Implementing Inclusion
in BC’s Public Schools
Report on the June 14, 2017 Inclusive Education Summit

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

1

Introduction
On June 14, 2017, some 80 BC educators, parents
and other education professionals gathered in
Richmond, BC for our Inclusive Education Summit, afull-day dialogue on how to restore quality inclusive
education in British Columbia’s public schools.
The June Summit featured leading Canadian voices
on inclusive education, who built on a discussion
launched at our March 2017 Inclusive Education
Forum. It also honoured four exemplary BC teachers
for their contribution to advancing inclusion in BC’s
public schools (Read more here and here).
These activities are part of an ongoing initiative led
by Inclusion BC in response to the landmark 2016
Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling restoring
contract ratios for BC’s public school teachers. The
June Summit also followed a provincial election that
demonstrated a new political consensus on the needto invest in restoring supports for K-12 education,
following the bruising 16-year legal battle between
the BC government and its teachers.
“These are unprecedented times,” noted Richmond’s
Director of Instruction, Richard Steward. In opening
remarks at the June 14 Summit, he noted both
opportunities and challenges facing school districts
scrambling to respond to the SCC decision in time forthe 2017-18 school year.
“An opportune moment and key juncture for BC,”
added BC Teachers Federation researcher Sherri
Brown, while also warning that many of theingredients for restoring inclusion were still missing.
Notwithstanding the serious ongoing challenges,
Summit participants also reflected a new sense of
optimism. As teacher/inclusion consultant Shelley
Moore summed it up,

This report captures key themes from the June
14 Inclusive Education Summit, providing anotherstep forward in our efforts to strengthen inclusive
education in BC’s public schools.

Meaningful transformation will not
happen easily or overnight, but we areon a path that offers real promise forbuilding a better public education system
for all students in British Columbia.
Looking ahead, we will focus on the advice weheard from participants, who were clear about
their desire for more supports to help teachers
implement inclusive practices, including professional
development, coaching, teacher-friendly resources andmore time for collaboration. Some teachers travelledfrom outside of the Lower Mainland to attend ourlearning event, but funding and opportunities for suchlearning are scarce, especially in rural communities,
and teachers emphasized that one day is not enough.
Other identified priorities included training for
educational assistants and parents, the importance ofbuilding strong partnerships with parents and sharingof successful strategies.
Inclusion BC is committed to ensuring that BC hasstrong, publicly-funded schools, with educatorsand parents who are well-equipped to implement
best practices in inclusive education and to work
collaboratively to support quality learning for all
students. We invite all who support our vision to join
us as we plan the next phases of this work.

Karen Delong
Director, Community Development“We have a unique opportunity now witha merging of stakeholders who are all on
the same page and a new curriculum that
supports teaching to diversity.”

2

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

What is inclusion?
Inclusion is not just about kids with disabilities. It’s about the whole stream of student diversity, noted
presenter Jacqueline Specht, Director of the Canadian Research Centre on Inclusive Education at Ontario’s
Western University. It means all students belong and are valued members of their classroom andneighbourhood school communities.

Exclusion, segregation, integration and inclusion
To understand inclusion, the first step is to understand what it is not. A continuum of educational practicehas moved us from exclusion to segregation for students with special needs, and in some cases tointegration or inclusion. But integration — simply placing children in the same space together — isn’t
inclusion.
“Many parents say inclusion didn’t work for my child,” Moore said. “But they weren’t talking about inclusion,
they were talking about integration.
Old models for teaching students with special needs involved sending them to experts to be fixed andbringing them back when they met the definition of “typical” students (the green dots).
“The problem is no one is green,” Moore added, citing the diagram below to explain the continuum that
leads to inclusion and, ultimately, a model of teaching to diversity that recognizes and values each student’s
unique identity.

exclusion

segregation

integration

inclusionteaching todiversity“It doesn’t make sense to set a rule that we can only have three coloured dots in a class,” Moore observed.
“Setting a ratio like that is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Do we value all the colours equallyor are we trying to make everyone the same colour?”Specht described what inclusive education looks like in practice:• Students learn together.
• Support for students to learn better together and for teachers to teach students of all abilities.
• Membership in a regular class, not sitting in the back alone with an EA “glued to the hip.”• Going to your own natural neighbourhood school.
• Support to participate and contribute to the life of the school.

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

3

Why Inclusion?
We should not need to defend inclusion anymore,
Steward remarked, given that every child in Canada
has the right to an inclusive education (see Article
24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities).

An extensive body of research also
confirms the benefits of inclusive
education for ALL students.
And yet, as Specht discussed, research is showing
slow progress and/or slippage away from inclusion
across Canada, so she stressed that we do need tokeep talking about the “why” of inclusion.

Benefits of Inclusion
Brown summarized the results of extensive researchon the benefits of inclusive education:• Peer effects (effects on peers and the wider
community): The literature shows inclusion has
a “pulling up” effect for all students. It helps all
those who need support and doesn’t pull others
down, contrary to assumptions by some parents
who worry that students with special needs will
divert teacher attention from their own child.
• Psychological and psychosocial effects: Typicalchildren exposed to inclusive education havemore empathy, maturity, leadership and prosocial behaviours. Effects on children withdisabilities are less well understood.
• Socio-cultural & socio-political effects: Publicschools that practice social inclusion andtolerance help to raise a generation with morepositive attitudes and values, resulting in amore equitable democracy.
• Micro- & macroeconomic effects: Students
are more likely to have jobs and access to
microeconomic benefits in their own lives,with broader macroeconomic effects for thebroader society.

4

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

How well are we doing?
Specht reviewed the Canadian literature on progressin implementing inclusion, noting the difficultyof making comparisons between provinces (SeeDisability and Inclusion in Canadian Education). A
recent analysis showed how little progress Ontario
had made, especially in secondary schools, despite
1998 legislation that mandated placement in regularclassrooms as the first option for all students.
Brown presented additional research on BC’s publicschool system, noting that provincial funding for
public schools had declined steadily since 2002
relative to provincial GDP and total government
spending. BC’s public schools have lost thousandsof classroom and specialist teachers, with growing
waitlists for student assessments, increasing classsize and complexity and privatization pressures. In
this context, she added, parents who opt out of the
public system are making a rational decision, given
the growing provincial support for private education.
“If you build it, they will come,” was how Specht
described the pressures for private or specialized
programs serving students with disabilities acrossCanada. “Creating special programs reinforces themessage that regular teachers are not special
enough to teach these kids and that they belong
somewhere else.”

We have to shift the mindset to anunderstanding that all kids can learn andthat all teachers can teach all students,
given the right supports,
Specht said. “Very few teachers don’t believe ininclusion.” More are concerned about how to do it
and how to deal with the challenges of inclusion.
“It’s hard for teachers to do, even when the schoolboard believes in inclusion,” she added.
Part of the challenge is a gap in translating researchon the benefits of inclusive education into practice –the “How” of inclusion.
“We need to focus now on how to do inclusion,”
Steward said, adding that the new BC curriculum
offers a valuable new opportunity to do this, witha new way of teaching and pedagogy that supports
teaching to diversity.
Brown and Specht agreed that the old curriculum,with the pressure of testing and paperwork demands,
has been part of the problem. Teachers are also
struggling with higher caseloads, less one-to-one
time with students and longer waits for services like
psycho-educational assessments, Brown noted. A
recent BCTF study showed declining mental health forteachers and students, as teachers have been asked
to do more with less.
The consequences for students have been severe.
More and more students with special needs are being
sent home from school due to a lack of support, as
specialist teachers were given more classrooms to
support and larger caseloads, with longer waits forassessments and scarce specialists like speech andlanguage pathologists or occupational therapists.
Brown cited the example of a six-year “gradual entry”
for one student because the district said it lacked thenecessary staff and resources to support the student.
“It’s not the sole factor but lack of resources is asignificant driver and the result is that schools are
denying some children their right to access public
education,” Brown said.
Few BC school districts track waitlists for specialist
services, she added. Triage models to manage
needs often leave “grey area” students falling further
behind. Teachers don’t even identify less urgent
needs for service waitlists because there is no point.
In this context, Brown described the SCC decision as“a historic win,” but not a “panacea.”
It can help to address crowded and complex
classrooms and provide more specialist teachers.
But so far there is no new money for key needs,
including in-service training, mentorship or
professional development, classroom or specialist
devices and supplies, educational assistants or
psycho-educational assessment waitlist reductions(and those waitlists could actually grow as staff andresources are re-assigned).

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

5

Closing the gap: How to do inclusion“We know why inclusion is important and we know how to teach students” Moore said. “So the question is
how do we close the gap between these two gigantic silos? We need to focus on the practical aspects ofreducing that gap. Even if it’s just a millimetre. The gap has been getting bigger for years and we’re now at aturning point where we’re either going to keep widening it or turn it around.”“We can also spend all that new BC education money in a flash if we continue to teach 21st Century kids in19th Century ways,” Moore warned.
The message is that new models of teaching to diversity are a far better investment for new education dollars
than outdated and costly parallel systems.

EQUALITY VERSUS EQUITY

In the first image, it isassumed that everyone
will benefit from the same
supports. They are being
treated equally.

6

In the second image,
individuals are given
different supports to makeit possible for them tohave equal access to thegame. They are being
treated equitably.

In the third image, allthree can see the gamewithout any supports or
accomodations because thecause of the inequity wasaddressed. The systematicbarrier has been removed.

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BCTeaching to diversity: All means ALL
There are ways to bridge the gap, Moore noted.
One is obvious, though in practice it’s hard to do:“When we say all, we actually have to mean ALL.
No exceptions!
It’s not about a plan for students with disabilities
that’s based on adapting a pre-existing plan for otherstudents, Moore explained, but about starting out
with a plan that’s designed for ALL “This concept is
our most under-utilized resource,” she stressed. “We
need to re-design our teaching to better meet theneeds of all students so that you need to add lesssupport after the fact.”
Traditional integration models require extensive
supports and resources for any student whose needs
don’t fit, because standard lessons and outcomespresent a systemic barrier for any student who does
not match the myth of the typical “green dot.” Moore
and others argue that BC’s new curriculum removes
this barrier, providing students with intellectual
disabilities an entry point into the curriculum thatthey’ve never had before. “It hurts nobody andbenefits everyone,” Moore explained.

“You start with strength!” Moore added.
“Change the emphasis from what’s
missing to what assets each student
brings and a model that focuses on
growth, in which everyone advances.”“We need to re-think what is learning and whatis growth,” Specht agreed. “Everyone is capableof learning, so that’s what we need to track. It’s
not about a certain standard bar that we set foreveryone.”

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

7

BC’s new curriculum
The challenge of how to help teachers reconfigure their classrooms to teach to diversity has been a career
focus for Leyton Schnellert, Assistant Professor in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education, who
also spoke at the June 14 Summit. His research includes examining how teacher professional development
relates to student diversity and inclusive education, and how to help teachers bridge theory and practice toachieve valued outcomes for all students.
Schnellert sees an exciting new opportunity in BC’s new curriculum, with its focus on personalized learning,classroom flexibility, big ideas and teaching approaches that empower students to be well-rounded, criticalthinkers and life-long learners.
If we just think about meeting one standard, he said, some students will always be left behind. “Instead, the
new curriculum is about everyone moving ahead from where they are. The student needs to be moving, andthe goals also need to be constantly moving. Higher achievement is not ‘I got it!’ It’s ‘What’s next?’”
Moore agreed. Whereas the old curriculum limited teachers to one common, static goal for everyone, the new
curriculum releases us to focus on moving everyone forward, she explained.
Under the new curriculum, every student has a chance to make a plan. “All really means all,” Schnellert
said. “Then you assess how it’s going, decide on what’s the next challenge and how to adjust to be more
successful. It’s about cycles of self-regulated activity.”
Successful self-regulation in kindergarten predicts student achievement through Grade 6 — more so than IQ or
knowledge of reading and math, he noted.

Empowering every child to self-regulate their learning is a key goal under the new BC
curriculum and one that supports inclusion and teaching to diversity.
The new curriculum reflects a shift towards competency-driven curriculum. Competency isn’t the destination;it’s what drives each student’s progress. And there is more focus on developing competence and deeplearning over time than on how much content is covered.
“This creates an opportunity to build in more pathways for more learners. Benefits for inclusion include
that every student can be engaged with the big idea, as all students are learning about the big idea together,”he explained.

The Difference in teaching to diversity is that we
don’t start with our deficits; we start with ourstrengths, and this includes students, teachers,
support staff, custodians, bus drivers, and parents.”– Shelley Moore

8

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

A less prescriptive curriculum allows flexibility andchoice for teachers and students, enabling teachers
to be creative and innovative in their design oflearning experiences.
“If we create classes where all outcomes are
expected to be perfect, many kids won’t get there
and they are less likely to even try,” Schnellert noted.
“Instead, we are encouraging risk takers. We all workon developing social skills or academics together
from the level where we are at as individuals. Then
you check in every week to discuss what did you get
better at and the student sees himself getting better
against his own standard, not ours.”“As teachers we have moved from transmission (dowhat I do) to transformative (grow from what youare) by respecting diversity and what each student
brings to the classroom,” Schnellert said.

ExampleOne Richmond class took the gradelevel learning goal in a math 8 classand stretched it to accommodate awider range of learners, including a
student with Down Syndrome. The goal
(about 3D prisms and surface area) was
extended to create an access point forher (2D shapes). The part that madeit inclusive, however, was that thisaccess point was not just for her – otherstudents who needed that support also
had access. Many students benefited
from taking the time to review how 2D
shapes and 3D prisms are connected toeach other.

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

9

RTI (Response to Intervention)
Moore also discussed using RTI as a planning framework to develop different support levels for a class,instead of trying to design 30 individual and differentiated programs.
“It’s a planning framework that allows students to move between support levels as needed,” she noted.

Best practice indicators
Specht presented and explained the 13 School-Wide Inclusive Education Best Practice Indicators, whichwere developed in the U.S. as a practical tool that any school can use to advance inclusion — regardlessof where they are starting from.
The indicators provide a framework for conceptualizing inclusive, effective education for students of allabilities. Presented in a questionnaire format, they allow staff to evaluate their school’s practices, byindicating how much evidence they see of each aspect of the 13 indicators, and then to select targets
for improvement.

This tool is specifically designed to work with schools at different stages of thejourney towards more inclusive practice.
For example, Specht noted, many Ontario school boards feel overwhelmed because so many students
are still in separate settings. But the idea is that you don’t have to do it all at once. You start where
you’re at and set reasonable goals for improvement.
The indicators provide a useful way to start a group conversation about what’s happening in your schooland how can you can make changes, Specht concluded. The next step is to prioritize goals. Pick amanageable set of goals to focus on, then assess the results and set new targets as you make headway.

Four BC teachers were
honoured on June 14th
as recipients of the 2017
Inclusive Education Awards.
(Left to right): Ray Yoo, Eve
Minuk, Joyita Rubin andMonika Martinkova.

10

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

Key ingredients for success
While the potential offered by BC’s new curriculum drove a significant portion of the day’s
discussion, speakers agreed on the importance on both leadership and advocacy to ensurethat schools are restructured and resourced to support efforts to advance inclusion.

“We can’t keep settling for this low bar,” stressed Brown, who is also
the parent of a student with special needs. “We have to stomp ourfeet and demand more. This is about our children’s rights.”
Recipients of the 2017 inclusive education awards also emphasized the importance of
advocacy and of investing more resources to support teachers. They also acknowledgedthat having two BC winners from one school (Vancouver’s Simon Fraser Elementary)
and another two from one district (Richmond) was no accident, given the importance ofleadership and culture in helping teachers overcome the very real barriers to inclusion.
“Much of this is tied to leadership, Specht added. “But if your school has a strong leader
and that individual moves, the leadership could change tomorrow. So it’s also important tobuild a strong community that includes teachers, parents and students, to ensure the work
continues.”
Summing up the day’s take-home messages, participants highlighted the importanceof investing to strengthen supports for teachers, including one-to-one coaches who
help translate philosophy into practice and to implement inclusion in the classroom.
(“As opposed to the ones who just do paperwork or that we send kids off to work withthem,” as one teacher noted). They also stressed the need for more focus on a model ofprofessional development, more time for teachers to collaborate and more teacher-friendly
resources.
There was broad agreement that this had to be a collaborative project in which every
effort was made to bring all partners on board: experts, administrators, EAs, professional
associations, ministries, parents and students. Building the necessary support will requirethat we do more to communicate the good stories about inclusion, not just the bad ones,
to show people what can and is being done.

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC

11

Inclusion is not a strategy to help people fit into thesystems and structures which exist in our societies; it
is about transforming those systems and structures tomake it better for everyone.
– Diane Richler, Past President, Inclusion International
12

Inclusive Education Summit | June 14, 2017 | Richmond, BC