What role can administrators play in inclusive education?

Administrators provide the impetus and support to make inclusive education happen. With their staff and parents, they need to think of the kind of people they would like their students to be - good neighbors, people who will be productive, self-motivat ed, and good decision-makers?

Vision and Agenda - With this goal in mind, administrators can provide the vision of how a school will look it if educates all of its students. From there, administrators can help plan the agenda for achieving those goals. To do this, administrators mu st understand the role of each professional in providing equal educational opportunities to all students (Bauwens & Hourcade, 1995).

Structure and Organization - Administrators can facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration by removing the barriers to change. They may need to restructure the school day to include release and planning time for collaborators, scheduling changes, and various forms of technical assistance such as decreasing class size, providing paraprofessional assistance (Wood, 1992).

Staff Training - Staff training, continuing education, and ongoing professional development opportunities will be necessary. Administrators can support teachers in inclusive schools by providing inservice training that addresses teacher-identified need s; employing competent personnel to deliver the training, offering incentives to educators to participate, using a variety of methods, and coordinating the training with other districts or institutions. The administrators must also build time into teacher s' schedules to allow collaborative problem solving, team meetings, peer coaching sessions, and adaptation of materials (Idol & West, 1987).

Allocation of Resources - A creative distribution and pooling of resources is essential to implementing and maintaining cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Resource: Alper, S. (1995). Inclusion - Are We Abandoning or Helping Students? Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.