Ohio’s Plan to Improve Learning Experiences and Outcomes for Students with Disabilities

Building on Each Child, Our Future and modeling its partnership-based approach, the Ohio Department of Education convened stakeholders to craft a plan aimed at improving learning experiences and outcomes for students with disabilities. Beginning in January 2019 and wrapping up in December 2019, stakeholders and staff from the Department worked together to identify a set of recommendations for increasing literacy skills, improving disproportionality, promoting postsecondary success, fostering inclusive leadership and advancing high-quality instructional practices among educators who serve students with disabilities.

These recommendations ultimately resulted in Each Child Means Each Child: Ohio’s Plan to Improve Learning Experiences and Outcomes for Students with Disabilities.
 
Each Child Means Each Child offers recommendations, tactics and action steps to ensure Ohio’s 270,000 students currently enrolled in public schools who have been identified with disabilities benefit from the vision and core principles heralded in Ohio's strategic plan for education.
 
Each Child Means Each Child uses data to illustrate what education looks like for Ohio’s students with disabilities. Additionally, it organizes recommendations, tactics and actions to improve these educational experiences into three major focus areas. These include: 

• Getting to the Problem Early — Multi-Tiered System of Support 
• Building Educators’ and Systemwide Capacity — Professional Learning  
• Educating for Living a Good Life — Postsecondary Readiness and Planning  

The plan also contains stories that demonstrate how student outcomes might improve when the recommendations of the plan are implemented. 

Guiding Coalition

In 2020, the Guiding Coalition was established to advise the Department's Office for Exceptional Children in the development of a five-year implementation plan for operationalizing Each Child Means Each Child, a roadmap for improving learning experiences and outcomes for students with disabilities.
 
Guiding coalitions are groups whose members have credibility within their organizations and within the larger education arena and the expertise to contribute to shaping change efforts. As such, members of the Guiding Coalition not only advise on the development of the implementation plan but also serve as champions for the work of the Office for Exceptional Children, communicate the work as it’s being developed and bring feedback from the field to the office as the work progresses. This communication feedback loop is instrumental in supporting the Department in anticipating roadblocks and designing statewide models or approaches that can be used by all Ohio districts and their schools and community schools to ensure  equitable opportunities to learn are provided for every child.
Guiding Coalition Member Roster

Overview: Students with Disabilities Improvement Plan 

Workgroup Focus

Four workgroups were established to drive development of the plan. Each workgroup was comprised of representatives from schools, disability advocacy organizations and other key partners who have expertise in the education of students with disabilities. Ohio Department of Education staff members supported each workgroup. The four workgroup themes were identified with leadership from the steering committee and input from key stakeholders.