Inclusion and Teaching in Chicago

While in grad school, I wrote a paper about post secondary outcomes for students with disabilities. It was the most depressing paper I ever wrote. The research is disgusting. The majority of adults with disabilities do not have full time employment. Then and there, I vowed to do anything I could in the middle grades to make sure the students on my case load would not be a statistic. The most efficient way to do this was to teach self advocacy skills and make sure my students knew themselves, their strengths, their disability, and how to talk to adults about all of the above. During my time as a middle school learning specialist , my colleague Cara Shannon and I created a plan surrounding transitions and self advocacy. We did a lot of work around self advocacy in 5th, 6th, and 7th grades but this blog will focus on how we got 8th grade students to make an individualized portfolio, email their high school case manager, and present their portfolio all before graduation. Here's my br