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11th Annual Summer Leadership Institute Returns to Syracuse 11th Annual Summer Leadership Institute Returns to Syracuse

By Gabrielle Riles

Inclusion Fest Conference
© 2019 Gabrielle Riles

Reporter: Many educational leaders across New York are attending this event to learn new methods of making schools and districts inclusive.

William Siegel, of Westchester County School district, says that co-teaching is the best method of having inclusion in classrooms.

Siegel: “Where you have a generational education teacher, a content specialist, working alongside a special education teacher, a learning specialist.”

Reporter: He says that having both teachers and specialists involved in classrooms will enhance both the teacher and the student experience.

Siegel: “Helping them see all students as equally but being accessible. You have a classroom where there is joint responsibility for all of the learning.”

Reporter: Inclusion Fest is a three-day learning-intensive conference to create more equitable and inclusive classrooms, schools, and communities.
Gabrielle Riles, NCC News.

By Gabrielle Riles, SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – The 11th Annual Summer Leadership Institute kicked off the inclusion festival on Monday in Syracuse.

This three-day intensive learning conference is designed to help teachers, educational leaders and school districts create more equitable and inclusive schools and communities.

There will be various seminars, workshops and keynote speakers each day of the fest.

The Westchester County school district is one of the many districts that will be presenting at the conference.

Assistant director of special services, Will Siegel, says the district will present “the implications of elementary schools being more inclusive.”

“We want to reduce the number of times kids are in pull out experiences. We want to make sure that the children are as mainstreamed as possible because the natural learning environment benefits every time.”

This is the district’s fourth year at the fest with 10 members in attendance. Siegel says they continue to attend because it is a school-wide initiative.

“In the past education has looked at the idea of pullouts as the only way to remediate most disabled students.”

Siegel said the strategy his school district has implemented will show that pulling kids out of the classroom doesn’t enhance the student experience.

“What we have been able to demonstrate in the last couple of years is actually by having inclusive practices, having mainstream experiences, having kids in with their peers of all different levels, that we see greater growth amongst all students not just academic but socially and emotionally as well.”

The Inclusion Fest is hosted at Syracuse University’s Goldstein Auditorium from August 5 through August 7.

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