THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 12, 1995 TAG: 9503110114
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 208 lines
AS A COLLEGE STUDENT, Bonnie V. Teig observed and worked in special-education classrooms. She decided that she couldn't teach children with such special needs without becoming too emotionally involved.
After two years, she switched from an emphasis in special education to elementary education. But she never stopped caring about the children with such special needs.
On Tuesday, Teig, principal of Olive Branch Elementary, was presented a School Bell Award for implementing a program that keeps special-education students in regular classrooms.
The award is given by the Virginia Association of Elementary School Principals.
The Olive Branch program - built on the collaborative efforts of regular teachers and special-education teachers working together in the same classroom at the same time - serves as a model for the district.
The concept, referred to as inclusion, is growing throughout the country and is mandated in some states.
Inclusion goes beyond simply bringing special-education students into regular classrooms for part of the day. It is designed to keep most special-education students in regular classrooms all day.
While inclusion classes are not mandatory in Portsmouth, they increasingly are being started in schools throughout the city.
``I think we actually started in two or three difference places almost simultaneously,'' School Superintendent Richard D. Trumble said. But Olive Branch had the ``best success.''
``We got lucky and hit a larger group of receptive teachers and a principal just a bit more able to handle the anxiety and fears that might come about with such a new program,'' Trumble said.
Carroll Bailey Jr., director of instruction for the public school system, said that while there are other pilot programs, Olive Branch's program is ``by and large, way out in front.''
``There are tours going through all the time,'' he said.
Most of the city's elementary school principals, some of the assistant principals and about 50 teachers and paraprofessionals have been to Olive Branch to observe the program.
Seeing one of the first and most extensive programs has allowed visiting educators to ``see the possibilities and then go work those possibilities into their own environment,'' Bailey said.
Teig sees inclusion as the best way to teach all children.
She spent most of her teaching years working with at-risk children she had to take from their regular classrooms to provide remedial help.
``It was obvious that they needed different approaches to learning,'' she said. ``It was also very obvious that when you pulled those youngsters out, they did not feel a part of of the norm. They felt singled out, they felt different.''
More importantly, sometimes they felt lost.
``Anytime you pull a child out of the classroom, they're going to miss something,'' she said. ``It might be the introduction to the science lesson .
Often they were the students who also developed behavior problems.
Teig believes that being pulled away from their peers, especially positive role models, often led to those problems.
``I think that they know that they're different,'' she said.
That, for Teig, is the beauty of inclusion programs.
``When you walk in, you can't tell who the special-need student is and who isn't because they're all treated special regardless of whether they are accelerated learners or at-risk learners.
``The help is there if they need it any time.''
Teig was introduced to the concept of collaboration and inclusion when she was an assistant principal at Churchland Academy School.
She participated in a training session led by Robert A. Gable, professor of child study and special education at Old Dominion University.
She liked what she heard. She and a few teachers decided to try it in three or four classrooms at Churchland Academy.
Teig was assigned principal at Olive Branch in 1991. At the same time, Bailey was looking for ``folks in leadership positions that had a basic buy-in of the concept,'' he said.
Teig definitely fell into that category and was eager to bring inclusion to Olive Branch. What surprised her was how receptive faculty members, still getting to know her, were to the idea.
``I heard someone say one time, `If you felt strongly enough about something to go down to the mat for it; somebody's going to follow you,' '' she said. ``I felt strongly enough that this was going to be a program that would benefit all children and I guess I was willing to be a risk-taker and go down to the mat if that's what it took.
``They followed me 150 percent,'' she said. ``They gave me their all.''
That support was crucial to an effort that would require endless research and refining, and a complete overhaul of the school's climate and culture.
``It's important to understand that this is a program that has to be developed from within,'' she said. ``You have to realize that it's going to be an evolutionary process.
``It's not a canned program, where you can open a book and follow along with the manual. I think we knew that to begin with. But we made mistakes along the way and we corrected them.''
A Collaboration Committee met almost every other week for two years, looking at data and brainstorming solutions to problems they encountered.
``That committee acted as a catalyst for change,'' Teig said.
There were frustrations, tears, anger and every other emotion imaginable. There also was the joy of success.
Bailey, the director of instruction, worked with Teig to ensure the necessary resources and ODU's Gable worked with the school as a consultant to and member of the Collaboration Committee.
Gable was director of a U.S. Education Department grant project that allowed four Olive Branch teachers to go after masters' degrees in special education with an emphasis in early intervention or collaboration.
A fifth teacher paid her own way.
One was a special-education teacher; the other four were regular classroom teachers who learned about curriculum modification and teaching strategies used to reach special-needs students.
Those five became part of a core team of inclusion teachers.
Regular classroom teachers then were paired with special-education teachers who shared the teaching of the entire class. And that might have been the most difficult adjustment.
``That was a challenge for them,'' Teig said. ``Regular education teachers are very territorial. They have not been used to somebody else coming into their room, planning with them, teaching alongside them and taking responsibility of the children equally,'' she said.
ODU's Gable agrees.
``You run the risks of surrendering your autonomy and your territory, being cast or re-cast in a new and perhaps unfamiliar role,'' Gable said.
``What's remarkable about the staff at Olive Branch is they seemed to . . . recognize early on that the benefits were really far greater than the risks,'' he said.
``They seemed to be very open and willing to observe and to incorporate what they observed in one another's teaching strategies and then apply them to other teaching situations.''
Often, he said, the best teacher is the one who is most willing to learn from someone else.
Gable was impressed by the teachers' professionalism and their desire to learn as much as possible.
``I think one of the other things I admire about Bonnie as well as the staff is their interest and their respect for the cumulative literature and research in the field,'' he said. ``Some people don't put a whole lot of stock in what the experts say.
He described the educators at Olive Branch as ``both teachers and scholars.''
The school, which serves third through fifth grades, started the program with one to two inclusion teachers per grade level. Today, 14 of the 16 regular classroom teachers are inclusion teachers.
``We have enough teachers involved in it now to accommodate all our special-education students and our at-risk students,'' Teig said.
The teachers do team planning, thinking and rethinking the way to reach each student, from accelerated to those with learning disabilities and even some with hearing, vision or speech impairments.
The teachers use various strategies. One teacher might reinforce what another has just taught in a different way. Or both teachers might be teaching at the same time, one lecturing while the other demonstrates with a map.
Such partnerships mean combining the curriculum focus of a regular-classroom teacher with the delivery expertise of a special-education teacher, a blend that Bailey terms ``powerful'' and says benefits all children.
Now in its fourth year, the program is considered to be in its year of refinement, including more focus on accelerated students who did not make as much progress as teachers had expected. One step the staff has taken is to drastically reduce the time those students spend away from class in various clubs and activities.
Generally speaking, test scores for the entire school have consistently risen. Behavior problems have decreased. Children who once had poor attendance problems are now present and, in some cases, on the honor roll.
Trumble is as much impressed by the things he sees when he visits, such as the way special-education children feel about themselves and the way regular-education children relate to students they might at one time have considered different.
``You see kids playing together and going to lunch together and you have to say you've made it a little better world,'' he said. ``That doesn't show up on a test score.''
Teig knows what Trumble means. One of the most exciting moments for her came the day she saw a fifth-grader, who had been a behavior problem the year before, tutoring a special-education student.
``It so happened that this kid with the behavior problem was really a bright kid,'' she said. ``School was just not his No. 1 priority.
``When I walked in (the classroom) I saw him with his arm around another student and he was peer-coaching him and the other child was absolutely engrossed in what this other child was telling him.
``There was no doubt in my mind that the (special-education) child learned more from that experience than anything that his mother could have purchased outside of the school in the way of tutoring.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
[Color Photo]
WINNING EFFORT: Bonnie V. Teig, Olive Branch Elementary School
principal, wins a statewide School Bell Award.
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Principal Bonnie V. Teig talks with students in the cafeteria at
Olive Branch Elementary School, which serves third through fifth
grades.
``When you walk in, you can't tell who the special-need student is
and who isn't,'' says Bonnie Teig.
``The help is there if they need it any time,'' says Teig, who likes
to chat one-on-one with students at Olive Branch.
BONNIE V. TEIG
AGE: 40
EDUCATION: Bachelor's and master's in elementary education from
Old Dominion University; certificate of advanced study in education
administration
ACTIVITIES: Board member of Woman's Club of Portsmouth and
American Red Cross; member of Delta Kappa Gamma Honorary Society,
Virginia and National associations of Elementary School Principals
by CNB