Building Locally: Concord Works for District Change

Donna Palley, Concord's special education coordinator for the past 15 years, has long been interested in technology's tremendous potential to help learners with special needs. In 1994, when Concord began building its technology infrastructure, Palley seized the opportunity to integrate these kinds of supports. She came to CAST for guidance, and ever since, our organizations have been collaborating to weave the concepts of UDL into the fabric of the entire Concord school district. This has involved work from the bottom up—focusing on one student, one teacher, one unit of curriculum at a time—and from the top down—securing participation and support from the administration and the community.

Early Decisions and First Steps

A critical early decision for Concord personnel was to focus on the limitations of the curriculum rather than the presumed limitations of the students. They replaced the question, "What can't this student do?" with the question, "What barriers will this student encounter when participating in this unit of curriculum?" This approach brought about three significant benefits that proved critical during the program's kickoff stages:

• Classroom teachers felt that UDL addressed their work and their curriculum, not just one student.
• Special education teachers felt that UDL enabled them to contribute to curricular efficacy for every student, not just for one or two particular students.
• Teachers, specialists, administrators, and parents embraced the mindset of expanding and improving curricula.

Donna Palley's discussions with CAST and her personal experience as a technology specialist led her to believe that eliminating curriculum barriers was best supported by a curriculum with embedded technology. The district passed a resolution to "tool up" by installing networked computers in all its schools and supplying the hardware and software necessary to provide text-to-speech and a variety of customizations (for example, Inspiration, Write: OutLoud, CAST eReader, Picture It, PixReader, and MathPad Plus). To facilitate the transition from print-based curricular materials to digital materials, Concord set up a scanning center, where teachers, parents, and community volunteers could digitize curriculum materials and deposit them in the district's newly established digital library.

Concord's decision to increase the availability of digital content and tools expanded learning opportunities for all its students. When the district first began instituting UDL, these opportunities were explored on a limited scale—sometimes as small as one short curriculum unit in one classroom. Donna Palley began by working with individual teachers to assist particular students who did not fit the mold. For example, she pointed out that any text could be digitized, and once digitized, could be read aloud or highlighted for beginning or struggling readers, or for students with learning disabilities, or for students with limited English proficiency. Concord teachers started finding that digital text and images also offered other kinds of flexibility, such as the option to change the appearance of the text or to convert the text to Braille via a Braille printer. And digitized text supported students' ability to take effective notes and made it easier for them to manipulate text for the purposes of composition.

The Model’s Evolution

Concord's early experiments in selected classrooms proved to be more globally successful than anyone had hoped. Teachers discovered that the changes benefited not only the children whose needs precipitated them, but others in the class as well. This realization led to contagious enthusiasm. Soon interested teachers from all over the district contacted Palley, wanting in.

Palley built upon this strong teacher support by “infiltrating” the system at several levels. She made presentations highlighting the advantages of UDL to Concord’s school board, district administration, and curriculum steering committees. Through workshops, she helped to expand the roles of special education personnel and to develop collaborations between special and regular education teachers. She sought grants to support new initiatives. Throughout these efforts, she worked with CAST to refine ideas and develop new concepts.Palley built upon this strong teacher support by "infiltrating" the system at several levels. She made presentations highlighting the advantages of UDL to Concord's school board, district administration, and curriculum steering committees. Through workshops, she helped to expand the roles of special education personnel and to develop collaborations between special and regular education teachers. She sought grants to support new initiatives. Throughout these efforts, she worked with CAST to refine ideas and develop new concepts.

What ultimately emerged from work that began with one student, one unit, and one classroom is an entirely new approach to curriculum planning. In the years since 1994, Concord's school system has become living, breathing example of UDL in action. Rather than adapt the curriculum to fit students with particular problems, personnel identify potential barriers to learning at the onset of curriculum planning. By anticipating these barriers, such as those posed by printed text, they are able to construct solutions before problems arise.

Today, Concord is ablaze with new and exciting projects. Teachers are eager to join in. Insights arise daily. Although Donna Palley would be the first to reiterate that the district is still far from its evolving goals, CAST and Concord have learned many valuable lessons. We offer them here as a guide for schools and school systems interested in moving towards UDL.

Example: Hear about UDL's impact in one classroom.