Imagine being treated as a guest in your own school. 

For many students, not only is that their reality - it's by design. 

In part 1 of this 2 part episode, Erin Croyle and special education teacher Trina Allen break down what needs to be done to create meaningful inclusion in academics, throughout our school communities, and beyond. 

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability. 

The Center for Family Involvement at VCU School of Education's Partnership for People with Disabilities provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you. 

 

 

SHOW NOTES:

Talia A. Lewis' Working Definiciton of Ableism.

How much are students with disabilities actually included? This breakdown demonstrates there is much work to be done.

What is the Affordable Care Act?

National Center for Education Statistics releases various annual reports and as well as topical studies. 

More on the Ithaca City School District. 

Inclusion benefits EVERYone.

Learn more about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle, the creator and host. The Odyssey podcast explores how our lives change when a loved one has a disability. I started down this path more than a decade ago when my first child was born with Down's Syndrome. My journey weaved its way here, working with the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's partnership for People with Disabilities.

 

01:00:39 :04 - 01:01:08 :18

Erin Croyle

This podcast does a deep dive into the joys and hardships we face. We celebrate how amazing the odyssey of parenting, caregiving and disability can be. But we tackle the tough stuff too. Inclusion could be one of the most complex. As guest Trina Allen points out, students with disabilities are often treated as guests in their own schools. Trina should know.

 

01:01:08 :20 - 01:01:28 :22

Erin Croyle

She's a special education teacher who moved all the way across the country with her family to work at one of the few school districts she could find that is striving toward meaningful inclusion. Trina, thank you so much for joining me.

 

01:01:28 :24 - 01:01:38 :13

Erin Croyle

Champions for inclusion are real life superheroes, and superheroes typically have some great origin stories. So let's start with yours. How did you get to this place?

 

01:01:38 :16 - 01:01:59 :07

Trina Allen

Well, first off, it's an honor to be here. So thank you. And I've always worked with kids. I worked in group homes and transitional living programs, and I did hotline services and things like that. And it was it was what I intended to do. I tended to be a therapist and I went to school and got my bachelor's in psychology and was going to move on.

 

01:01:59 :07 - 01:02:22 :07

Trina Allen

And then the art therapy, I wanted to be an art therapist and the art therapy program I was assisting in was shut down. And it was for a group of students that had really intensive trauma and really needed that. Therapy is a heartbreaking thing, but they offered me at the school to work and the program for autistic students.

 

01:02:22 :09 - 01:02:48 :19

Trina Allen

And so I, I said, Yeah, sure. And within a month they offered me a teaching position and I was in no way prepared or qualified any fashion for that. And I jumped in right away and eventually got my master's in special education. And, and it was at the most secluded, the most restricted, most segregated placement for students who had been forcibly exited from the general public education.

 

01:02:48 :19 - 01:03:20 :16

Trina Allen

And I didn't know that I didn't know anything at the time. I didn't know anything about histories of disability and resistance and pressure for inclusion. And so I left there when I realized I couldn't. I was there for years. It was very painful to see students who could not get what they need and who needed so much. Their support needs were being routinely denied and I did my very best in making this space as loving as it possibly could within the context of extreme deprivation.

 

01:03:20 :18 - 01:03:38 :24

Trina Allen

It was terrible. And so I went to the district thinking that it would be better and I loved it, and it was still segregated and I did a lot of things to force that to change. As I understood more and more what my students needed and also listened to people listen to it. Disabled adults who were like, This is what needs to happen.

 

01:03:39 :03 - 01:04:16 :08

Trina Allen

And the best that I could do was harm reduction. I had a reverse inclusion program and I thought that by proving it could work and it did, that it would make the systemic inclusion of my students easier. Like, Look, the kids are already in, I already did it. We got it. Let me let's now make it institutionalized as opposed to like just this thing that we tagged ragtag together and there was literally no fat, no willingness, nothing, not even an ideological concern, no disabled people making any of the decisions.

 

01:04:16 :10 - 01:04:40 :06

Trina Allen

And I realized, okay, like I'm getting paid to segregate kids and I got to go. And so I we looked across the country and had like five states. We were thinking about an ethical city school district said, hey, inclusion. And then it's actually done for students with high support needs. And I was like, okay, this might be just the website.

 

01:04:40 :08 - 01:05:06 :15

Trina Allen

What happens if we move there? It isn't like that. And I have been glad to say that. Well, there's so, so, so much work to be done. It's a possibility. It's a possibility. Whereas everywhere I worked in the past I haven't been and that's where I am now. And I would say that my continued journey is really understanding my own neurodivergent and moving in the ways in which I want the world to look and listening to disabled voices.

 

01:05:06 :15 - 01:05:08 :20

Trina Allen

That's sort of where I'm.

 

01:05:08 :22 - 01:05:20 :06

Erin Croyle

Trying to tell me more about the search for inclusive school districts. When you were searching, how many were out there that even talked about having inclusive practices?

 

01:05:20 :08 - 01:06:06 :22

Trina Allen

Well, like all things that get co-opted sort of by general rhetoric and they become meaningless. And so the word inclusion, the word diversity equity starts out as a rallying cry for changing systemic oppression, and it gets whitewashed into something that's just up towards a system that looks a little bit nicer, if that makes sense. And so it was very hard to be honest when District said inclusion, and what they could have meant was they have a nice bench for kids to sit out together and not think their their curriculum and their program instruction and their general ethos and the way in which they provide space for folks with disabilities to lead to be their own

 

01:06:06 :22 - 01:06:31 :07

Trina Allen

heroes. Right. And I think that is almost nothing you can find on the website. So it was really difficult. I did look up several writers that I liked. I looked u