This document discusses school leadership for students with disabilities. It identifies four key dimensions of instructional leadership that are important for students with disabilities: setting high expectations, promoting a positive disciplinary climate, facilitating high-quality instruction and progress monitoring, and supporting teaching effectiveness. Each dimension is described in more detail. The document emphasizes the importance of instructional leadership, collective and distributed forms of leadership, and establishing an inclusive school culture with high expectations for all students, including those with disabilities.

1. School Leadership for Students With
Disabilities
Project #H325A120003
Course Enhancement Module Anchor Presentation #4

2. Provides Instructional
Leadership
Facilitates Inclusive
Culture
(2 parts)
Facilitates
Collaboration
Involves Parents &
Community
Academic
&
Life
Outcomes
School Leadership
District Leadership

3. Objectives
• Identify the importance of high
expectations for students with
disabilities.
• Explain key dimensions of instructional
leadership and relevance to students
with disabilities.
• Describe the relevance of collective and
distributed forms of leadership for
students with disabilities.

4. What Is Instructional
Leadership?
What activities are part of
instructional leadership?

5. Dimensions of Instructional
Leadership
• Three dimensions encompassing 10 specific instructional
leadership functions (Hallinger et al., 2013):
o Defining the school mission.
o Managing the instructional program.
o Developing the school learning climate.
• Identify four school leadership activities (Leithwood, Harris,
& Hopkins, 2008)
o Building vision/setting directions.
o Understanding and developing people.
o Redesigning the organization.
o Managing the teaching and learning program (p. 29).

6. Importance of Instructional Leadership
(Elmore, 2004)
“the skills and knowledge that matter in
leadership . . . are those that can be connected
to, or lead directly to, the improvement of
instruction and student performance. Under
this definition, principals’ core work is
instructional improvement, and everything else
is instrumental to it” (p. 58).

7. Instructional Leadership
& Students With Disabilities
(Billingsley, McLeskey, & Crockett, 2014)
1. Setting high expectations/academic
press.
2. Promoting a positive disciplinary
climate.
3. Facilitating high-quality instruction and
progress monitoring.
4. Support teaching effectiveness.

8. 1. Academic Press/High
Expectations
• Normative emphasis on academic success.
• Achievement goals and standards high and
clear.
• Review of 20 research studies demonstrate
link between academic press and student
achievement (Leithwood, Patten, & Jantzi,
2010).
• School leaders help set expectations.
• Staff and others involved in goal setting,
communicating, and monitoring of learning
goals (Robinson et al., 2008).

9. Clear Mission
Ruleville Central Elementary: Provide
“rigorous and relevant educational
experiences daily that will enable students
to develop positive social, emotional, and
intellectual relationships and compete
with students at premier institutions
locally, nationally, and globally.”
From http://www.swiftschools.org/april-2014

10. Academic Press in Practice
• Specific practices that reinforce academic
press:
oSetting clear goals for student
achievement.
oFocus on instructional time.
oCommunicate high expectations to
students (e.g., expected classroom
behavior, challenging assignments,
homework).

11. Academic Press & Students
With Disabilities
• Establishing high expectations for all,
including students with disabilities.
• Students with disabilities expected to work
toward the same standards as all students.
• Strong achievement orientation a
distinctive factor in successful inclusive
schools (Dyson et al., 2004).
• Collective responsibility for educating
students with disabilities among all in
school.

12. 2. Positive Disciplinary Climate
(Leithwood et al., 2010)
• Key goal is a safe, orderly, productive,
and positive learning environment.
• Linked to student achievement.
• Academic press + a positive disciplinary
climate: explains more achievement
variation between schools than these
two variables working alone (Leithwood
et al., 2010).

13. Positive Disciplinary Climate in
Practice
• Orderly environment and
student achievement.
• Preventing disruptions.
• School-wide frameworks to
teach and improve behavior.

14. School-Wide Positive Behavioral
Support (pbis.org)
• Focused on prevention.
• Three tiers of intervention with progress monitoring:
o Primary (clear behavioral expectations, taught,
supervised and reinforced).
o Secondary (range of supports provided for those
not responding to primary).
o Tertiary (specialized and individualized supports for
students exhibiting chronic and high-risk
behaviors).
• Linked experimentally to decreased behavior referrals
and improved achievement (Horner et al., 2009).

15. Example of PBIS in
Gwinnett County
http://www.pbis.org/swpbs_videos/d
efault.aspx

16. Positive Disciplinary Climate and
Students with Disabilities
• Students with disabilities, like other
students, benefit from SWPBS systems.
• Students with disabilities may be served
at any tier.
• Significant behavioral needs are
addressed in Tier 3.

17. 3. High-Quality Instruction &
Progressing Monitoring
• Promoting the use of high-quality
instructional practices.
• Ensuring that teachers have
opportunities to learn about and use
instructional practices supported by
research.
• Protecting instructional time.
• Monitoring student progress on regular
basis to determine progress toward
learning goals.

18. Response to Intervention (RtI)
Three assumptions (Deshler & Cornett,
2012):
1.All students can learn.
2.Teacher instruction most powerful in
predicting student success.
3.Schools must provide all students with
supports to benefit from education.

19. Response to Intervention (RtI)
• Universal screening.
• High-quality instruction.
• Data-based decision making.
• Frequent progress monitoring.
• Increasingly intense levels of instructional
intervention:
o Primary.
o Secondary.
o Tertiary.
• Fidelity measures.
From: IRIS Module (RTI for Mathematics)
http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/rti-math/cresource/what-is-
rti-for-mathematics/rti_math_02/#content

20. Ruleville Elementary
From swift.org
• Create protected time in the schedule
so that Tier 1 literacy instruction occurs
daily from 7:45-9:15 a.m.
o Two adults in every classroom.
• Additional Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction
at the end of the day.
o Students in lowest quartile.
o Small groups.
o Highly qualified teachers.

21. Video: Response to Instruction
Boulevard Elementary School
http://www.rtinetwork.org/professional/video
s/virtualvisits

22. Save the Last Word for Me
• To deepen and extend our thinking
about promoting effective instructional
practices.
• Groups of four.
• Leader to be timekeeper.
• Handout 1 and homework reading
(Deshler & Cornett, 2012).

23. High-Quality Instruction &
Students With Disabilities
• Intensive, individualized instruction at Tier 3 may
define special education (Brownell et al. 2010).
• Use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) proved to
enhance effectiveness for students with disabilities
is key.
• Importance of differentiated instruction/Universal
Design for Learning (UDL).
• Need for administrative support for differentiated
instruction at the school level:
o Professional learning.
o Collaborative cultures.
o Support individual teachers’ efforts.

24. 4. Supporting Teaching
Effectiveness

25. Use of one’s “knowledge, skills,
and abilities . . . in an
environment conducive to
teaching and learning”
Ladson-Billings, 2008, p. 207 (emphasis added)

26. Promoting Teaching
Effectiveness
• Recruiting and hiring.
• Teacher induction.
• Ongoing, embedded professional
learning (professional learning
communities [PLCs]).

27. Promoting Teacher
Effectiveness
• Supportive culture:
o Inclusive culture—collective responsibility.
o Collaboration among teachers.
o Effective communication.
• Effective job design:
o Clarity about valued activities.
o Schedules that supports instruction and
collaboration.
• Instructional supports:
o Resources.
o Protects teachers from interruptions and
unnecessary clerical tasks.

28. From a Special Educator
"My environment is wonderful. I have a really
strong support system, and the principal is
flexible and gives us feedback. She gives us
ideas about what to do with reading too. She
trusts us and allows us to make the decisions,
which is very powerful for teachers . . . I am
not isolated. Isolation and student behavior is
why a lot of my friends leave teaching.”
(Bishop, Brownell, et al., 2010, p. 87)

29. Video:
Instructional Leadership at
Henderson School
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=NRR67_osT-Q

30. Distributed Leadership
• Principals are not the only leaders.
• Multiple individuals take responsibility for
leadership.
• Roles may be formal or informal.
• Teachers play a major role in inclusive
reform.
• Numerous examples of teacher leadership
in special education.
Billingsley, 2007

31. References
Billingsley, B. (2007). Recognizing and supporting the critical roles of teachers in special education
leadership. Exceptionality, 15(3), 163-176. [In special issue, titled, The Changing Landscape in Special
Education Administration].
Billingsley, B., McLeskey, J., & Crockett, J. B. (2014). Principal leadership: Moving toward inclusive and
high-achieving schools for students with disabilities (Document No. IC-8). Retrieved from University of
Florida, Collaboration for Effective Educator, Development, Accountability, and Reform Center website:
http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/tools/innovation-configurations/
Bishop, A. G., Brownell, M. T., Menon, S., Galman, S., & Leko, M. (2010). Understanding the influence of
personal attributes, preparation, and school environment on beginning special education teachers’
classroom practices during reading instruction. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(2), 75-93.
Brownell, M. T., Sindelar, P. T., Kiely, M. T., & Danielson, L. C. (2010). Special education teacher quality and
preparation: Exposing foundations, constructing a new model. Exceptional Children, 76, 357-377.
Crockett, J., Billingsley, B., & Boscardin, M. L. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of leadership & administration for
special education. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Deshler, D. D., & Cornett, J. (2012). Leading to improve teacher effectiveness: Implications for practice,
reform, research, and policy. In J. B Crockett, B. S. Billingsley, & M. L. Boscardin (Eds.), Handbook of
leadership & administration for special education (pp. 239-259). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

32. References
Dyson, A., Farrell, P., Polat, F., Hutcheson, G., & Gallannaugh, F. (2004). Inclusion and pupil achievement
(Research Report No. 578). Retrieved from National Archives website:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/https://www.education.gov.uk/publication
s/eOrderingDownload/RR578.pdf
Elmore, R. F. (2004). School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice, and performance. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard Education Press.
Goddard, Y. L., Neumerski, C. M., Goddard, R. D., Salloum, S. J., & Berebitsky, D. (2010). A multilevel
exploratory study of the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of principals’ instructional support
and group norms for instruction in elementary schools. The Elementary School Journal, 111(2), 336-357.
Hallinger, P., Wang, W., & Chen, C. (2013). Assessing the measurement properties of the principal
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Quarterly, 49(2), 272-309.
Horner, R., Sugai, G., Smolkowski, K., Todd, A., Nakasato, J., & Esperanza, J. (2009). A randomized control
trial of school-wide positive behavior support in elementary schools. Journal of Positive Behavior
Interventions, 11(3), 133-144.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). Opportunity to teach: Teacher quality in context. In D.H. Gitomer (Ed.).
Measurement Issues and Assessment for Teacher Quality
(pp. 206-222). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

33. References
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achievement: A view from the middle grades in Chicago. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago School
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Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school Leadership.
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