The Use of the Welsh Inclusion Model and Its Effect on Elementary School Students

Introduction The increased accountability in schools across the Nation has made it difficult to ignore large numbers of students with special needs who continue to fail at meeting academic standards within the public schools. The passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), along with the Individual with Disabilities Education Act Amendment of 1997, federal mandates have all but guaranteed a free and appropriate education for all students attending public institutions regardless of their specific academic deficiencies. This federal legislation, along with various state requirements, has required that all children have access to a free and appropriate public education, and that every effort is made to insure their academic success (Individual with Disabilities Education Act, 1997). In 2001, the first year of the No Child Left Behind mandate, the United States Department of Education reported that only nine states within the Union reported any measure of academic achievement for special needs children as it related to Category 10, Students with Disabilities (SWD) (US Department of Education, 2001). Although new data is showing some improvement within our public schools over the course of the past eight years, the need to increase the academic growth of identified students remains a priority among all Institutions within the public school sector. In North Carolina, students with academic disabilities are still lagging behind at meeting the 2013 National goal at having all children on grade level. In 2001, the first year of the NCLB, according to the North Carolina School Report Card, only 30.8% of students with disabilities (SWD) passed both the reading and math section of the end-of-grade tests. In the 2007-2008 school years, the composite score for students with disabilities have shown little progress within the total composite component. Students within the category of students with disabilities (SWD), had an overall efficiency rating of only 34.65% growth in the composite score of both the reading and math section on the End-of-grade tests, which shows only a 3.85% growth in eight years of the federal mandate of No Child Left Behind (North Carolina Report Card, 2008). When one looks at this minimal level of growth for identified children within North Carolina, and the lack of financial support by the federal government to fund this program, it appears that North Carolina, along with many other states is destined to fail at meeting this goal. What the research has been telling us for several decades is that there are other avenues, which have shown some promise in meeting the academic needs for special needs learners within our public schools. The Inclusion movement seems to be gaining momentum within the public school sector and evidence is beginning to surface as to its positive impact on the academic success of specifically identified children. The Welsh Inclusion Model is an inclusion program that is divided into four phases with each phase incorporating elements of inclusionary practices that are integrated with various elements of team-teaching coupled with an array of instructional strategies. In addition, the model also encompasses a strong element of human dynamics via role modeling both from the standpoint of teacher input as well as student interactions among both identified students and their non-disabled peers (Pickard, 2008). Phase I consists of Large Group Training for all stakeholders within the Local Education Agency (LEA) which consists of inclusion teams from various schools within the LEA, as well administrators, supervisors, curriculum coordinators, and superintendents. In this phase, individuals are taught various elements of team-teaching theory along with different instructional modifications via highly interactive sessions. The presenter, utilizing key elements of team-teaching practices, models inclusion lessons incorporating concrete instructional strategies based on student's individual learning patterns. …