For the last year we have included these students in all aspects of the class. Not only has the effort been very beneficial for the students with disabilities, but students without disabilities have grown tremendously by working with their disabled peers. Another area of success involves the gifted and talented. Instead of becoming bored in traditional classes, many of these students respond very well to challenging, open-ended projects. Many of our mainstream students blossom when they can use skills for which there is little demand in a traditional classroom.
Solutions is evaluated in a number of different ways.
Special education teachers and aides help us evaluate our progress with students who have disabilities. Business mentors and others from the community help us evaluate student performance on projects and on their comportment and behaviors. We have also developed a number of classroom evaluation techniques that we use in conjunction with traditional paper and pencil type tests. There are a number of improvements we need to make. One improvement involves the recruitment of Hispanic students.