Every Child Can Fly: Building Inclusive Classrooms from the Start ~ 1005

Tim Villegas
To Jani Kozlowski, inclusion is personal.

Jani Kozlowski
I was born with a rare orthopedic impairment that affects my joints and my spine. I’m kind of a bionic woman from the waist down—I have total joint replacements in my hips, knees, and ankles. I was included throughout school. There were times during my childhood when I was pulled out for surgeries, and I was homeschooled for part of my senior year of high school. But I experienced inclusion firsthand as a preschool-aged child and all the way through.

Tim Villegas
And not only did she experience the benefits of inclusion—the benefits are backed by research.

Jani Kozlowski
We have a large body of research that supports inclusion in early childhood, both for children with disabilities and without disabilities. Children with disabilities tend to make positive gains across all areas of development. They have higher-level social skills, improved peer relationships, and they can make gains in language and literacy. Those benefits are found in children regardless of the nature, type, or severity of disability.

Tim Villegas
But it’s not just about the benefits for learners with their academic or social development.

Jani Kozlowski
I believe inclusion itself is healing. When you create inclusive learning environments, you’re creating a culture of kindness, caring, and belonging. Everyone in that space deserves kindness, caring, and that feeling of belonging.

Tim Villegas
My name is Tim Villegas, and you are listening to Think Inclusive presented by MCIE. This podcast exists 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.

Tim Villegas
For this episode, I talked with Jani Kozlowski, author of the book Every Child Can Fly: An Early Childhood Educator’s Guide to Inclusion. We discuss why inclusion matters in early childhood education programs and how we can prepare educators to create inclusive learning environments for all learners. Thank you so much for listening. And now, my interview with Jani Kozlowski.

Tim Villegas
Today on the podcast, we’d like to welcome Jani Kozlowski, who is a Technical Assistance Specialist for the Early Childhood TA Center at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tim Villegas
She provides TA around topics such as early childhood inclusion, professional development, and collaborative partnerships. Previously, Jani served as the inclusion lead for the Office of Head Start National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning. Jani is the author of the book Every Child Can Fly: An Early Childhood Educator’s Guide to Inclusion. Jani, welcome to the podcast.

Jani Kozlowski
Thanks, Vegas. Nice to see you here. I learned your nickname was “Vegas” in college in your last blog post.

Tim Villegas
You’re right. It was one of those nicknames that just stuck.

Jani Kozlowski
Thank you so much for this opportunity, Tim. I really appreciate it. It’s all one system—the pre‑kindergarten programs that school districts run are really the start of inclusion for young children with disabilities. It’s pretty cool to have this opportunity to reach them and to think about how we might partner between early childhood and K–12 as a country going forward.

Tim Villegas
So tell us a little bit about your early life and how it prepared you for the work that you do now.

Jani Kozlowski
The book is really personal. I include a lot of stories in it, including the fact that I was a child with a disability. I was born with a rare orthopedic impairment that affects my joints and my spine. I’m kind of a bionic woman from the waist down—I have total joint replacements in my hips, knees, and ankles. I didn’t know you could get joint replacements in your ankles, but I’m here to tell you that you can. It’s a condition that was passed down to me by my father. It’s a form of dwarfism, so I’m a very petite lady.

As a child, I watched my father navigate the world as a person with a physical disability. My dad emigrated to the United States from Argentina before I was born. He went to medical school; he was a practicing psychiatrist. His life wasn’t perfect, but he accomplished a lot as a little person. That was my first impression of what it is to navigate this world. I was included throughout school—that was not a question at all. There were times through my childhood when I was pulled out for surgeries; I was homeschooled for part of my senior year of high school.

But I experienced inclusion firsthand as a preschool-aged child and all the way on. I tell some stories about those experiences in the book. I’m also the parent of a child with a disability. My son, Ricky, has been the greatest teacher of all. He has ADHD and a sensory integration disorder, but he’s completely triumphed in spite of all that. He’s 23 now, has a really rewarding career, and is just the most amazing human being in the world.

There were attempts to segregate him—even in kindergarten there were attempts to put him in a class with only children with autism. I knew that Ricky learned differently from other children, but he was never disruptive. I remember asking the teacher, “What’s going on? Why do you think he needs a separate class?” She said, “For example, when all the other kids are in circle time, Ricky is underneath my desk looking at the hardware”—which, by the way, is still an interest of his. He fixes complicated diesel engines and works on forklifts and giant construction equipment.

We were able to figure out ways around it. Growing up, I always wanted to be treated just like everyone else, and I wanted that for my son as well. Those early experiences led me to this work.

Tim Villegas
I was messaging with someone last night—it was a family member. Their child is in kindergarten. They got a draft of their IEP, and it talked about special education locations. They asked me: “What do I do here? I know they want to remove my child from general education for some academics, but I don’t want that. What do I do?”

Jani Kozlowski
We need to help parents understand their rights and the fact that they are entitled to a continuum of placement—the various settings along the way—and that the law says we first have to start with the least restrictive environment, which is where the child would be if they didn’t have a disability, and identify what supports are necessary to accommodate the child there.

Once families know about their rights under the law and the fact that they are entitled to that continuum of placement, it’s up to the school to make that happen. It’s up to the IEP team to make that decision, and the family is part of that IEP team. Their voice should matter.

Tim Villegas
You tell the story of this baby bird—and I’m assuming that’s the reason why you called the book what you did. If you could share that story with our listeners, I would love that.

Jani Kozlowski
I wrote the book like a love letter for early childhood educators because that’s how I started in the field. I actually started out as a nanny—I was “Jani the nanny” (helpful for how to pronounce my name). Then I was a preschool teacher in an inclusive classroom with very spirited four‑year‑olds. I wanted to write a guide for how early childhood teachers could support each and every child in their program and build on the strengths that every child brings.

While I had been thinking about this, I was sitting out on my porch. My deck looks out onto a grassy area, so there’s a lot of bird life out there and it’s usually peaceful. But on one particular morning it was different. I was out there in my PJs, drinking coffee. It was as if the sky turned a little darker, like there was a shadow over the sun. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a giant hawk fly by. He had a huge wingspan and an intense look in his eye. He flew right by me, then down to a nearby tree and snatched a baby bird right out of the nest. It was so fast. The baby bird’s parents weren’t around—they must have been flying off getting food—and nothing could be done. The hawk grabbed this prize and curved back around with the baby in his claws.

But the baby was squirming—really squiggly and wiggly—and loud. He must have been too much trouble, because the hawk dropped the baby. Down he went, down to the grass. I sat there, kind of in shock. It was an area where I would have had to put on boots—and definitely not be in my PJs—to go rescue this baby. I didn’t even know if he was alive. Should I go get it? Then the baby started to cry, and even though I’m not an expert in birds, I could tell he was saying, “Help me. Come get me, Mama.”

Soon, the mama bird came around. She fluttered around him and called out to him. It was like she was saying, “How did you get yourself into this predicament? I can feed you and take care of you, but I can’t put you on my back and fly you back up to the nest.” She was very distressed, but eventually she flew away. The baby squawked and squawked, and I sat there not knowing what to do. Then the baby went silent and stayed silent for a long time.

And Tim, I did go back to drinking my coffee—I kind of forgot about it for a bit. I’m not a bad person, really! I was in my PJs, after all. Then I looked over and saw a jerking motion in the grass. Believe it or not, that baby bird flew. It was a pitiful kind of fly—very wobbly, not like an adult bird—but it was flight nonetheless. It wove around and flew out of my view. I thought, “Oh my God, that’s resilience right there.” The only thing that baby had known was sitting in a nest waiting for Mama to come with food. He had never flown and certainly didn’t know what a hawk was.

I told my early childhood teacher friends this story, and they immediately made the connection to children. As educators, we’re the ones down there on the ground, waiting to teach the baby birds when they leave the nest. The children who come to our classrooms arrive in different ways. Some leave the nest gently; others leave in a traumatic way. They arrive with different skills and abilities. Some come with mama bird by their side—she leaves them with a peck on the cheek—and they already know how to fly. Others seem only to know how to squawk and carry on.

We know all children can learn to fly. They might not fly in a straight path, and they might not fly the way other birds fly, but they can learn to fly in their own way with our love, care, and support. I start the book with that story because it shows what inclusion means to me and how, as early childhood educators, if we approach those baby birds in that way—figure out their strengths and how we can support them—every child has that potential.

Tim Villegas
I love the connection with the mama bird who wants to help but also gives the baby bird space to figure it out. There’s a lesson for me there.

Jani Kozlowski
I didn’t even think about that.

Tim Villegas
As a former special education teacher, it was easy for me to step in when I saw my students struggle and say, “Let me help you,” instead of stepping back and saying, “They can figure it out. They can do it.” That’s how I connected my story to that one.

Tim Villegas
One reason we wanted to have you on was connecting the worlds of early childhood and K–12. A lot of K–12 educators listen to this podcast. What’s something a K–12 educator may not know about early childhood education, specifically related to inclusive education?

Jani Kozlowski
I’m an inclusionist—I love that term you use—and it’s so cool to connect with other inclusionists across K–12 and early childhood. Inclusion in early childhood sets the trajectory. It puts children and families on a lifelong path to inclusion because they start off with a vision of what it could be like. In a lot of ways, it’s easier to include children in preschool: they’re smaller, they’re still learning social and emotional skills, and families have an opportunity to learn what school might bring.

When families experience a high‑quality inclusive setting right from the start—where the child is supported alongside peers—they get a vision of what school could look like and what life after school could look like. At the Inclusion Institute that FPG puts on, we reflected that we live in an inclusive world, and at 21 we expect young adults to thrive in it. So why keep children separate and segregated all this time and then expect them to make a big jump? Thank goodness there aren’t separate grocery stores or separate restaurants. In inclusive environments, children with disabilities can learn skills for navigating the inclusive world from the start, and their peers can learn too—what resilience looks like, what struggling and succeeding looks like, and accepting differences early on.

We have a large body of research supporting inclusion in early childhood for children with and without disabilities. Children with disabilities make positive gains across development—higher social skills, improved peer relationships, gains in language and literacy—and those benefits are found regardless of the nature or severity of disability. Inclusion in early childhood benefits children with the most significant disabilities, often the most. Research also shows that children without disabilities benefit: greater cognitive and language skills, higher levels of empathy, and awareness and respect for diverse abilities. We’re writing a paper on this: classrooms designed for each and every child tend to be higher quality in general. There are links between inclusion as a practice and measurements of quality in early childhood. All children benefit.

And, it’s the law. IDEA requires that, when making placement decisions, teams first consider where the child would be if they did not have a disability.

Tim Villegas
In K–12, the law makes a distinction about removals—specifically if a student is particularly disruptive to the learning of themselves or others. Is it the same for early childhood?

Jani Kozlowski
It’s different. Pre‑K isn’t universally in law like K–12. Many states have kindergarten within the public system, and we’re seeing universal pre‑K in some states, but not all. Birth‑to‑five services are in a mixed‑delivery system, so the rules about removal aren’t restricted in the same way.

What we see is that children with disabilities are suspended or expelled at a much greater rate, even in child care programs—mirroring dynamics in K–12. It used to occur in Head Start, too, but Head Start created a regulation that children can’t be suspended or expelled except with substantial, documented cause. We’re working hard to help states address disparities—both ability and racial disparities—around suspension and expulsion.

Tim Villegas
Can you imagine three-, four-, and five‑year‑olds being suspended? Kicking out a three‑year‑old? Giving up on a three‑year‑old?

Jani Kozlowski
We have a lot of work to do. I don’t blame educators; it’s about having the tools, competence, and confidence to know what to do, and a supportive team to figure out solutions together. I remember when I was a preschool teacher, and we had a child who was very disruptive. My co‑teacher said, “Can’t we put him in a therapeutic preschool?” I thought, “Aren’t we the therapeutic preschool?” That’s what we do. It shouldn’t be something different. If you’re a quality early childhood program, you’re a therapeutic place, and you figure it out.

Tim Villegas
That conversation resonates with a lot of listeners, because in K–12 it happens a lot: “Can’t they go somewhere else? They’re too disruptive. I can’t teach.” We need to build the capacity of the educators serving the students.

Jani Kozlowski
That’s why I wrote the book—so early childhood educators understand the system and how it relates to their lives, and to give them tools and strategies. There’s a huge glossary in the back—there’s so much jargon in this world—so it helps dispel confusion around terms. There’s a chapter on learning environments, a chapter on teaching practices, and a chapter on social‑emotional teaching practices, to offer strategies educators can use. Not all the strategies, but a good sampling.

Tim Villegas
How would you describe an inclusive learning environment?

Jani Kozlowski
Inclusive learning environments appreciate children’s strengths and interests, provide opportunities for growth and learning, and are places where any child can be successful if the right conditions are met.

We can design learning environments that consider the child’s perspective, with activities individualized for diverse learning styles. It comes down to the three defining features of inclusion: access, participation, and supports. It’s not just about getting in the door; it’s about designing environments that engage all learners with universal design principles and individualization, with strategies throughout the day for children to work toward IEP or IFSP goals. Learning takes place within relationships, with developmentally appropriate schedules, lesson plans, and experiences that staff and families use together to make accommodations that support all children.

An inclusive learning environment also has supports for educators. Research tells us educators typically value inclusion but are concerned they don’t have the skills or training. A common example is a child who uses a feeding tube. The educator may never have supported a child with tube feeding—but the parent also had to learn, and can teach the educator how to feed the child at lunch. When educators have supports—professional development, collaborative partnerships with families and colleagues, coaching, and access to needed resources—then educators can be successful. High‑quality inclusion isn’t possible without those supports.

Tim Villegas
How can we better prepare educators?

Jani Kozlowski
I listened to your podcast with an early childhood leader from Illinois. She learned about serving children in inclusive settings in college, then got to a district where it was all segregated. She thought, “This is not okay.” One thing she did was take teachers on field trips so they could see inclusion in action. We have so many great videos where you don’t even need a field trip.

I’m doing a session at NAEYC’s Professional Learning Institute called “Supporting Inclusion When Teachers Are Stressed to the Max,” because I believe inclusion itself is healing. When you create inclusive learning environments, you create a culture of kindness, caring, and belonging, and everyone deserves that.

At the ECTA Center where I work (the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center), we developed a set of Indicators of High‑Quality Inclusion—strategies at the state, local/community, program, and early care and education environment levels. It’s another lens to define high‑quality inclusion and a helpful tool for educators looking to strengthen practice.

Tim Villegas
We will include a link to that in our show notes. You mentioned videos—are those also available on the ECTA website as a resource, or are you talking about something else?

Jani Kozlowski
We do have some videos on the ECTA website. I’ve also compiled a collection of resources where states have compiled videos of practices. There’s a great collection out of California. Illinois has compiled many and has a set of free modules called “Understanding Inclusion” through the University of Illinois that focuses on early childhood, with lots of content and videos. I can look through my list and send you some of my favorite places.

Tim Villegas
Jani, have you always been pro‑inclusion, or were you pro‑inclusion but your thinking has evolved? Tell us a little about that.

Jani Kozlowski
My value for inclusion has always been there, but I’ve learned so much about the challenges and opportunities over time. I used to think the barriers to inclusion were about funding or legal constraints. I’ve learned it’s ultimately not about those things. We have laws supporting inclusion, and when you break down costs, funding isn’t the barrier many think it is. It’s actually cheaper to pay for a staff of itinerant special educators who travel from site to site and coach early childhood educators than to pay for a separate brick‑and‑mortar school and buses to transport children for services. We have a cost analysis tool that helps districts see it’s cheaper.

Ultimately, barriers come down to attitudes and beliefs. Research shows the notion of how children with disabilities should be served often reflects “how we’ve always done things.” For example, a district may have an “autism class,” and all children with autism go there because that’s the norm, not because it costs less or is best for the child. We know inclusion is best for the child. My thinking has evolved in that way.

Tim Villegas
If you were advising special education directors on connecting early childhood and K–12, what should they prioritize if they want their district to be more inclusive?

Jani Kozlowski
I’ve thought about this more as I’ve gotten to know you and Think Inclusive materials. We do have siloed systems, but early childhood folks within a district have a lot of wisdom to bring. Piaget said play is the work of childhood. Some people think pre‑K is “just play,” but young children learn through play—and I’d argue older children, teenagers, and adults learn best through play as well. Think about the middle‑school science experiments you loved—the engaging ones felt like play. There’s a lot these systems can learn from each other based on those deep values held by early childhood colleagues.

There are indicators in the State Performance Plans and the Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) that states submit to OSEP. Indicator 6 measures least restrictive environments in preschool—“preschool environments.” It looks at the percentage of children ages 3–5 who spend at least 10 hours a week in inclusive settings. We look at the percentage of children who receive services in regular early childhood programs (like child care or Head Start) and receive their services there. Many programs have children in inclusive placements but then bus them back to school for services. That’s a waste of learning time and money—the cost to run the bus and pay the driver.

There’s interest in showing all the good things districts do for children and families, and Indicator 6 is part of that. Connecting with early childhood experts in your area to learn together and strategize can increase the number of preschoolers served alongside peers in least restrictive environments.

Tim Villegas
Jani, it’s been fantastic to have you on the podcast. Could you let everyone know where they can find you, your book, and any other resources?

Jani Kozlowski
My book is called Every Child Can Fly: An Early Childhood Educator’s Guide to Inclusion. It’s available where books are sold—if you search on Amazon, I’ll pop up there (free shipping if you’re Prime). I’m on LinkedIn. I’m also on the UNC website with a staff page. Google me and you’ll find plenty of connections.

Tim Villegas
Well, Jani, it was fantastic to have you. Thank you for being on.

Jani Kozlowski
It has been my pleasure. I love talking with you and appreciate this opportunity to connect with your audience.

Tim Villegas
Think Inclusive is written, edited, and sound‑designed by Tim Villegas, and is a production of MCIE. Original music by Miles Kredich.

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