This document summarizes a Parents Night Out event hosted at the UCP Bailes school for children with and without disabilities. It provides details on the host site, activities, participant demographics, reflections on the experience from the group members, and connections to their coursework. The event included movies, food, and play for 17 students ages 2-10 while their caregivers had a night out. The group learned about inclusion, universal design, and strategies for teaching diverse learners. They felt the hands-on experience helped apply their classroom knowledge and made them more comfortable working with students of all abilities.

1. UCP Parents Night Out
Alyssa Beauvais, Michelle Muneton,
Melissa Hardiman, Alexandra
Cacopardo, Megan Stimmel
abeauvais@knights.ucf.edu,
michellemuneton@knights.ucf.edu,
melissa227@knights.ucf.edu,
acacopardo@knights.ucf.edu ,
megan.stimmel@knights.ucf.edu
2/19/16
EEX 4070

2. Introduction to the Host Setting
• Host site - UCP Bailes
• Location - 12702 Science Drive, Orlando, Fl.
• Mission Statement - “To empower children with and
without disabilities to achieve their potential by providing
individualized support, education and therapy services in
an inclusive environment.”
• Grades served - Infants - 5th grade
• UCP in general provides services to more than 3,000
children, teenagers and young adults with 7 locations
throughout Central Florida. UCP Bailes is a largely
inclusive school including students both with and without
disabilities.

3. Engagement Activities
• Caregivers of students at UCP Bailes were able to have a night to
themselves.
• Activities in order of occurrence:
– Watched Fox and the Hound on the big
screen while the students could also play
with legos or their tablets (1h 23min) all
students
– Food: pizza, juice boxes, and popcorn.
Had to assist four younger students with
their food. (1 hour)
– Played Monster’s Inc. on the big screen
– Students watched the movie while playing
with legos, on their tablets, read a book,
or colored (1 hour)
Where did our time go?
• 1 hour: meeting after
class to prepare
• 1 hour: creating a flyer for
the parents
• 30 mins (on average)
travel time
• 3 ½ hours: the event!
• 1 hour: get there early to
set up for students and
clean up after event
• 4 hours: reflection and
presentation

4. The Process
–We knew that we wanted
to do a parents’ night out
–Saw the posting on the
Teachers in Action website
that UCP Bailes was
wanting a parent's night out
–Contacted UCP Bailes’
administration with our
ideas for the event
–Created a flyer to inform
the students of the event
– Held multiple
meetings to make
sure who is bringing
what for the event
– Clarified our last
minute questions
with UCP’s
administration
– Held the event!

5. Participant Demographics
• Participants/Service Recipients: Ages 2-10
–Ethnic background: Caucasian and Asian
–Linguistic heritage: English
• Why are the participants considered persons with disabilities according to
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act? Cite specific parts of I.D.E.A.
as support.
–We suspect that some of the children had autism. There were a few
behavioral problems that we encountered. Some of the children were
too young to determine whether or not they had a disability. UCP Bailes
is an inclusion school, with a 50/50 ratio, so not all of the students had a
disability. There are 14 specific primary terms included in IDEA under
the definition of a child with a disability, and autism is one of these.
Autism is a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and
nonverbal communication and social interaction.
• Specifically how many persons with disabilities did your project involve or
serve?
–There were 17 total students. This is an inclusion school, so the exact
number of children with disabilities is unknown. There were no physical
disabilities.
http://www.ideapartnership.org/topics-database/idea-2004/idea-2004-part-b/1397-definitions-of-disability-terms.html

6. Service in Action
Students coloring on printed out coloring sheets
Welcome banner in the front office

7. Service in Action
Pizza provided by UCP for the students
Popcorn and drinks for the students

8. Service in Action
Students playing with legos Students watching Monsters Inc.

9. Perceptions of Differences
• Going into this assignment we were all nervous and were expecting
students to have more physical and obvious disabilities than what
we were presented with.
• Our thoughts now were that we never know what to expect when
walking into a school whether it is inclusive or not. We feel a lot
more confident about our abilities to interact with students of all
abilities.
• One experience that impacted us all was when a student who had
built a lego tower that another student accidently pushed over.
Student A left the classroom running and screaming because he
was so angry and we had to find a way to come him down and bring
him back to the group. His reactions took us all by surprise.

10. Connections to Your Course
• For course EEX 4070 we participated in Teachers in Action.
• Three course topics that we understand better now are as follows:
–Universal Design for Learning : UDL is a “set of principles for
curriculum development that give all individuals equal
opportunities to learn.” During our service activity, we prepared
activities for children of all different abilities. We brought big
crayons that were easier to hold, we brought movies that could
be watched by everyone, we also brought books and legos.
–Inclusion: Inclusion focuses on keeping the children in the same
room. During our service activity, we kept all of the children in
the same room. The teachers at UCP Bailes offered us a
separate room for the younger children, but we decided to keep
them all together.
–Strategies for learning: We used different strategies to help the
children understand information. During the service activity, we
used hand signals to ask if a little boy would like more food. He
continued to use this hand signal to signify he would like more.
• http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

11. Connections to Your Course
•After this service experience, we understand the course content
better. We were able to put what we learned in the classroom into
use. This experience will help us remember to utilize the content in
the future. We learned a lot more about inclusion, and how to adapt
to each child’s needs.
•This experience will help us in our future studies and professional
work in the following ways:
–The hands on experience helped put everything we learned into
perspective.
–After this experience, we feel a lot more comfortable working
with children with disabilities.
–We will be a lot more open to having an inclusive classroom.
–We know what strategies to use in order to keep the classroom
inclusive for everyone.
–We learned that disabilities comes in many different forms.

12. Civic Engagement
• Our perspective on civic engagement changed because you realize that
service learning leaves a greater impact because you are helping yourself
grow while you are helping someone else.
• Civic engagement serves a great purpose in society because it gives
everyone a chance to give back and get involved in the community.
• Service-learning is a great way to learn because you are able to see first
hand what is actually going on with the students and work hands on with
them.
• This experience motivates us to be more engaged in the future because it
gave us the chance to step outside of our comfort zone and help others
experience something they may never experienced before.
• We would encourage teachers and students to participate in service-
learning because it is easy, not time consuming and it provides opportunity
for personal growth for all parties involved.

13. Final Thoughts & Reflections
• To work toward greater understanding, empathy, and opportunities
for persons with disabilities others could spend more time with these
individuals and not judge them by their disability. To help others
become involved we could introduce them to Teachers in Action.
This is a great program that offers multiple ways of getting involved
with the community.
• Teachers play a very important role in educating students, parents,
and communities. Teachers are responsible for teaching students
social skills, responsibility and basic procedures. Teachers are also
responsible for teaching parents, and communities about what the
students are learning in the classroom and why they are learning
those topics. We believe that teachers are truly paramount to the
"greater good” of society.

14. Group Reflections
•This experience was one I will definitely remember. At first, I was nervous,
but there really wasn’t a reason to be, our parent’s night out went great
even with a few hiccup along the way. I’ve learned that thinking on my feet
is a skill that I will definitely need throughout my career with all students.
(Melissa Hardiman)
•For me this experience was great. I was really nervous going into it just
because I had no idea what to expect. I was preparing to work with children
that had more of a physical disability but I was glad that all of the children
there seemed like they enjoyed it.This experience taught me that there was
nothing to be afraid of and that it’s great to overplan for events like this one.
(Megan Stimmel)
•This experience has taught me how to think on my feet and adapt to
change. I also realized that I assumed these children would all have
physical disabilities. I have worked with children who have Cerebral Palsy,
and now that is what comes to mind when I think of a disability. This
experience reinforced the fact that disability can take all sorts of different
forms. I also learned not to be afraid of working with people who have
disabilities! (Alyssa Beauvais)