Leading Beyond Compliance: Integrated Comprehensive Services for all Learners

Leading Beyond Compliance:

Integrated Comprehensive Services© for All Learners

by Elise M. Frattura and Colleen A. Capper

The purpose of this article is to assist school-based educational leaders to move beyond the limitations of educational compliance to the development of high quality integrated comprehensive services for all learners. All students, especially those learners who have been labeled to receive services from federally mandated programs, such as special education, English as a second language (ESL), at-risk, or Title I must be afforded integrated comprehensive services that come to them, rather than having to go to separate and often segregated programs to get their individual academic and emotional needs met. Currently, school leaders do not have a process available to them that can assist them in merging what they know about meeting the needs of individual learners and what they know about system change and best practice. To address this gap, the authors have provided examples to demonstrate how to infuse integrated comprehensive services into the primary components of a school educational plan.

The number of students who qualify for federally mandated services is growing in urban, rural, and suburban districts across our country. Often students eligible for such services are those of high poverty, minority status, and/or high transient. Unfortunately, these students often spend the largest part of their day leaving their classroom to receive special instruction, which results in a disconnected and fragmented day. Moreover, special programs have failed to result in high student achievement as measured by post-school outcomes or standardized scores.

The majority of students who receive such services report that they need the supports; it is how the supports are offered that adversely affects their self-esteem and sense of belonging. Students eligible for special education, Title I, AODA, English as a second language, and at-risk supports often do not participate in the number of school-related activities as compared to their peer group.

Students who receive services through federally mandated programs describe themselves as different from the other students and admit to a lack of belonging. They have the perceptions that they are not as smart, not as good, not as accepted, not as talented, and not as human. The question is not whether many of these students need differing supports; the question is how must such supports be offered? We believe that oppression in our society is perpetuated through our schools by "slotting and blocking" students into self-contained programs and separate schools for their perceived own good. As Freire stated in 1970 in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

It is in the interest of the oppressor to weaken the oppressed still further, to isolate them, to create and deepen rifts among them. This is done by varied means, from the repressive methods of the government bureaucracy to the forms of cultural action with which they manipulate the people by giving them the impression that they are being helped. (p. 141).

The population of oppressed or dehumanized students in our schools is growing. If we continue functioning in the same manner as we have over the past five decades, we will continue to create two categories of students: those students who belong to our society and those students who do not. To overcome these dismal outcomes of segregated programs, school leaders (i.e., principals, school-based steering committees, site-councils, etc.) require clarification of integrated comprehensive services and clear guidance to bring the concept of integrated services to fruition.

Definition of Integrated Comprehensive Services (ICS)
For clarification purposes a program model is defined as one that is arranged by units or programs (e.g., English as a second language program, at-risk schools, cognitive disability unit, learning disability unit, autistic unit, teen age parents, etc.) of homogeneously grouped students. Students are often placed in resource rooms or special education classrooms for part or all of a student's day. Instructional techniques and materials are often developed using a group norm rather than individual goals and objectives.

Individual student educational needs are predominately driven by available supports, classes, instructional resources within the environment, and often teacher preference. Students in program-driven models frequently move as a group to lunch, art class, and adapted physical education, etc. Such program models use the child's label to determine placement in units/classrooms with other children of like needs.

An Integrated Comprehensive Service delivery (ICS) model is one that organizes professional staff by the needs of each learner rather than clustering learners by label. In an integrated comprehensive services model, staff are not assigned to a "unit or program" and placed in a separate classroom. Conversely, support staff and general education teachers work collaboratively to bring appropriate instructional supports to each child in integrated school and community environments. In this manner, an integrated home base for all learners in support of belonging is established.

For example, in segregated programs, English as a Second Language (ESL) is taught in a separate classroom away from the primary classroom teacher. An ICS model provides for students learning ESL in their general classroom from a classroom teacher with the support of ESL teachers. During small and large group instruction, services are based on student needs and interests. Illustrated another way, during morning Language Arts, a small group of Hispanic and non Hispanic 3rd graders work together in one of the learning centers with a general education teacher to understand difficult vocabulary words from the book Soldiers Heart by Gary Paulsen.

At the same time their classmates are also in a variety of needs-based and interest-based groups, often defined as flexible grouping. These groups are facilitated by a special education teacher and a bilingual resource assistant to design different endings to the book and review comprehension questions through the use of a critical analysis project. When the learning center teams return to the large group, each small group shares what they have learned, what questions they may continue to have, and what their next learning steps should include.

Therefore, the word "integrated" refers to the environments that all students, regardless of need or legislative eligibility, access throughout their day in school and non-school settings; that is, in these environments, students with a variety of needs and gifts learn together in both small and large groupings that are flexible in nature. A school then becomes a community where all spaces are for all learners and shared in a manner to provide the most synthesized instruction for each student. Specifically, there are no spaces for only those students with disabilities, such as the classroom for cognitively disabled or bilingual learners. "Comprehensive" refers to the array of services and supports in addition to a curriculum and instruction that is differentiated to accommodate various learning needs of children to ensure their school success.

The authors contend that all children require small and large group instruction; however, rather than expecting students with educational and behavioral needs to leave their classrooms to receive instruction (which results in fragmentation and isolated skill development), Integrated Comprehensive Services require teachers to share their knowledge across disciplines (special education [emotional, learning, communication and functional needs], at-risk, bi-lingual, and Title I) with their peers and with the students they teach. In such a model, the students' schedules comes first, with supports arranged to create the most cohesive day for the learner rather than for the convenience of adults. Integrated Comprehensive Services result in the sharing of resources and choreographed services based on the individual needs, strengths, and interests of each learner.

The premise is that quality education for all learners must be integrated into every aspect of the school. Educational services must address but not be driven by compliance issues under every federal and state initiative. Each school educational team or learning team must address the components of an effective school educational plan. They do so by defining the current picture and completing a critical analysis of each area regarding policy or other practices or procedures that continue to work in opposition to integrated comprehensive services or promote oppression of groups of students. They can then reconstruct such components on behalf of all learners. The following is a brief review of the 16 primary components included in a school educational plan and the type of information a school leader will want in order to construct a school in support of Integrated Comprehensive Services (ICS).

Each section represents one section of the analysis in support of integrated comprehensive services:

I. ICS: Establishing our Structures
1. developing and maintaining integrated comprehensive services
2. expecting and honoring inclusive leadership for social justice
3. using school decision making teams
4. developing and living a school mission for social justice
5. collecting and analyzing data for conscious decision making
II. ICS: Ensuring our Foundations
6. setting a respectful and positive climate
7. building staff evaluation, position descriptions and recruitment practices
8. aligning staff to student needs through service delivery teams
9. supporting staff collaboration
III. ICS: Developing our Capacity
10. supporting family advocacy/involvement
11. accessing high quality teaching and learning practices
12. learning and teaching for children with significant needs
IV. ICS: Tying it all Together
13. reallocating resources for social justice
14. developing student centered policy and procedures
15. using state and federal regulations in support of the success for all
16. implementing change for social justice

I. ICS Formative Analysis: Establishing Our Structures

Section 1. Developing and Maintaining Integrated Comprehensive Services for All Learners
To set the stage, it is important to have a clear understanding of the guiding assumptions underlying Integrated Comprehensive Services (ICS) in order to set a solid foundation from which to function. First, in a school supporting Integrated Comprehensive Services, all staff including administrators believe that the source of the student failure is the system; hence the system needs to accommodate the learner and that the primary goal of schools is to prevent student failure.
Supports for all learners must be seamlessly tied to and grounded in the core teaching and learning as an integral part of the school-learning environment. We know that to be successful, both staff and administrators must believe that the educational process begins by taking into consideration the range of learners within every classroom and across grades. Students can no longer be segregated into silos of like learners/or disabilities, but must be provided services in the schools they would attend or schools of choice.
We know the educational services must be built on culturally- relevant differentiated curriculum and instruction; that is, curriculum is differentiated in a culturally appropriate manner from the needs of all students versus developed around the middle of the group and then adapted after the fact. Most important, we know that students do not have to qualify for a label to have their individual needs met in an educational arena. However, it is necessary to provide flexible configurations of learning for all learners throughout the day. All staff must be organized (staff design) based on the needs of each learner versus the interest of the adult. All staff must value the importance of sharing knowledge and expertise with each other and with students in order to build each other's capacity. To meet such non-negotiables, it is without question that funding and resources must be reconfigured and merged to build teacher and system capacity with a focus on the prevention of the student struggle.

Section 2. Expecting and Honoring Inclusive Leadership for Social Justice
The type of leadership for Integrated Comprehensive Services (ICS) is paramount to create change in ways that others feel supported and have control in the conception and activation of the process. All staff must be a part of the process and understand the meaning of visionary stewardship. In their understanding of such leadership style, staff must value this leadership and not be interested in working in a positional power-driven model in which those not in positions of power are told what to do, but their voice is not valued.
Integrated comprehensive services gives voice to those populations of children who have been pushed to the margins of our educational enterprise. If we create such change without valuing the voice of all adults involved through a top-down autocratic model of leadership – we are, in fact, hypocrites. We cannot give voice to those children who have been diminished in value by the diminishing of adults. We must model the value of all people through our leadership style and in turn children will be valued. In this manner, the majority of individuals feels comfortable with the leadership and believes that their voice is heard, while not assuming that it has to be agreed upon.

Section 3. Using School Decision Making Teams
Without question, the school planning committee is the most integral part of moving from a traditional block and slot program-driven model to an Integrated Comprehensive Service Model. Therefore, a school educational planning committee must have ground rules and possibly by-laws not only regarding how they will function, but also about their primary role within the educational setting. For too long, many site councils and school-based planning teams functioned on behalf of the normed populations within the school and assumed that those students receiving segregated services through at-risk, special education, Title I, and English as a second language, to mention only a few, were not part of their jurisdiction; that is, they were being supervised by persons using state and federal mandates and the school staff was not responsible for the arrangement of their programs. As we know, nothing could be further from the truth, in that, those children have become subgroups of our children and must be afforded the same rights and opportunities within our system as children who do not meet eligibility for these services.

It is imperative, therefore, that each committee member has been part of the development of the school mission/vision and understands the importance of Integrated Comprehensive Services. Each member has the ability to make educational decisions by using this vehicle to share and receive feedback from all members and other constituents. School planning team committee members must believe that students are in the center of the educational services and change. Above all, members must understand the value and importance for a positive supportive environment that provides equality to all students and staff.

Section 4. Developing and Living a School Mission for Social Justice
Most school mission statements include the phrase "all children will __ ." In the majority of situations, school personnel do not really mean all students. More times than not school leaders do not consider how the agreed-upon mission and goals would be accomplished by students with considerable academic challenges such as severe intellectual disabilities. Successful school leaders know, but do not act on the understanding, that when their least successful child is successful, all children will perform at higher standards.

For example, a school may have a mission statement that all children will meet grade level standards in reading and math. Yet, some students with the most challenging disabilities may never meet their chronological grade level standards. For these students, the mission statement frequently results in retention or eligibility for one of the "slot and block" peripheral services, perpetuating the failure epidemic in our schools and society of those individuals who never quite "fit in."

School leaders must set high standards for all students including those with the most severe academic challenges, and provide all students the opportunity to belong to the greater school society. For example, a school mission may be worded, "All students will make progress toward and beyond grade level standards." A mission such as this provides options for teachers and students to move beyond the failure/retention cycle. Within a school mission statement, school leaders must acknowledge that children must move toward and beyond grade level standards; therefore, this will prevent the lower expectations set for perceived marginal students.

Often school personnel attribute lack of progress toward grade-level standards and beyond to lack of student motivation and/or interest. All educators have the responsibility to keep searching for the "carrot of interest" while simultaneously considering strengths and key factors to engage students with low interest and/or motivation in the life long process of learning. If "all" means "all," educators must be held accountable for the academic, social and behavioral progress of all children; that is, educators must be willing to set the stage for a student strength-based model for all learners beginning with their mission statements.

Section 5: Collecting and Analyzing Data for Conscious Decision Making
We live in a time of data-driven decision making. We have much data at our fingertips for all to view and make decisions based on quantifiable data. We believe this section of the process is extremely important. Concurrently, we believe if we do not ask the necessary questions, we will not receive the necessary data needed to truly make decisions that give value and voice to all children and educational personnel. If we do not look at how many of our children who live in poverty and are of minority status are receiving pull-out-driven services that have caused them to be marginalized and placed on the periphery of our educational enterprise we are unknowingly perpetuating the norm of a class system within our educational system itself.

Therefore, we must cast a very broad net in our data collection in order to bring voice and status to all children through belonging and individual services within the context of our traditional educational arenas. In doing this, we must look at those data that give us quantifiable outcomes as well as those data that give us information regarding quality through a qualitative analysis. School leaders must analyze the data collected across all aspects of their school educational plans and deduce whether there are relationships that positively and adversely affect the outcomes of each component.

II. ICS Formative Analysis: Ensuring Our Foundations

Section 6: Setting a Respectful/Positive Climate
The climate of any school is defined by an aura that is determined by the feelings of people when they enter the building. The staff level of commitment to work with each other, the rapport students have with their peers and teachers, and the overall sense of belonging contribute to school climate. Often school personnel work to promote a positive school climate without taking into consideration what is happening on a daily basis in opposition to the positive climate promotionals. That is to say, discipline within a school can set the stage for the behavioral tone for students and the comfort zone for teachers.
If we expect positive behavior, but we do not model it as adults or teach it to children, the climate becomes one of failure-based punishment for children and behavior-based frustration for teachers. If we assume the need to teach appropriate behavior at all levels, the climate of our schools will be one of compassion and educational support. A positive school climate rests on the willingness of teachers and school leaders to share expertise, work out of their comfort zone, meet children where they are coming from behaviorally, emotionally, and academically; and most important, be willing to continue to learn through the process.

Section 7. Building Staff Evaluation, Position Descriptions and Recruitment Practices
Staff recruitment, hiring, supervision, and evaluation are critical components of an Integrated Comprehensive Service (ICS) delivery model. When hiring staff, the first priority must be to search for those individuals who embrace all children and celebrate diversity. The type of interview questions must grasp the candidate's ability to be part of the whole school in support of integrated comprehensive services. Often four or five interview questions should be asked for all positions in regard to the philosophical premise about how and where a range of students should receive their instruction; then a set of more specific questions correlated with the actual position can be asked.

In this manner teacher candidates understand the premise on which education is offered all learners and the expectation of all faculty to serve all students. The teacher position description and evaluation tool must all be correlated with the questions asked during the initial interview. Teachers experience the continuity of their charge within the environment and in a practical manner through their position description and their evaluation process as a result of such practices. Professionals need to know what the expectations are and be provided plenty of individualized instruction to meet those standards before they are held accountable.

Section 8. Aligning Staff to Student Needs through Service Delivery Teams
In order to align staff to student needs, it is necessary to define the following information: federal and state regulations; availability of staff; the hours of the day; and how students have been served previously. Ironically, staff design is very rarely by design, but by happenstance. Often students are slotted and blocked into discriminatory silos away from their peers because of past practice, staff perceived equity issues, habits, comfort level of staff, etc. Typically, the staff design is not developed because it preserves the child's sense of dignity and self worth. Little opportunity is available for staff to collaborate and take into consideration the academic and behavioral support needs of students.

Staff must be given opportunity to determine what natural supports are available within the typical instructional setting; the appropriateness of an integrated smaller setting; the expertise of staff; who should be assigned to meet the needs of a diverse population of students; when those needs should be met; and, finally, how curriculum and instruction must be developed from the onset to better meet the needs of a range of learners. Educators have been reacting to the range of student needs as if the range of needs were not predictable and proactive supports could not be delineated to better meet the needs of learners. Instead, students are required to first fail in order to meet eligibility for a slot and block program. It is time to create proactive staffing patterns and supports by design through collaboration because the range of educational and behavioral needs of students is often very clear and predictable.

Section 9. Supporting Staff Collaboration
The common practice of "turn taking" that occurs when general educators and specialized staff agree to team teach to better meet the needs of a diverse group of students frequently can be likened to adult parallel play. Often it is not cooperative teaching in which both adults are required to collaborate and share what they know when making key decisions about the way to best meet the needs of a range of learners. Rather, it is side by side professional turn taking that continues to maintain the status quo and limit the educational expertise of the individual teacher which results in disconnected education for the child. The needs of each learner can be met in a flexible and dynamic way as part of the whole when teachers are willing, able, and interested in sharing expertise. The collaborative process creates a systematic and continuous learning process for students and staff which allows the needs of a broader group of students to be met.

III. ICS Formative Analysis: Developing Our Capacity

Section 10. Supporting Family and Community Involvement
Family involvement is a given part of the process but, strategically speaking, cannot be implemented without thought to the design and ability for diverse membership. Families must be part of the collaborative process; however, their role must be clearly defined with guidelines for actions to promote shared ownership. Families have a three-dimensional role in education:

1) They are the primary advocates for their children.
2) They are advocates for other families who can speak on their behalf as part of a school-based dialogue.
3) They offer support and usefulness in the development of community of learners.
When all three roles are recognized and respected and staff see their role with families as fostering a compassionate partnership, the connection to the educational and greater community will follow. When a set of elite volunteers define the membership in the school, often other families do not feel equal, which allows them to default to a non-participant mode. Therefore, family involvement at all levels must be strategic and pragmatic for all families to be involved at the level they can as often as they can.

Section 11. Accessing High Quality Teaching and Learning Practices
Constructivist educational practices are those defined by Linda Lambert (2002) as the facilitation of reciprocal learning processes among participants in an educational community. She states that such learning draws from knowledge of constructivism that evokes mental maps of the world, engages others to learn new knowledge, makes sense of it, and reorders or deepens our understandings. The premise of constructivism is based on John Dewey's views that learning is an internal process in which the learner uses prior knowledge and experience to shape meaning and to construct new knowledge. In this way, education becomes a process for both adults and children to learn through inquiry.

The standards movement across this country will perpetuate a slot and block mentality unless we begin to use such standards as guides for individual student progress versus a group-normed measure of school success. When students are able to demonstrate what they know in the manner they can show it the best, then education has risen above the mediocrity of norm-based assessment. A country of this caliber should expect more than a "fast-food" normed- based assessment process to determine success of our schools.

The standards are a useful guide to allow continuity and bench-marks; they are not a useful measure of individual student success in absence of measuring those students with excellent test-taking skills. Students must be able to use performance-based, functional, and criteria-reference based assessments to demonstrate their educational progress. Teacher leaders should be spending their time determining mechanisms to collect and analyze such formative data versus "drill and grill" test preparation that discounts the attributes necessary for life long learning, primarily the ability to "inquire, analyze, and provide conclusions."

Section 12. Learning and Teaching for Children with Increased Needs
Twenty years ago students with severe disabilities were receiving integrated instruction in non-school environments within our community, vocational, recreational, and domestic arenas. Now school personnel are putting washing machines back into school classrooms to approximate natural environments as if students with severe disabilities are now capable of generalizing from artificial to natural environments. Instructional techniques have, in some cases, returned to teaching skills that have little to no functional value and will not aide in maximizing the students' independence in society. School leaders must focus on the fact that when working with an individual who is going to learn less than 98% of society, careful consideration needs to take place when determining exactly what to teach and what not to teach in order to develop the students' maximum independence.

The recent trend to revert to segregated classrooms, isolated van rides, field trips, and enclaves is concerning. When individuals with severe disabilities are placed solely into groups of people with like needs, they are robbed of their individual identities. The vision and commitment to community based employment determined by strengths and interests of the individual has been lost and sadly replaced by the previous concept of group vocational sites.

Even though we know that when groups of individuals with severe disabilities are asked to do a task that a peer without a disability would not do, pity is created which in turn diminishes self-respect. Sheltered work sites that were "on-the-way-out" in the late 80's have been revived by those individuals and groups who fought for convenience of the establishment versus quality of life for the individual. In addition, the concept of administering alternative standardized assessment tools created by university researchers is now prevalent. The assessments allow educators to announce to the public and media that all children are being tested. The process can be likened to taking apples and oranges and making them all tangerines! Unfortunately, many define this as progress.

A review of typical learning characteristics of students with disabilities will illustrate that it is possible to educate children with severe disabilities in the schools and classrooms they would attend if not disabled. Best practice research demonstrates that the determination of the appropriate amount of time for in- school and community instruction based on a functional analysis of individual needs matched with appropriative curricular content has proven to b efficient and effective. Anything is possible when passion, commitment, and advocacy are present, coupled with the desire to "think outside the box". The desire to begin with an individual student's needs and then build a schedule for staff based on such needs will result in individual services versus disabled placements. Simply put, all children must really mean all children.

IV. ICS Formative Analysis: Tying it All Together

Section 13. Reallocating Resources for Social Justice
A range of differing solutions to develop school budgets to better meet the needs of all students is in order. Certainly the co-mingling of dollars must be discussed; however, we must first recognize the constant trend of defaulting students to sub-normed groups under a range of differing eligibility criteria for special education, at-risk, title I, English as a second language, etc. Such identification processes constantly perpetuate the shortage of money necessary to meet the needs of students because the cost of separate educational facilities, tuition agreements, and transportation is extremely high. School leaders have to realign dollars in a proactive manner to better meet such needs without defaulting students to sub-groups that perpetuate the oppression in our society.

Integrated Comprehensive Services would benefit from the co-mingling of money sources, for we know if school budgets remain isolated there will always be insufficient funding for all learners. For example, in order to better provide proactive technology in the area of reading for students eligible for Title I services, special education, and our typical learners, dollars must be merged with school-based technology budgets to develop a universal platform through technology for strength-based learning. In this manner all learners benefit from universal access to technology when portions of Title I, special education, and school-based budgets are merged. Such an effort is not possible without the collaboration of those responsible for technology for students with and without disabilities and the co-mingling of funding.

Section 14. Developing Student-Centered Policy and Procedures
Policies and procedures must be written in a manner to support integrated comprehensive services. Often schools develop policies through recommendations from the state school board association or adapt a policy from another district. The work of the teacher leaders in school policy is essential. When structural, instructional, curricular, and assessment changes are developed, the affected policies must be revised and adapted to parallel the proactive changes.

For example, a school may provide a range of differing services in an attempt to be instructionally proactive. However, if the student is not proficient on the 8th grade test, the retention policy goes into effect and the student is retained or moved to a segregated silo for those students who were not successful on the test. Such policy does more harm than good for the student, faculty, school climate, and mission.

Section 15. Using State and Federal Regulations for the Success of All Learners
In 2000, we wrote that the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) asked no more of a school district but to provide high quality services in collaboration with parents, based on the individual needs of students in the schools and classrooms they would attend if not disabled. We also acknowledged the importance of determining individualized academic goals and objectives based on bias-free assessment instruments. Today, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation is requiring nothing less of schools with the exception of normed-based accountability practices to show adequate yearly progress. The major flaw in this plan is the sole reliance on norm-based assessment processes that fly in the face of IDEA. Therefore, educators have a responsibility to write policies that allow for a range of differing assessment strategies (performance-based, functional, and criteria-referenced) that assist students in demonstrating what they know.

Section 16. Implementing Change for Social Justice
The road ahead for educational leaders is long in the reconstruction of schools in support of all learners to move beyond policy and practices that breed oppression in schools and our society. Educational leaders must have a vehicle to develop a path in support of integrated comprehensive services for all learners. The reconstruction process through the school educational plan can provide such a path. In this way, services for all learners define the quality of educational standards and the students are not marginalized by the limitations of compliance standards.

School leaders must move forward in the development of Integrated Comprehensive Service delivery practices and away from the slot and block program method that has done nothing but generate more students in need. Such endeavors will assist in diminishing the number of students who no longer belong within our public school arena in the name of nondiscrimination. In time, increasing the number of school graduates who feel a sense of belonging to our greater society based on educational access to high quality services and instructional practices will result in increased productive citizenship.

Summary of Integrated Comprehensive Services
The road ahead for educational leaders is long in the reconstruction of schools in support of all learners to move beyond policy and practices that breed oppression in schools and our society. Educational leaders must have a vehicle to develop a path in support of Integrated Comprehensive Services for all learners. The reconstruction process through the school educational plan can provide such a path. In this way, services for all learners define the quality of educational standards and learners are not marginalized by the limitations of compliance standards.

School leaders must move forward in the development of integrated comprehensive service delivery practices and away from the slot and block program methods. Such endeavors will assist in diminishing the number of students who no longer belong within our public school arena in the name of nondiscrimination. In time, increasing the number of school graduates who have a sense of belonging to our greater society based on educational access to high quality services and instructional practice will result in increased, productive citizenship.

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About the authors

Elise Frattura works with school districts to assist administrators in developing comprehensive organizational structures to better meet the individual needs of all learners. Dr. Frattura has been a K12 public school director of student services and special education for the past 12 years. During that time she has functioned as an adjunct lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, teaching courses related to diversity in elementary and secondary administration of services. Currently she is teaching courses related to issues and trends in special education, administration of student services, and special education law. Dr. Frattura has written educational articles in the area of administration of comprehensive services for all learners, and is co-author of Meeting the Needs of Students of All Abilities: How Leaders Go Beyond Inclusion. She received her Ph.D. from UWMadison. She can be reached at frattura@uwm.edu.

Colleen Capper is professor of educational administration at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She received her Doctor of Education degree from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. A former special education teacher and special services administrator, she has focused her teaching, research, and service on the ways that school leaders can make a difference in the achievement of students who typically struggle in school. Colleen Capper is professor of educational administration. She received her Doctor of Education degree from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. A former special education teacher and special services administrator, she has focused her teaching, research, and service on the ways that school leaders can make a difference in the achievement of students who typically struggle in school. She can be reached at capper@education.wisc.edu.