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, and you are listening to Think Inclusive, a show where with every conversation we try to build bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. You can learn more about who we are and what we do at MCIE.org.

For this episode, I speak with Ashley Barlow, a special education attorney, advocate, and host of the podcast Special Education Advocacy with Ashley Barlow. In a former life, she was a German teacher in Jefferson County Public Schools and Cincinnati Public Schools, having taught nearly every grade from K to 12. Ashley practices statewide in Kentucky and also operates a business to empower and inspire parents and advocates in special education, which can be found at AshleyBarlowCo.com. She’s also the Director of Education at the National Down Syndrome Congress.

We did something a little different for this episode. Ashley and I interviewed each other and are posting the same interview on each of our respective podcasts. Cool, right? We talked about a number of things related to inclusive education, including what does inclusive education really mean, as well as using Dear Colleague letters as a strategy in IEP meetings. Thank you so much for listening. And now, my interview with Ashley Barlow.

All right, Ashley Barlow. Welcome to the Think Inclusive podcast.

Ashley Barlow
Thank you, Tim. And welcome to you to the Special Education Advocacy with Ashley Barlow podcast.

Tim Villegas
I love this already.

Ashley Barlow
It’s fun. See, everything—you can do anything differently. That’s what I like about this.

Tim Villegas
Right, right. Okay, so just to not confuse anyone: Ashley and I have decided we are going to interview each other for each other’s podcasts at the same time. So this is like a very special episode of Think Inclusive and the Ashley Barlow podcast.

Ashley Barlow
Yes. And what I like about this is I always confuse people when I suggest it because my podcasts are more like conversations than interviews, I think. And so when I say, “Let’s have a conversation and publish it on both of our platforms,” people are always like, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m a little nervous.” I like it. I like switching it up a little.

Tim Villegas
Yeah, this is fun. This is fun. All right. So the listeners to Think Inclusive may not know who Ashley Barlow is. So, Ashley, would you tell us a little bit about you and your podcast?

Ashley Barlow
Sure. Let’s do it. So hi, my name is Ashley Barlow. I am a special education attorney. I practice in the Greater Cincinnati area. I am currently licensed in Kentucky and Ohio. New news: I will probably let my Ohio license go into escrow or go inactive, whatever they call that.

I am also a parent in the disability community. I have a little boy named Jack who has Down syndrome. I am a self-advocate myself—I broke my back when I was 15 years old and I have a physical disability. I used to be a teacher, and I taught German before I went to law school. Then I opened a business called Ashley Barlow Company. What we do is provide much more reasonably priced resources to parents in special education. I really advocate through the lens of special education law, the federal law, the state regulations, guidance documents, that sort of thing.

I have found through my practice that having a more collaborative approach and really focusing on the IEP team has been quite successful. After thinking about this for many years, I decided to open Ashley Barlow Company in 2020. We have two digital courses: one geared more toward parents, and one geared more toward people who desire to become advocates or grow their advocacy process or business.

Finally, I am the Director of Education at the National Down Syndrome Congress as well. I just took that full-time job in October 2022. So it’s a new job, and I’m scaling back my law firm and going full time with NDSC.

Tim Villegas
That’s fantastic. And you have a beautiful family that you’re very, very busy with?

Ashley Barlow
Oh, yes. I have a very full family life as well. My son Jack is 12. He’s super involved in all sorts of activities, and just trying to keep him engaged is a full-time job—particularly since we’re recording this over his Christmas break. That is quite a challenge.

And then my eldest son, Griffin, is a swimmer. So I’m driving him all over town for swimming. And my husband works in finance. Tim, why don’t we do the same thing? Why don’t you do an introduction for my audience as well?

Tim Villegas
Absolutely. Well, hello, everyone. My name is Tim Villegas. I am the Director of Communications for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, which is a nonprofit.

And I’m also the founder of Think Inclusive, which is MCIE’s official blog and podcast. I was a special education teacher for 16 years. I taught for four years in California and the rest in Georgia, which is where I live right now.

In 2012, I started a blog called Think Inclusive and a podcast. It was really to learn more about inclusion. I had been a self-contained special education teacher the whole time I had been a teacher and gone through various thoughts about inclusion. I started off as a skeptic—I didn’t really think it was the right thing to do. But once I saw it with my own eyes and in my own experience, and I started to learn more and really developed as an educator, I realized, yes, it is the right thing to do and is the best thing for all children: authentically and supported inclusive education.

Once I started to do that and write and contact people, I met a lot of people—self-advocates, people with disabilities—and interviewed them. The more and more committed I was to the concept of inclusion, the more I realized that a lot of people feel that way too. That’s how we got our audience. That’s how we got so many people wanting to know more.

In 2020, it actually became my full-time job because I contacted my boss, our CEO, Carol Quirk, who’s been with MCIE since the late ’80s, early ’90s. They’ve been doing this work of partnering with school districts. She said, “Hey, we have a position open for a communications person. Why don’t you just come on board and bring everything with you? You can do this work alongside us.”

That is how I get to do this full time and talk to great people like Ashley. It’s such a change. I’m going through that change right now. It’s crazy. It’s like the thing that you did for fun—and it was advocacy, but it was fun—is now the thing that I’m doing. I’m still having to pinch myself after almost three years.

Ashley Barlow
Yeah, for sure. So should we dive in?

Tim Villegas
Sure. Let’s do it. Is it my turn to ask a question?

Ashley Barlow
This is the way we’re doing this, friend: we both have questions we’ve written up, and we’re gonna see where the conversation takes us. But for right now, our plan is to alternate. If you listen to my podcast regularly, you know that the agenda oftentimes goes out the window, and we just start talking. So sure, let’s go. Tim, hit me with the first question.

Tim Villegas
Okay, so how I got introduced to your podcast actually was—I don’t remember exactly—but I do remember going through and looking at episodes. I think I just happened to click on the one where you talked about Dear Colleague letters. That was so interesting to me because while I am familiar with Dear Colleague letters, I couldn’t tell you, “Oh, these are the ones that you should read or use in your advocacy.” But you had a plan. You had, like, if you want to bring this Dear Colleague letter to an IEP meeting, this is how you could use it. I thought it was so clear and a way for a family to reference your information. It was very useful.

So I’m wondering, could you explain what is a Dear Colleague letter? And how can families or educators use them in IEP meetings with regard to inclusion?

Ashley Barlow
Yes, and I’m happy that you found that episode helpful. Sometimes, as you do too, I’m certain, when you are developing material—whether you’re speaking at a conference or it’s a PDF download that I’m developing for Ashley Barlow Company—I’m always like, is this what people want? Is this too micro-level? Is it too 101-level? Is it too nerdy? You’re kind of always thinking, what is it?

That episode in particular was pretty micro-level, right? So the feedback is good.

Dear Colleague letters are—and let’s also throw in policy documents—things that the U.S. Department of Education and/or State Department of Ed will publish in order to tease out the law.

Ashley Barlow
So, Dear Colleague letters and policy documents are things that the U.S. Department of Education and/or State Department of Ed will publish to explain the law.

Let’s go back to high school government for a second. There are three branches of government, and then there’s this weird pseudo fourth branch. You have the legislative branch—they make the laws. Then you’ve got the judicial branch—the courts interpret those laws, and we get case law from that. Then we have the executive branch—the President, governors, mayors. They can make rules and executive orders.

The executive branch can make cabinets, so we get administrative agencies like the Department of Education. If legislators make the laws, then the Department of Ed makes regulations. Regulations break down the law, but they’re still broad. So what helps us understand the regulations? Policy documents and Dear Colleague letters.

Policy documents are usually 30-40 pages where the Department of Ed says, “This is how we interpret X.” For example, “This is inclusion according to Georgia Department of Ed,” or “This is dyslexia intervention according to Alabama Department of Ed.”

Dear Colleague letters are letters that take questions from individuals and answer them according to policy documents, regulations, and the law. It might be someone who’s found a loophole or noticed a pattern of something happening repeatedly. They’ll ask, “What do you do about this?” The Department of Ed responds with guidance.

Specifically for inclusion, there are Dear Colleague letters that deal with things like:

• A student’s right to supplementary aids and services.
• How a child’s educational placement is not to be determined by disability category, severity, or configuration of the service delivery system (Letter to Margolis, 6/26/2003).
• That the individual needs of the student must be considered in placement decisions.
• How inclusive placement decisions are to be made by the entire IEP team (Letter to Basso, 8/23/2010).
• Guidance on the “home school” requirement.
• Modifications to general education—students can’t be excluded from gen ed solely because they need modifications.

They’re a wealth of information.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. Well, and you have some sort of training or package for people to learn more, right?

Ashley Barlow
I do. I have a product called the Inclusion Workshop. It’s about an hour and a half of video content and a 25-page workbook. We focus on the law, then the regulations, then guidance documents. I also give an example of a case because I like for people to see what happens with real students in real life.

Then I share practical strategies to advocate for inclusion—like focusing on the schedule: what classes are available, what the day looks like in gen ed, and how to push in services without taking away meaningful time. I also include criteria from case law that should be considered when determining placement.

Ashley Barlow
I’m very proud of the Inclusion Workshop. That and my Negotiation Strategies course are the two I’m most proud of because I advocate from within the framework of the law, and that’s important.

Tim, I was super interested in the good work that you all do there and in diving into the discussion about the definition of inclusion. Anybody who puts themselves out there as an inclusion expert or someone curious about inclusion eventually gets asked: What is inclusion?

So my first question is: maybe you could talk about the mentality that inclusion doesn’t necessarily have a single definition and can be interpreted so many different ways by so many people.

Tim Villegas
Yeah, I can speak to that. Inclusion is a big word—like freedom or justice. They’re hard to define in a way that’s useful. How I define inclusion is really how I define inclusive education.

At MCIE, when I say “inclusion always works,” I mean that when inclusive education is supported and authentic, it always works. If it doesn’t work—as people like to say, “It didn’t work for this kid”—it’s because it wasn’t supported and authentic.

We describe inclusive education with four things, based on the work of Michael McSheehan and Cheryl Jorgensen in their Beyond Access model:

• Placement – You can’t be included without being there.
• Membership – Are you part of the community? Are you missed if you’re gone?
• Participation – What is the learner doing in class? Are they doing the same types of activities as everyone else?
• Learning – Are they learning grade-level standards or accessing them in meaningful ways?

If those four things aren’t happening, we can’t call it inclusion.

Ashley Barlow
I love that. In DEIB discussions, we’d call that belonging. Something I’ve grown with as a parent is realizing that belonging has to be student-centered. For example, my son Jack might only actively engage for 12 minutes at a two-hour birthday party, but he’ll talk about those 12 minutes like they were the best thing ever. That’s success for him.

We have to separate our own expectations and focus on what the student feels.

Tim Villegas
Exactly. And as educators, we can’t assume—we need to ask. That’s true for all learners, but especially for learners with disabilities.

Tim Villegas
The big thing we do at MCIE is systems change work. We partner with school districts that want to be more inclusive of all learners. It’s a multi-year, phased-in approach. We’ve done this in Maryland for years, funded by state grants and the Maryland Department of Education.

Over the last 5–10 years, we’ve worked with other states. This year, we’re in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Virginia, with more coming on board. It’s all about equipping school leaders to champion this work because inclusive education doesn’t happen with one PD workshop. It needs top-down implementation.

Our work is based on implementation science—the actual science of how to change systems. It’s amazing that not everyone is doing this. But you can change systems if you do it a certain way. We’ve been doing that work for so long, and it’s my job to tell people: you can do it, and it can be sustainable.

Ashley Barlow
That ties back to what we were saying about placement. There’s always room for improvement. Even those of us who are purists about inclusion know there are better strategies and mindsets we can adopt.

We have to put systems in place to get things started, then continue to change them. There are ways to change systems, and there are wonderful organizations and experts across the country—MCIE being a leader—where we can really affect change.

That leads to my next question: when you see inclusion done right, what does it look like?

Tim Villegas
That’s a hard question, but I’ll share an example. I visited Cecil County Public Schools in Maryland, a district MCIE worked with in the early 2000s on systems change. They’re one of the most inclusive districts in the U.S.

They have high LRE percentages—close to 90%. Leadership is committed to inclusion and belonging for all learners. They don’t have disability-specific programs. Every learner is in general education first. Services are delivered at the home school. Students ride the same buses—no special ed buses.

I saw learners with complex communication needs, intellectual disabilities, autism—all included. It was amazing.

We’re producing a podcast series called Inclusion Stories to highlight families pursuing authentic inclusion and districts doing this work. The pilot episode will feature a family in Georgia and clips from Cecil County.

Ashley Barlow
I can’t wait to see it. You just gave a great list of what to look for when moving or evaluating a district. That’s hopeful.

I’ve changed my thinking about inclusion completely—from “absolutely not” to “absolutely yes.” But I understand why some people are intimidated. It’s intimidating for me sometimes as a parent. But most days, I wake up ready to advocate.

Tim Villegas
That’s real. We have to be honest that it’s hard. I’d rather have a school moving toward inclusive practices—even if it’s not perfect—than one that isn’t.

Ashley Barlow
Perfectly imperfect—that’s our brand.

Tim Villegas
Exactly. We have to be okay with that. We’re either moving toward authentic inclusive education or not.

Ashley Barlow
And a huge piece of inclusion is modifying and accommodating the general education curriculum. That’s a constantly changing challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to learn and grow as educators.

Tim Villegas
We’ve answered all the world’s questions, Ashley.

Ashley Barlow
Pretty much! But there’s always more to say.

Tim Villegas
If you’re a Think Inclusive listener, check out Ashley’s podcast. You’ll find so much value there.

Ashley Barlow
And follow MCIE and Think Inclusive. These conversations are far from over.

Tim Villegas
Absolutely. Ashley Barlow, thanks for being on the Think Inclusive podcast.

Ashley Barlow
Thank you, Tim. This has been an honor.