The educators in District 109 are committed to including students with disabilities in general education. The district, located in Deerfield, IL, and serving students across four elementary schools and two middle schools, has been working to build the capacity to co-plan specially designed instruction (SDI) effectively.
For several years, MCIE’s Brittni Sammons, professional learning lead coordinator, and Carol Quirk, director of special projects, have delivered intensive professional learning to District 109 general and special educators.
The most recent professional learning deepened staff’s understanding that SDI is not only about adapting materials. It involved determining which instruction needs to be intensified or supplemented so that students can access grade-level standards and meaningfully participate alongside their peers. Staff also made connections that adaptations to materials and instruction are based on how the disability impacts a child’s learning. These lessons resulted in some profound changes to the district’s planning practices.
Rethinking planning practices
District 109 identified evidence-based instructional practices in general education as the starting point for determining how to intensify or supplement instruction for students with disabilities. As part of the planning process, they also had intentional conversations about how to leverage students’ strengths, interests, and passions.
District Accomplishments
Professional learning produced tangible outcomes. Among the district’s key accomplishments:
- Ensured general and special educators learned together.
- Established a safe space for educators to be vulnerable and take risks with new learning.
- Provided co-planning time with predetermined units/lessons to maximize staff time through guided feedback and co-planning prompts.
- Provided professional learning focused on
- research-informed and evidence-based general education
- legal definition of SDI and its relationship to general education
- distinguishing between special education terms, especially adaptation and modification
- developing and utilizing an understanding of how a child’s learning is impacted by their disability to make instructional moves