S6 E5: CoTeaching with Dr. Kimberly Cass

"Co-teaching does not exist solely to bring two teachers together. Co-teaching exists to serve students." Today Drs. Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines sit down and talk with their colleague, Dr. Kimberly Cass.

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Transcript

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Lisa Dieker  0:08  
Welcome to Practical Access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Hines. And today's topic is a great one really collaboration at large. So Lisa wanted to introduce our guest.

Lisa Dieker  0:19  
Yeah, well, I'm happy to introduce for the first time I've gotten to introduce her this way, Dr. Kimberly Cass. And Kimberly is a friend who goes way back in some work with some schools and districts every time. So welcome, Kimberly, we're glad you're with us.

Kimberly Cass  0:33  
Thank you. Thank you.

Lisa Dieker  0:34  
Yeah, well, so we're excited to have you today to talk a little bit about a topic I know you love. And I love the fact that I thought of you as as a person to talk on the podcast because you weren't in charge of everything, yet, you kind of put yourself in charge of changing some things, in a positive way, in collaboration with lots of other great people, so we will acknowledge that. But could you talk a little bit about kind of your mindset of helping to change a district in the area of co-teaching and more inclusive practices?

Kimberly Cass  1:05  
Well, I think I began, I was a special education supervisor, and I came out of the gates just looking at the co-teaching model, but by the time it was all said and done several years later, inclusive practices was a message and including all students meaningfully. And it came it began from my office, but buy in came from central office, really being invested in the idea and being involved in being the voice that they heard. And so the teachers got excited. We did a lot of professional development with Dr. Dieker. And we did celebrations of the teachers we did Inclusive Schools Week, we did a lot of things across the district to send the message that this is a culture that that district was.

Rebecca Hines  1:50  
And I was wondering, because I've worked with a lot of schools and teachers across the country. In your work, did you see a lot of variation school to school, in their willingness to adopt a model of, like co-teaching?

Kimberly Cass  2:05  
Absolutely. I think and I think this is probably across the country would be my guess is elementary, easier. High School is the most difficult because of the number of content courses and the number of teachers. So yes, elementary? Absolutely. Um, I began at the high school because it was the most challenging. And if I was to do it again, I would begin at the elementary, I think, because once teachers see it works, and once teachers see excitement, they want to be a part of the party, as Lisa would say.

Rebecca Hines 2:35  
Yes, she does like to say that. Well, you know, one of the things that I've seen when I'm training teachers, though, so secondary teachers feel like, oh, it's a lot easier at the elementary level. So that's what they think. And so they like, oh, but I don't know, we're just talking about sciences, high level math. I don't know that content area. So how would I go in and support someone? So I just wondered, if you could give me an example of what you would expect from a teacher who might be the special ed teacher on a co teach team who's put into a classroom in which they're not the content expert, what are some meaningful roles you would expect to see from that person?

Kimberly Cass  3:15  
I think that investing in and as you guys know, planning time is a very challenging thing to do and to have them have, you know, plan time at the same time, and I think that would be one of the major components of them being able to be seen as a team and present themselves as a team that's being able to plan together. And by planning together, they can take the special education expertise, and the content of the general ed teacher expertise and sort of work them together just to best present the information to the students.

Lisa Dieker  3:48  
Yeah, and I know, Kimberly, one of the things you did was at the secondary level, you, you were creative, and can you talk a little bit about your celebration awards kind of talk, walk us through what that looked like, when a teacher was celebrated and what you did with that, because I thought it was very genius, and really did get some great leverage in the district.

Kimberly Cass  4:12  
Um, it was really exciting. The teachers got really excited about it. So what I did is I had teachers nominate other teachers for excellence in inclusive practices in a meaningful way. And they I had them write like a paragraph about why they thought that their colleague was excellent in inclusive practices. And what we did is what I chose to do was not just present them myself, I had the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, and very intentionally the ELL director, um, so that it was across all areas and it came from central office, and it was, you know, an actual board and I went out and I got flowers. And we went school to school and the teachers really got excited and the kids got excited. In some schools announcements were made over the loudspeaker, and some schools kids lined the hall and clapped as the teachers walk by, I had a retired counselor come in for his wife who received one gave her flowers. Um, there was all, every school celebrated in a different way and in a really great way and involved the kids in every, every celebration.

Rebecca Hines  5:17  
Yeah, I love that idea. And especially because it really, it really brings some visibility to teams. So even if I don't co teach with someone now more aware of collaborative settings, because I'm seeing my colleagues recognized. But sometimes things aren't all celebration. So, I wonder if you have any information or ideas about how to problems of when you see that two people who are working together, are struggling to kind of find their balance or to find their their match?

Kimberly Cass  5:57  
Um, I think it's very, very challenging, I think, ideally, that they would pick each other. My, my most successful co-teaching teams picked each other. And were invested in the idea of co-teaching, and the ones that are the most challenging were the ones that were told they were going to co-teach. And I think that's huge when it comes to selecting which teachers are going to co-teach together. And with that said, if you had a pair that wasn't necessarily a pair that chose each other, it's certainly spending time with and collaborating with them, and talking about the importance of their collaboration and really highlighting the expertise of the special education teacher, because at the secondary level, sometimes it's challenging for the general ed teachers to understand what that expertise is, and how it can be beneficial to them.

Lisa Dieker  6:48  
I love it. And I know that one of the things that you always really focused on I think about the second year because we when we started this journey, you know, everybody kind of said look for five years, and I think you would agree it took five years, and there still were holdouts even five years later, but I think the holdouts were the exception instead of the norm and we jokingly say, was an inclusion party. And those who weren't invited stoped trying to come to the party they just kind of said, you know what, we're going to move out of the way, but I think it was about year two, that you and your leadership team really said, let's bring on the general ed side. And let's make this a different message. Can you talk to us a little bit about that general ed side of that fence?

Kimberly Cass  7:32  
Yes, so absolutely. So I didn't want it to be a special ed thing and so I intentionally sort of took myself out of being seen or heard with a message, the message was coming either from the building principal, or it was coming from the central office superintendent, assistant superintendent, I worked most closely with the assistant superintendent. So she was one sending out the emails inviting people to do the trainings and we would handpick general educators we thought that would jump on board and invite them to the inclusive practices academy. We, we did a book study where we handpick general educators and the book itself was Fish in a Tree, which is actually a book written for students about a young lady with with dyslexia just so to see it in front of students with a disability lens. So there was a lot of thoughtful choosing of making sure that general ed was a lot of the focus because you're preaching to the choir with special ed, you got to get the general ed people involved and get them invested.

Rebecca Hines 8:36  
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And my final, my final question, you guys, you know, I'm just teasing Lisa about the whole party idea, but it is what she does well, she does make people want to be a part of something. We all know that generating some enthusiasm and helping people to see what can work instead of paying all of our attention to the things that aren't working really is key. So, for my final question, could you give us an example of maybe what was the best thing you saw from a single co-teach team? Does something jump out at you that somebody did particularly well that might be instructive for the rest of us?

Kimberly Cass  9:18  
I think that when the students don't know which teacher is which I think that's huge. Um, I think that that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a team that is collaboratively, you know, educating the students. You know, I had a particular classroom at the junior high where she would pull kids to do it enrichment, the special ed teacher would she would, they would go back, if you got pulled from a classroom it wasn't because you were a special ed kid, you get pulled from a classroom for a variety of different reasons. And so it was just the norm. It wasn't, the co-teaching model was just aren't we lucky we have two teachers in the room. And you know, a lot of the things that Lisa shared with us that were really important were some of the smaller things. Special Ed teachers should be in the classroom when the kids arrive, she shouldn't be showing up later. She should be doing like to do now so that the kids understand that she's part of that content sharing like all of those things so that there's equity in the relationship and viewed as equitable.

Lisa Dieker  10:15  
So my final question is, you know, you really had some vision of where to start, you know, you you really partnered with a great middle school principal we're hoping to get on this podcast too that really changed a building and is now the biggest fan of inclusion and co-teaching and partnered in that. But I think something else that you did isn't just walk in the buildings and make a difference, but you also were very data driven. So kind of my final question, could you share with me things you use data, how you use data, kind of to say where we're going, how we're moving forward, I know you kept a lot of, you know, which teachers were involved, how the buildings were moving forward. Any thoughts there that you might give advice to other buildings of ways to look at your progress?

Kimberly Cass  11:02  
I think that, and it's interesting, because when you you think about data and you think about progress, when you think about inclusive practices as a culture, the culture shift takes time. So the data doesn't come right away, right. So you have to give it time in order for the culture in the building to be one of inclusivity and so that the kids are more included and so then you see the data. So the data wasn't right away, for sure. I think that's what folks thought, I think they thought that that you know, we had a consultant, we were on fire about this, so well the MCAT scores are going to change immediately, and that's not the way it works. Students are bigger than just their state test scores. And so you have to look at the whole child and all of those pieces, the benchmarks and the formative and summative assessments of the students beyond just the state data.

Lisa Dieker  11:50  
Yeah, and I love that you took that day to day data as well. So any last, as we wrap up anything other words of wisdom you'd like to share that we didn't ask you? I just wanted to make sure I gave you a chance because I saw you have a great little list there of things you've been thinking about?

Kimberly Cass  12:05  
Well, I was thinking actually about the convocation video because I thought that was a really neat thing is we did a video of one of the students who was now a film major in New York, um, did a video across the district of inclusive practices, celebrating the teachers, having the teachers celebrate their relationships, and highlights their strategies and experiences and the kids shared about how they liked being with their peers and their friends when they shared, like in group work and being able to collaborate with their peers. And it was just really powerful to have the entire district in a room with a video just celebrating inclusive practices and teachers. And I just think that was pretty powerful message across the district to all staff.

Lisa Dieker  12:52  
I love it and everything you did always involved kids so. Well, we thank you for sharing with us and congratulations on your recent doctorate. We're very proud of you. And I know University of Massachusetts Amherst is lucky to have you teaching some courses for them. So, we appreciate you joining us Kimberly and if you have questions, please send us questions on our Facebook page at Practical Access or you can send us a Tweet @accesspractical. Thanks.