special education

Putting the Framework in Action

Randa Sfeir

Walden University

Putting the Framework in Action

The Coherence Framework is a holistic process that involves using the mode of learning that periodically going ''from practice to theory, and then back and forth to obtain more specific insights about how to lead and participate in transformative change in schools and school systems'' (Fullan, 2015). Changing the whole system can be very complicated, and hence should first encompass ridding the operation of the constraints and determining what makes it more liberated, before seeking coherence. The achievement of coherence ‘‘is through purposeful action and interaction, working on capacity, clarity, the precision of practice, transparency, monitoring of progress, and continuous correction, [all which]…requires the right mixture of “pressure and support” (Fullan, 2015). Accordingly, the Framework includes four components, 1) focusing direction, 2) cultivating collaborative cultures, 3) deepening learning, and 4) securing accountability’’ (Fullan, 2015).

Postsecondary education is a primary transition goal for the majority of secondary school students with disabilities, and completion of postsecondary education meaningfully improves an individual’s chances of securing meaningful employment and other positive adult outcomes ( Talapatra, Roach, Varjas, Houchins, and Crimmins, 2018). IDEA (2004) requires schools to invite participating agencies to the ARD meetings and makes sure all services deemed necessary provided (Povenmire-Kirk, Diegelmann, Test, Aspel, and Everson, 2015).

Clear and Shared Focus

The focusing direction component founded on change leadership, clarity of strategy, impactful goals, and drive-based on purpose backgrounds. For the purpose-driven segment, an agency has to clarify its moral purpose, by reflecting and recording on such issues as the achievement strategy, how to help others define and achieve their own, and whether it is ‘‘making progress in realizing the moral purpose with students’’ (Fullan, 2015). Using the CIRCLES program will help the educators and the stakeholders to exchange their thoughts and ideas with each other and conduct a discussion on the emerging themes. For the clarity of the strategy segment, leaders must ensure that they ‘‘shape and reshape good ideas’’ when building ‘‘capacity and ownership’’ but not rely solely on goals clarity (Fullan, 2015). Coherence encompasses interplay between strategy explicitness and culture change. An amalgam of the two will ultimately create superficiality, inertia, resistance, and depth, all key change quality protocol results (Fullan, 2017). The purpose is to empower the students with disabilities and their parents by equipping them with information about agencies. Also, teachers have bright and positive ideas in preparing students for their meetings. Povenmire-Kirk et al. (2017) stated that preparing students should focus on what they wanted to do after high school in terms of employment, education or training, and independent living.

Cultivate Collaborative Cultures

Cultivating collaborative cultures comprises focusing on ‘[culture growth, learning leadership, capacity building, and collaborative work’’ (Fullan, 2015). For instance, to leverage existing within-school variability, especially between teachers, a leader must focus on balancing the autonomy and cooperation of teachers. It is crucial to apply a mixture of flexibility based on interaction among the stakeholders and the interagency when applying for the CIRCLES program. Consequently, minimizing groupthink, creating cultures of collaboration, and enhancing the tendencies for participation in districts and schools network for knowledge exchange related is an essential requirement within the Coherence Framework. According to Fullan (2014), a useful learning framework that instills in a learner's success and well-being in life must encompass ethics and entrepreneurship.

CIRCLES, in general, will help conduct meetings, discussions that are rich and includes discussing how agencies could work together to assist students, share agency information about available community services, and work together as one team member stated to break down barriers. Collaboration and networking at all three levels of the program include how agencies could work together to meet the needs of students and their families. Teams were solution-focused when one agency could not provide; others stepped in to ensure student and family need to be met ( Povenmire-Kirk et al. 2017).

Process and Deep Learning of Staff

The deepening learning component calls for ‘‘clarity of learning goals, precision in pedagogy, and capacity building’’ (Fullan, 2015). All these practices aimed at leveraging change, technology, and pedagogy in learning by doing learning practices to become high engaging, efficient, digital technology-based, aimed at solving real-life challenges and founded on in-depth knowledge. Accordingly, the learner assessment process should be steeped on evaluating their mastery of the 6C's ‘‘deep learning competencies, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, character, and citizenship,’’ all of which support the technology-change-pedagogy stratosphere for deepening learning (Fullan, 2013). The best method for fostering untapped potential and forming meaningful partnerships between districts, schools, and teachers should aim at unlocking the three elements of students, which includes their learning, aspirations, and belonging. All these three elements must be assessed, and feedback used to better students' learning experiences and outcomes.

The school team will focus on the Individualized Transition Plan (ITP) as a program to foresee the success and employment connection to learners with special needs after the post-secondary education. The four essential steps used to assess the program, plan the next level where we provide student access to various representatives from community agencies, write IEP including transition component, and make sure to get inputs from students and parents for the transition planning process. Then act step is when problems arise, the team need to find solutions. The last step is to reflect on the success of the transition services to young adults with disabilities.

Data and Accountability

Securing accountability, both internal and external, in learning, is a very crucial component in the coherence framework. Student learning is at the core of educational systems. Consequently, there is no better way to implement it than periodically seeking feedback from students about their education and using it to shape and reshape the learning outcome. Getting feedback via evaluations of students' feelings, morals, and feelings about the system will help ''build a culture of evidence, improvement and evaluation capacity-building'' (Fullan, 2015). The process can be achieved through students’ engagement in discussion forums.

For internal accountability, teachers have concerns regarding the positions of partners in change preparation. Teachers and parents stated that collaboration among school staff and organizations is inadequate. They claimed that in transition meetings, there is little presence and planned accountability of organizations. Implementing the program will enhance students ' conscience-determination abilities, student engagement at the school level, and IEP committee sessions, contributing to better results at school and post-school level. The special education department needs to make sure that the level of participation and agency assessment are adequate. The department should check the signature for the applicant in the segment on participation steps, attendance, and include a structured or informal examination of vocation.

External accountability: The district should work on identifying the barriers to serving students in the population of interest; among these barriers was a lack of training in the area for the jobs. The district should encourage developing careers in the areas of childcare, food services, landscaping, office assistant, and custodial assistant. The school district, administrators, special education director should create programs for face-to-face options, such as agency fairs, panel discussions, and meet-and-greet opportunities to prevent information gaps and allow for clarification and understanding. Such information sharing between agencies and schools, in particular, must be an ongoing process by necessity due to the continually changing landscape of legislation, policies, procedures, staff, and students (Povenmire-Kirk et al. 2017).

Final Thoughts

The primary goal of education for most high-school students is the successful and seamless transition to independent living, community engagement, employment, and post-school education. Students at the high-school level mostly identify their future goals and network with friends and support-systems, a process that could be very hard for students living with disabilities. Consequently, adult-service providers and school personnel must collaborate with and help students living with disabilities realize their goals per the requirements of the Federal laws such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (2015) and the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) OF 2004. A successful model for interagency cooperation and collaboration within the academic environment is the ''Communicating Interagency Relationships and Collaborative Linkages for Exceptional Students (CIRCLES)’’ model (Povenmire-Kirk et al., 2015). It is within this model where Fullan’s Coherence Framework is found.

As a special education educator, I need to ensure the effective sharing of both the program and environment data with the pertinent stakeholders. I need to create a system that provides an update to each stakeholder in case of an amendment. Nevertheless, there is a need to ensure that various meetings will be carried out pertaining to the system update (Fullan, 2016). The sharing will provide aid in ensuring that all the stakeholders in the organization are well aware of the current status of the program and environmental data. Updating pertinent stakeholders will help in ensuring that the formulation process, amendment process, and the implementation process experiences a smooth workflow because there will be effective coordination among these stakeholders.

References

Fullan, M., & Quinn, J. (2016). Coherence: The right drivers in action for schools, districts, and systems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Fullan, M. (2015). Coherence: Putting Your Inner Drive into Overdrive. Retrieved from michaelfullan.ca/ Motion Leadership.

Fullan, M. (2017). Leading in a Culture of Change. John Wiley & Sons.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, 20 U.S.C. §1400 et seq.

(2004).

Povenmire-Kirka, T., Diegelmanna, K., Crumps, K., Schnorr, C., Testa, D., Flowers, C. and

Aspela, A. (2017). Implementing CIRCLES: A new model for interagency collaboration in

transition planning. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation 42, 51–65

Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)(2015). Workforce Development Activities. Retrieved from

https://cte.ed.gov/legislation/about-wioa

.