Celebrating Inclusive Schools Week: Q&A with DuFief Elementary School

December 8–12 is Inclusive Schools Week. During this week, we celebrate the schools, educators, students and families who work every day to ensure that all students feel welcomed, supported and valued. Inclusive Schools Week highlights the importance of creating learning environments where every student has the opportunities and access needed to thrive.

To mark the week, several schools participated in a short Q&A about what inclusion looks like on their campuses. Each school responded to the same set of questions, offering a glimpse into the practices, partnerships and commitments that help foster belonging and strengthen their school communities.

What does an inclusive school community look or feel like at your building?
At DuFief Elementary inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. From the layout of our building to the development of the master schedule, and to how we deploy our resources to prioritize supports, planning for the inclusion and service to our most fragile learners is always evident.

What inclusive practices or programs are you most proud of?
While students in our Learning Center come to DuFief because of their needs for a self-contained special education classroom, inclusion of our students in the Learning Center begins in kindergarten. Our standard inclusion model has students in Learning Center students in Kindergarten and First Grade included with their general education peers in Lunch and Recess. Starting in Grade 2, students in the Learning Center are included with their general education peers during specials (Art, Music and PE). We organize the three classes of the grade level (2 general education classes and 1 Learning Center class) into squads. Our squads are heterogeneously grouped to include a mix of students among the three classes. Inclusion continues to grow in grades 4 and 5 as we fully include our students in the Learning Center with their general education peers during Science and Social Studies. These classes are co-taught between the special education teacher/paraeducators and general education teachers. While this is our default inclusion model, when students in our Learning Center demonstrate readiness to be included in other areas, we quickly move to provide the supports they require to be successful in the inclusive classroom.

What is one thing your school does consistently to make all students feel welcome?
At DuFief, we leverage the fact that we are one of the smallest schools which allows all of our staff to know every student by name. From the second the students come off the bus, they are all greeted by name with a high five, smile and hug if needed. Regardless of grade or class assignment, nearly all students are regularly addressed by their first name.

How do you involve families, staff or students in your inclusion efforts?
Through the years, we have had a goal to increase our family involvement specifically among families of students in our Learning Center. This year, we created a Special Education Chair position on our PTA, developed an organization Dragons with Heart (to specifically target the inclusion of our families of students with disabilities), and initiated a new event-Dragons with Heart Together with Children’s National. The event was a great success. Not only did it provide a day of fun (bouncy houses, arts and crafts, obstacle course) specifically targeting our students with disabilities and sensory needs, it provided our families of students with disabilities to network and build relationships and raised $2,387 to support Children’s National Hospital, an organization many of our families have utilized. Dragons with Heart is excited to plan future events that will bring in guest speakers and align community partners and resources.

To celebrate, DuFief is hosting their annual Ability Awareness Week. During the week, students from each grade will listen to a 30-minute presentation(s) by a volunteer guest speaker who has a different (dis)ability. Their first guest was Max Nguyen, senior at Wootton HS.