At schools nationwide, special education students, or students who require specialized instruction and support due to diverse abilities, are too often isolated from their peers and denied equal access to educational opportunities. This divide not only limits the potential of students with diverse abilities, such as students with sensory, cognitive or social-emotional issues, but also reinforces the harmful stereotypes about their abilities. Integrating special education students into general education classrooms doesn’t just level the playing field — it benefits all students by promoting empathy and simultaneously dismissing the constant stereotypes about students with diverse abilities that are perpetuated on school campuses.

Nancy Sullivan, FUHSD’s Director of Educational and Special Services, has been working on the district’s goal of integrating special education students into general education classes. She notes that each student who is part of the special education program has an IEP, or an Individualized Education Program. IEPs provide students with disabilities with the tools and support they need to succeed in school. Part of Sullivan’s role is figuring out how to provide students with diverse abilities with enough support so that they can thrive in general education classes.

“Probably the biggest loss is the connection with peers,” Sullivan said. “There’s a community that is created in a classroom, you meet different people in that classroom, you get more connected to hearing what other people are doing and more connections to school activities or other peers, possible friendships and relationships.”

Beyond the social exclusivity, separating special education students prevents them from receiving the same standard of education, according to Sullivan. Within segregated classrooms, special education teachers are less likely to be content specialists, experts in specific subject areas like English or math.

The results from integrating students are beneficial, as a study from Indiana University found that students with diverse abilities in high-inclusion environments (80% or more of their time spent in general education classrooms) scored an average of 24.3 points higher on reading and writing examinations and 18.4 points higher on math examinations than their peers in low-inclusion environments.

The separation of special ed students only further perpetuates the rampant stereotypes about students with diverse abilities, denying children the ability to learn to be accepting of everyone, regardless of learning differences. The National Association of the Education for Young Children found that the younger that special education students are integrated into curriculum and classrooms, the more children will become accustomed to their presence and achieve greater empathy and acceptance.

Sullivan’s efforts have been combined with that of an agency called the Hanover Group to implement an awareness and engagement campaign for further integration. They will create a long-term plan for the next four to five years about FUHSD’s steps moving forward based on statistics and feedback they receive from students, families and professionals across FUHSD. In doing so, Sullivan hopes to initiate the benefits integrated learning can bring, especially through the use of co-teaching, where a general education teacher and a special education teacher are in one classroom to best provide support.

Sullivan and her team’s work has seen mixed results as they push for professional development opportunities in UDL, or Universal Design for Learning. UDL is a teaching approach that assists teachers in considering lesson planning and activities for students within classes by providing multiple ways to represent content and engage students on varied levels of understanding, ultimately supporting all students. Sullivan considers their biggest challenge thus far to be shifting their students with the most significant disability needs into general education.

“It’s even harder for them to be integrated academically into general ed classes, and so they have more specialized programs,” Sullivan said. “But even that number has really shifted, because we have far more students out in general ed for electives or other targeted classes, and we have a lot of community-based instruction for our older students.”

Although FUHSD has seen an increase in the number of special education students with less severe disabilities in general ed, Sullivan notes the significant difficulties for students with more severe disabilities, stressing how widespread the systemic challenge is.

“It’s harder for students as they get older, the curriculum gets more challenging,” Sullivan said. “It gets faster, it gets more rigorous. And if students are struggling in an area, and that area hasn’t been addressed, it just makes it hard. It’s not a new subject, and there’s been some really good movement and conversations on equity, and I feel like as a district and a community, people have been far more open to the conversations and kind of unearthing concerns that they have about feeling successful in supporting students with disabilities.”

A large part of Sullivan’s work goes into organizing and mobilizing resources across the district. To do so, she recognizes that a huge part of it is encouraging people to have open minds and think through new issues as they reset the system. She considers the most vital resource in the process to be progress, due to its necessity in better supporting students and families.

“It’s professional development,” Sullivan said. “We need to really look at enrollment in terms of having some good guidelines for how we make decisions. Like we don’t have infrastructure. That’s the resource: reorganizing infrastructure so that people have good questions to ask when they’re making decisions about where a student should be enrolled and what support they need. And we have good people and good minds, but we don’t have a written down process to do it, and I think that’s something we really need.”

Across MVHS’ campus, “special education” or “special needs” are sometimes used as insults to comment on behavior or intelligence. This highlights the deep divide between general education and special education students, resulting in false stereotypes, a toxic environment and a clear lack of empathy for students in special education programs. However, regardless of some stigmas that are perpetuated, MVHS has made progress towards the integration of special education students.

“Monta Vista is one of the schools that has increased the co-teaching opportunities over the last few years, so we have far more classes that have two teachers, or teachers and paraeducators that are in general ed and shifting students into general ed,” Sullivan said. “So they absolutely are already walking the walk. I think the next thing will be like, ‘How many we can push in?’ and ‘How many classes? Where?’ It’s finding the right balance. Monta Vista has several students with pretty significant needs that are in general ed.”

The special education system is flawed, deeply entwined with a lack of diversity and systemic bias. Students placed in special education classes are overwhelmingly students of color. According to the Education Department, the past five years has seen almost a 100% increase in the number of districts with significant racial disparities. Students of color and lower-income students are disproportionately diagnosed with diverse abilities and segregated, compared to their affluent peers. This disparity can be linked to systemic racism, where groups face environmental and healthcare challenges that contribute to higher rates of disability diagnoses. They’re more commonly diagnosed in subjective categories, like emotional instability, rather than objective ones, like learning or hearing disabilities. These biased diagnoses reinforce stereotypes and result in unfair separation of students.

Regardless of the benefits of integrating special education students into mainstream classrooms, some groups advocate for keeping them separate. Educators from Indiana Teachers of Tomorrow, a teacher certification program, noted that special education students receive more one-on-one interactions with teachers that help them obtain the right support in a sheltered setting. However, inclusive classrooms also ensure that every student receives the right support while learning alongside their peers. According to the School of Education, special education teachers can collaborate with general education teachers to ensure that students have adequate resources to thrive in an educational environment. If needed, a special education teacher will create supplemental materials for a student while determining when one-on-one sessions are required.

Keeping students with diverse abilities segregated from general education students only strengthens the barrier between the two groups. By continuing to integrate special education students into general education classrooms, MVHS can foster a more inclusive environment where all students benefit socially and academically. We must normalize policies that promote inclusion, provide teacher training to support diverse learners, which can be done by providing them with the “UDL Now” book and professional development, and create a culture that values all students equally and makes everyone feel comfortable.

“I want to say that this is probably the most positive I’ve felt about how we can make some true systemic changes in a long time,” Sullivan said. “And I feel like we have a lot of people who really want to see change, positive change for our students to get more opportunities. And more specifically, we’re getting a lot of support within our general education staff, which is really optimistic, and actually students as well.”