Want to Change Your School’s Culture? Disability Inclusion is a Great Place to Start.

What does it feel like to be in school?  

That question is on the minds of many educators as a new school year opens amid record mental health needs and nationwide teacher shortages. How people feel when they are in school is partly a reflection of a school’s culture— which may be why school leaders are increasingly focused on making it healthier.

One place to start is by changing how a school welcomes students with visible and invisible disabilities.  While it may not be surprising that inclusion programs benefit students with disabilities, it turns out that these programs can also have a powerful effect on entire school cultures. They can help everyone feel more welcome.

The Just Say Hi! program run by the Cerebral Palsy Foundation is an excellent example. In many ways, it’s serving as a model for transforming school culture through disability inclusion. Piloted in 2016 in New York City’s public schools, the program includes 84+ cross-curricular Pre-K–12 lesson plans, professional development, family engagement resources, learning adaptations, inclusive media/mentor texts, and more.

Debbie Fink, the organization’s Vice President of Education and Inclusion, empathizes with school leaders working to shift school cultures right now. “None of them signed up to deal with a pandemic or the fear of school shootings,” she says. “Just Say Hi isn’t an antidote to that. But it is a response to it. It amplifies empathy, respect, and inclusion among students and adults in the school community. It’s trying, through education, to elevate a sense of belonging for kids with disabilities.” 

The program’s name—Just Say Hi!—is the starting place for personal connection. Fink says, “People don’t always know how to interact, so the natural instinct is to avoid interaction, or to deal with the discomfort by ridiculing or bullying or using behaviors that have no place or space in an environment that is aiming to feel welcoming and safe for all.”  

Just Say Hi! teaches disability inclusion through these six scaffolded modules:   

• What Is Disability? 
• Disability History & Laws 
• Making Connections 
• Power of Language 
• Breaking Down Stereotypes 
• Welcoming Communities

Here’s what schools can learn about effective disability inclusion programs based on the Just Say Hi model.   

Be intentional.   

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says disability inclusion is “more than simply encouraging people; it requires making sure that adequate policies and practices are in effect in a community or organization” (CDC, 2020). When disability inclusion is intentional, people with disabilities may become more engaged, take better advantage of available resources and relationships, and enjoy more day-to-day activities, the CDC notes.  

That’s important, Fink shares, because students with disabilities can often feel misunderstood and ignored, leading to greater isolation. “There’s physical safety and then there’s emotional safety,” she points out. “Kids with disabilities tend to have much more experience with feeling unsafe.”  

Partner with disability communities.

The design and content of a disability inclusion program should be developed by and with people who have disabilities. “Every element of our curriculum has been done in partnership with the disability community,” Fink says.

The components of the program, including individual lessons, were written by educators and counselors, many of whom have different types of disabilities and other intersectional identities. The materials can be accessed in many ways. For example, in pre-K through grade 8, every lesson features a video American Sign Language (ASL) word bank, so students can be exposed to and experience seeing and using ASL, helping to break down stereotypes. The ASL word bank was reviewed by a deaf professor at Gallaudet University, a leader in deaf education in the U.S.  

Prepare educators and staff.

Increasingly, students with diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities are included in general education classes. That means educators need more training in how to adapt their lessons and learning environments so everyone has access and feels included.

A group of researchers studying resistance to disability inclusion initiatives identified several sources of discomfort among teachers (Lyra et al., 2023):

• Some felt anxious and uncertain about their ability to teach students with disabilities. 
• Some worried that creating inclusive learning environments would mean a work overload. 
• Some were resistant to change, especially increased collaboration.

For these reasons and others, it’s important for any disability inclusion program to provide ample opportunities for educators and staff to learn and grow.

“We tend to presume competence on the part of educators,” Fink explains, “when most general education teachers have not received training or upskilling on how to deal appropriately with students who have varied disabilities. That’s why professional development is paramount. It’s a must for their own ability to reach and teach every student: Educators need to presume competence among all students.”  

Weave inclusion throughout the whole curriculum. 

The lesson plans, adaptations, and other resources in Just Say Hi are cross-curricular. The 84+ lesson plans are intentionally designed for use in language arts, STEM, history, social studies, counseling, and arts classrooms.

The Just Say Hi Adaptations for Learning help teachers make other lessons, assessments, and materials more accessible and inclusive for all students. The cross-curricular functionality ensures that disability inclusion shows up in every course. It also ensures that no single educator or counselor is responsible for all six modular lessons.  

“The scaffolded lessons are based on the principles of universal design for learning: intentionally designed to be accessible for all students,” Fink notes. “It’s not meant for one teacher to do all six lessons. It’s spread out by subject. The total class time it takes is approximately 3-4.5 hours annually; 5 hours for high school. It’s not a heavy investment of time. It’s a dense, content-rich curriculum.” 

School leaders can also decide exactly how they want to roll out the curriculum—over a week, a month, a season, or the school year. Flexibility is important because lots of educators are dealing with “initiative fatigue”—too many mandates competing for limited time and resources.

“There are lots of options for how to use the program,” says Fink. “It’s adaptable based on individual school calendars.”  

Find out more about the disabilities in your school.

However school leaders decide to address disability inclusion, a good starting place is with an assessment of disability needs and barriers within the school. At the 2023 National Association of Elementary School Principals conference, Fink and her colleagues encouraged school leaders to consider questions like these:

• How many of our students have IEPs or 504 plans? 
• How many of our faculty and staff have visible or invisible disabilities? 
• How many of our staff and students have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health issues?

A close look at the answers can illustrate the importance of intentional disability inclusion. The answers may also help school leaders motivate even more people to participate.  

Look for the ripple effects. 

Studies have shown that when students with special educational needs (SEN) experience inclusive teaching, their academic self-concept improves, as does their sense of social inclusion and school well-being (Alnahdi et al., 2022).

In one study, students with and without special educational needs participated in inclusive interactive groups in general education settings. Researchers predicted that the groups would benefit students with disabilities; what they discovered was that the inclusive activities benefitted everyone academically, socially, and emotionally. Researchers said students in the inclusive, interactive learning environments learned to “respect others, accept differences, and acknowledge different abilities.” New friendships formed, social skills improved, and cognitive abilities grew. One student said the groups made “going to school more meaningful” (Molina Roldán et al., 2021).

Fink echoes these findings. “We’ve seen students feeling comfortable engaging with each other,” she says, “and we’ve seen educators feeling comfortable engaging with students, even those who aren’t necessarily theirs—in the halls, cafeterias, playgrounds, and throughout the school.”  

Key Messages    

School leaders across the nation are looking for ways to raise teacher morale, restore student motivation, and reimagine their school cultures. Disability inclusion programs like Just Say Hi can make a big difference.

It’s important that disability inclusion programs be developed and delivered in concert with people who have disabilities. It’s also vital that they prioritize professional development, provide creative learning across the curriculum, and be flexible enough to make the process easy for overworked educators.  

Maybe that’s a tall order—but it’s one worth filling if it can change how people feel when they’re in school.   

Read more: 

• How WPS is Building Greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 
• Are Your Evaluations Equitable for People with Disabilities?