Each Child Means Each Child
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.
Ultimate Plan
Workgroups proposed recommendations to be considered by both the steering committee and internal Department staff committees. These recommendations facilitated the development of Each Child Means Each Child, Ohio’s Plan to Improve Learning Experiences and Outcomes for Students with Disabilities, which aligns to Each Child, Our Future, Ohio’s strategic plan for education.
Contact
SWDRoadmap@education.ohio.gov
Related Work
The Ohio Department of Education, through its Office for Exceptional Children, is implementing a comprehensive State Systemic Improvement Plan to improve the educational results of Ohio’s students with disabilities. The plan focuses on improving the graduation rate of students with disabilities with a regular diploma. The work directly impacts Each Child Means Each Child’s focus on improved postsecondary transition and outcomes for students with disabilities and reflects the vision of Ohio’s strategic plan, Each Child, Our Future, that each child is challenged, prepared and empowered to become a resilient, lifelong learner who contributes to society. These measures support Ohio’s goal to increase the percentage of high school graduates who are enrolled, enlisted or employed one year after graduation and the priority strategy to ensure high school inspires students to identify future success and gives students multiple ways to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary for graduation and beyond.
The strands of action from the previous State Systemic Improvement Plan Early Literacy Pilot will be expanded to target high school-level students with disabilities, families, school personnel and other agency partners. Activities within these strands have been developed into a
theory of action which illustrates the strategies and intended outcomes of the new State Systemic Improvement Plan - Each Child On Track. Each Child On Track will focus on increasing the percentage of students with a disability graduating with a regular diploma which addresses Indicator 1: the percent of youth with individualized education programs exiting high school with a regular high school diploma. The Each Child On Track
Evaluation Plan provides details on the evaluation questions and methods of data collection that the state will use over the next five years to evaluate the progress on the State Systemic Improvement Plan.
Last Modified: 1/31/2023 11:52:36 AM