The Redmond and Sisters school districts have been selected as part of 16 districts nationwide to participate in a grant aimed at integrating the education of all learners — from special needs to talented and gifted.

The program is run by the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) Center, the product of a five-year, $24.5 million grant to the University of Kansas from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs.

The project aims to help school districts break down the barriers that separate students of different abilities and backgrounds that may lead to differing levels of instruction quality. Portland Public Schools and the Pendleton School District will also be involved in the program. The remaining 12 districts come from Mississippi, Maryland, New Hampshire and Vermont.

“A lot of the time, we put kids into pockets,” said Becky Stoughton, special programs director in Sisters. “We say these kids are special needs, these are talented and gifted, and this group goes in the middle. But when we break down these barriers, all kinds of students can learn more from each other.”

Both districts already have inclusive programs in place, but SWIFT will help the districts move toward increasing the level of integration.

“We do already run integrated models as much as we can,” said Martha Hinman, director of student services at the Redmond School District. “SWIFT isn’t just about taking kids out of special education class and getting them into general education courses, it involves talented and gifted and English Language Learners and everyone else. It’s a model for looking at all students together.”

Oregon applied to the SWIFT program with four school districts. Hinman had been committed to involving Redmond from the start, but when another district pulled out at the last minute, she called a colleague in Sisters and encouraged that district’s involvement. In July, representatives from the district were flown to Washington, D.C., to participate in a training program.

“They went through their philosophy, and explained why this program is good for all students, not just special needs,” Stoughton said. “We could collaborate with the other districts involved and meet with schools who received a grant the previous year to hear what had been working for them.”

The state will receive the grant money directly and the four districts will relay their needs to the state. The state will then pay for technical assistance in the form of advisors.

“We’ll be asking for technical assistance to examine our systems, such as Response to Intervention and our training and hiring systems,” Hinman said. “We’ll also look at our instructional content and analyze how aligned it is.”

Response to Intervention is a system for offering struggling students additional assistance as soon as their needs are identified.

“This year, we’re starting at Lynch Elementary, and the target is for the program to expand from there,” Hinman said. “Obsidian Middle School is our planned second-year site. I’m also pushing for this to go to the high school level, but the program is currently only aimed at K-8.”

Hinman stressed that while this project will help Redmond to achieve its goals, total integration is not expected immediately.

“Model schools have no separation,” she said. “We have students who are currently leaving all the time, disrupting their instruction. I’m not saying we’ll get there in four years. It took model schools five to 10 years to get where they are.”

In Sisters, the program will begin at Sisters Middle School.

“There’s a great need at the middle school level,” Stoughton said. “There’s a focus on the elementary level and high school levels, but middle school tends to be the last to be looked at.”

The SWIFT Center is run by Wayne Sailer, a University of Kansas professor in special education and the director of the Beach Center on Disability, and Amy McCart, a KU associate research professor who focuses on studying how urban school districts can serve impoverished students. Rob Horner, a professor of special education at the University of Oregon, is a SWIFT partner, contributing his expertise to the center’s development.

“It’s exciting work,” Hinman said. “It will help us build a cohesive system for all students. We want to know who we may be excluding, and this will help us do just that.”