All of Us Together: The Story of Inclusion at the Kinzie School (review)

Media Review All of Us Together: The Story of Inclusion at the Kinzie School byjeri Banks (Washington, DC: Gallaudet Univ. Press; 1994, 199 pages, hardcover) All of Us Together traces the evolution of the Kinzie school's programs from 1982 to 1992, providing an excellent picture of the challenges of integrating a large deaf education program (approximately 100 students) into an elementary/middle school primarily for hearing students (approximately 450). In 10 years Kinzie moved from separate regular and special education departments to an integrated whole. When the deaf education program first moved to Kinzie, it was a separate unit receiving its orders from the coordinator of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program for the south side of the city and reporting up a chain of command that went to the Deputy Superintendent of Education Services. After years of successfully battling outside administration Kinzie was named one of Chicago's inclusive school project models. The Kinzie School is a public elementary school located on the southwest side of Chicago. Its regular and deaf education and deaf programs go from prekindergarten through the 8th grade. This school's story is especially pertinent in the context of full inclusion for deaf and hard of hearing students. What set the Kinzie school apart was its principal's committed leadership in bringing the separate deaf and regular education departments together by providinng special informational meetings, supporting special integrated schoolwide activities that encouraged the parcipitation of all students and their parents, repeatedly standing up to challenges from various levels of the Chicago public school administration, and by winning over skeptical teachers , who were at first reluctant to relinquish their deaf students who were mainstreamed for academics; they did well and made the honor roll. Then more students were identified for mainstreaming. Regular classroom teachers began to complain that they were not included in the decision making process and that interpreters were not being provided. A teacher of the deaf who had taught the greatest number of students mainstreamed for reading was appointed mainstream coordinator to serve as liaison between regular and special education teachers. A whole variety of special and regular education teacher collaborations, as well as innovative teacher-student relationships began to emerge as teachers of deaf classes paired with teachers of regular classes. Implementing these innovations was not easy. Bank's account of Kinzie's struggle with teachers, administrators , parents, and in particular with upper level administration outside the school that wanted to keep the deaf children in isolation, is both enlightening and depressing. These struggles included the outside administration's objection to reverse mainstreaming and its unwillingness to provide interpreters in mainstream classes. As one of these administrators said, "I can't understand why you're requesting interpreters for your mainstreaming program. If the children are mainstreamed, then they don't need interpreters." Kinzie school staff also coped with school reform movements. One prong of the movement was schoolbased management in which control of the school moved from a centralized school administration to a local school board. Another prong of the reform movement was inclusion. Although students with other disabilities were being mainstreamed in local Chicago schools, deaf and hard of hearing students were regarded as unique, requiring a critical mass of students for an appropriate program. In contrast, Kinzie had developed an integrated educational program, with mainstreaming of students for nonacademic classes based on whether the students had appropriate skills. Kinzie staff were concerned about the possibility of Kinzie graduates being isolated in local high schools without the support they needed to succeed. There was also concern about inappropriate placement of students at other schools who did not have the necessary skills they would need to succeed. Vivid and inspiring, All of Us Together provides examples of appripriate inclusion and an informative picture of how an integrated program can be exciting and successful for all children when creative approaches are used to support deaf students in a mainstream environment and to successfully bring deaf and hearing children together. Michael S. Stinson Center for Research, Learning and Teaching National Technical Institute for the Deaf Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York Volume 142, No. 1 American Annals of the Deaf ...