Education services for students who are visually impaired are one of the many areas of special education provided by Round Rock ISD. Creating equitable access for a diverse student population is one of the primary areas of focus for the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. January is Braille Literacy Month and in step with that acknowledgment, I have asked Marie Gonzales, the Executive Director of Special Education, to join me in an equity profile submission. I have had the privilege of working with Marie over the past year and consider her an expert and trusted colleague.
As human beings, it’s in our nature to look for patterns in our world and categorize things. And when it comes to special education, we are even more prone to utilize labels because a student becomes eligible for special services by being identified as having a specific and impactful disability. We must be careful in our use of labels. I’ve heard more than one well-meaning educator refer to a student by saying, “They’re special education.” Special education is a set of services students access – it’s not who they are.
Identifying each student’s needs related to an established disability is crucial to developing an individual education plan. Still, it’s important to remember that having a disability is just one facet of that student. Similarly, special education is not a place. There was a time when special education was a single classroom at the back of the campus. Thankfully, that’s in the distant past.
Our team of special education educators relentlessly champion the student crafting highly specialized plans that may include offering services in a general education learning environment, creating a smaller setting, or changing campuses to access clustered specialized services. Depending on a student’s needs, services can start at birth and continue through 21 years old.
I’m incredibly proud of the robust continuum of instruction and related services Round Rock ISD has developed and provides our students with specialized instructional needs.
When we look at special education through an equity lens, it brings to mind an article I read about fighter plane cockpits. Cockpits were originally designed to fit the needs of the average pilot, an average developed by examining various physical measurements of hundreds of pilots. While that may seem like a reasonable approach, doing so resulted in an abnormally high number of plane crashes. After much study, the Air Force concluded that not one single pilot fit the average measurement across all 10 areas that had been included in calculating the average. Not one! They intended to design a plane for the average pilot, but the result was a design for no one. The Air Force immediately changed the cockpit to accommodate pilots across a wide range of measurements, and the number of plane crashes dramatically decreased.
Applying the cockpit concept to education, we risk creating lessons that instruct no one when designing instruction for the average student. Average? Normal? How meaningful are those terms when applied to people? Human beings are incredibly diverse, and we need to teach to meet diverse learner needs. When we toss out the idea of “normal,” we free up our thinking. It is a catalyst for creativity. Creativity grows us as educators and, most importantly, better meets our students’ needs.
DeWayne Street
Chief Equity Officer
