All Means All
Why True Inclusion in Schools Is a Moral and Legal Imperative
Dr. Gloria Jones has done it all, in all types of schools. She’s been a teacher, special education director, principal, and executive director. So when she says the word “All”, she, as much as anyone, knows what that means.
In this case, ‘All’ means ensuring every child—regardless of ability, background, or circumstance—has access to an inclusive, supportive learning environment.
Last year, I was a Fellow with the American Montessori Society (AMS) Innovation Think Tank and my working group focused on studying inclusion best practices for school communities. Our study developed into an NPR StoryCorps-like project where we utilized audio/video storytelling as a way to leverage participants' shared stories as lessons for the Montessori community. As the project evolved, we realized the power of shared narratives in shaping best practices for inclusion. We detailed our findings in an article published in the latest AMS publication, Montessori Life (pg. 42).
The model relies on creating safe spaces for sharing stories in an interview format. We quickly learned from a contact at NPR that the best way to do that was to have folks sit with someone they already know well. To test this approach, I started by interviewing someone whose voice in this conversation I value—Dr. Gloria Jones, who is currently the Exceptional Children Director at my school in North Carolina. I asked to interview her because of her depth of experience and because we already had a good rapport and working relationship.
In this interview, I asked Dr. Jones about what she thinks “belonging” means in schools. We spoke for more than an hour and I’m sharing a 2 minute clip I found especially impactful.
What I love about these remarks is that she reminds us of the essential work of inclusion in schools—both as a moral and legal imperative. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure of reasons to prioritize inclusion: either because you believe it to be the right thing for all children or because it’s illegal not to.
Either way, it’s a non-negotiable. Because All Means All.
Audio Transcript:
“Belonging means being a part of and having access to.
My role is simply as an advocate and to ensure that we all follow policy and procedures to afford students who are eligible FAPE - for free and appropriate public education. So it really is an advocate.
Advocacy sometimes is not too special ed, but it's gen ed. It's just to ensure that the student gets the support they need as much as possible with their non-disabled peers.
Prior to 1975, I would say, we didn't have that. They were either at home or institutionalized. That was their life.
And so, you know, go back to Brown vs. the Board of Education and out of that fight for civil rights for all of us, really, emerged the rights of people with disabilities. And then the different laws around that.
And so it is the law. It's just like driving. You have laws. We have to adhere to the laws so that we can make sure that we are all safe out on the highway.
We have to adhere to these laws to make sure that every student gets what they need. And if we believe that all means all, and we believe that all students can learn in some capacity, and we are truly in the business of educating everybody, then that's what we do.”