In this episode, we talk with Kristy Doan from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) about the early childhood collaborative itinerant teaching model and how special education services can be provided in inclusive settings.
More About Our Guest
Kristy Doan has served for the past ten years as the 619 Coordinator and Principal Consultant for Illinois in the Early Childhood Development Department at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). She began her career as a speech-language pathologist and later worked as a special education administrator in a central Illinois school district before joining ISBE. Kristy is deeply passionate about early childhood education and is committed to ensuring that all children receive the services and support they need to thrive.
Podcast
Transcript
Natalie Danner (Intro): Thanks for joining us for a podcast from the Illinois Early Learning Project. Our project is part of the Department of Special Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and funded by the Illinois State Board of Education. On this podcast, we share information about how young children grow and learn as well as strategies adults can use to help them thrive. My name is Natalie Danner.
Natalie Danner: Welcome to the Illinois Early Learning Podcast. Today, we are talking about the Early Childhood Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model. We are joined by Kristy Doan. Welcome, Kristy!
Kristy Doan: Thanks for having me!
Natalie Danner: Excited to have you here today with us. So, Kristy Doan has served for the past ten years as the 619 Coordinator and the Principal Consultant for Illinois in the Early Childhood Development Department at the Illinois State Board of Education, or ISBE. She began her career as a speech and language pathologist and later worked as a special education administrator in a central Illinois school district before joining ISBE. Kristy is deeply passionate about early childhood education and is committed to ensuring that all children receive the services and support they need to thrive. Great to have you with us today.
Kristy Doan: Wonderful.
Natalie Danner: So, let’s begin. I wonder if you could describe the Early Childhood Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model for our audience.
Kristy Doan: Absolutely. The Early Childhood Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model is a service delivery model that supports the inclusion of children with disabilities by having an early childhood special educator go into a classroom to provide the special education services in that setting. It may include both special educators, as well as related service providers, like speech-language pathologists or occupational therapists, physical therapists, many more. It’s that role of the itinerant teacher to provide individualized learning opportunities that work towards addressing the student’s needs, and basically whatever’s specified on their individualized education program, their IEP. There’s both a direct approach part to it, and an indirect approach. So, the itinerant professionals are providing that direct instruction, the direct teaching to the child in that inclusive classroom, and then the consultative approach, where the itinerant professionals are supporting the early childhood educator. Whoever’s already in that classroom, supporting them to embed learning within that environment. Dr. Laurie Dinnebeil has done a lot of research on this model, and all of our resources at the State Board of Education are centered around her work.
Natalie Danner: So, you talked a little bit about inclusive placements. And how does this approach apply to community-based programs?
Kristy Doan: Yeah, what is great about this model is that it’s a great option for early childhood students who are already enrolled in community-based programs, like a Head Start, a childcare center, or maybe a local private preschool within a community. So, these students are already attending a regular early childhood program, so then the itinerant model allows for teachers to come into this program and provide the services where the child already is, without making that child transition. So, it becomes this collaboration between the school and the community-based program to serve that child.
Natalie Danner: Great, so tell us a little bit more about how it’s funded, and also, who hires itinerant teachers?
Kristy Doan: Of course, funding is always a question that comes up. Ultimately, school districts are responsible for providing the special education services to the children. So, this could be they use their IDEA dollars that they receive, to support students, or they could use local funds as well. But overall, the school is the responsible party for implementing and funding those special
education services. Some districts are also a part of special education cooperatives, so depending on what that agreement is with that co-op, the co-op may hire the itinerant teachers. So, the school district or the co-op are the ones that are providing that staffing. And then the community-based program provides the classroom teacher and the staffing that they would typically provide for their programs already. They provide the space, the materials that they provide to everyone else in that classroom. And then it’s just whatever those needs are, whatever the child’s needs are, to meet what’s in the IEP, what goes beyond that, that classroom that’s already provided in that classroom, then the school would purchase and fund and provide.
Natalie Danner: So, why is this new model launching in Illinois?
Kristy Doan: Well, I wouldn’t quite call it a new model. The itinerant model has been around for a long time. I would say when it comes to serving children in the community, it’s a lesser-used model around the state, but it’s always been an option. I think we’re talking about it more and developing resources to support this model, because we’re talking about inclusion more. And there are already so many great regular early childhood settings that children are attending out there. Preschool children are often identified as having their disability when they’re participating in one of those early childhood programs already. In determining placement options for a child with a disability who already participates in one of those regular early childhood programs. IDEA assumes that the first placement option considered is the setting that the child is attending.
So even if that school district already operates an equally inclusive program. That first setting should be where that child is already. The IEP team, the placement team, must consider any potential harmful effects on the child, like loss of learning, or impact on a child’s sense of belonging, if the child’s moved between early childhood programs. So before removing that child from the current placement option and going to the restrictive setting, they really need to talk about where that child already is. Also, back in December of 2022 now, the Illinois State Board of Education published a report called Advancing Preschool Inclusion in Community-Based Early Childhood Education Programs. It’s a mouthful, but it’s a really great report. So, within this, it talks through how we can push inclusion a little bit further in the state. So, it talks about an overall service delivery model recommendation. And that was the development of an itinerant early childhood education system, where special ed and related services are provided in the community-based settings. So that’s another reason that we’re discussing this more, because it came from a recommendation in that report. We’re trying to support or trying to make different resources and things that will help support school districts in implementing the model now.
Natalie Danner: So, we’ve talked a little bit more about the model, we’ve talked about settings in private preschools and childcare, but now turning toward children. Which children, in particular, might be supported best by itinerant teachers?
Kristy Doan: That is such a great question, and the answer is simple. Anyone. All children. So, this means children with full IEPs that have multiple different services, or it could be for a child
with just one service, like speech therapy. Research shows that all children benefit from inclusive early learning environments. And “all” means both children with and without disabilities, so the research is there, that everyone in that classroom is benefiting from that classroom, and benefiting from it being an inclusive classroom. So, when you bring the services into the community, where the students already are, then the students are already in a familiar environment. The itinerant teachers then can model cueing, their supports, the different strategies they use with the child. They’re modeling those for the teaching staff that are in that community classroom. Those teachers are then learning from the itinerant staff, and they can implement the same strategies when the itinerant teacher isn’t there. So, this gives the child even more support within his or her everyday routines. Bringing those services to the child also avoids multiple unnecessary transitions. So, our early childhood children sometimes struggle with transitions already. And now you’re asking a child to transition from home to the community-based program, then they possibly get on a bus and transition over to the school, then back on the bus, and back to the program, and back to home. All of these, and this doesn’t even include those natural transitions that happen throughout your day, you know, like using the restroom, getting a snack, all of those things. So‚ if we can minimize some of those transitions, then the student wins. So really, all students can benefit from this model, and you’re just creating that supportive learning environment for them.
Natalie Danner: Now, you mentioned a little bit about this before with that indirect service that itinerant teachers might provide. But going a little bit deeper into that, how might itinerant teachers collaborate with educators at both private preschools and childcare centers?
Kristy Doan: There are so many different ways here, and really, this model is built off of collaboration. It’s not going to be successful without that collaborative piece. So, the teachers can work together on planning for a student. The itinerant teacher can talk through the plans that the classroom teacher already has made, and then they can identify those areas where individualized instruction may be needed for the child, based on what the IEP says and the accommodations that have already been talked about, and the instructional supports. Then the itinerant teacher can also identify parts of the day that make sense to work on those specific goals. So then, the teachers also can look at the assessment information. And identify different strategies to try with the child. So, sitting down and just planning together and using the data that’s available, I think that’s already important. Then the itinerant teacher models the different strategies. We talked about that a little bit earlier, but they can model those strategies so that the classroom teachers and assistants are very comfortable with what’s happening with that child. They can replicate it, they can do it at any time. The classroom staff may also take data and then provide it over to the itinerant teacher, so they can look at it and know if changes are needed to the instructional plan, or if it’s working. And then I think another really valuable thing to collaborate on is shared professional development. If both teams are getting the same information and learning the same, you know, techniques and research out there, I think that’s really valuable to all the children in that classroom. One of our school districts here in Illinois, Valley View School District, they spent a whole year planning for this model in community settings, and they’ve really, really done a nice job with the collaboration piece with community programs. So, they’ve partnered with some different community programs, including a Head Start, a childcare center, and a home-based childcare center. And they worked with the staff in all of those settings. They went ahead and kind of did a survey with them and listened to what they felt like their professional development needs were. So then throughout the staff, Valley View created this professional development plan to provide out to the community. And then they also added a family education piece about the whole special education process. So, it’s been this really beautiful partnership that they’ve developed there.
Natalie Danner: It’s great to hear of this model that’s out there. It seems like there are lots of ways for collaboration to happen with itinerant teachers, so good to hear.
Kristy Doan: Yeah, definitely.
Natalie Danner: Now, if our listeners want to learn more about this teaching model, this Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model, how can they learn more?
Kristy Doan: Yeah, so ISBE, has developed a resource guide for this model. It’s called the Early Childhood Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model, and it’s really meant to be a roadmap for service providers. So that’s everyone. Educators, caregivers, special educators, related services, administrators, whoever is working in this program would really benefit from reviewing this. And it’s just focused on implementing those inclusive services in community-based organizations. While it’s aimed at focusing on the community, I think it also really helps school districts who just use the itinerant model within their building as well. So, I think there’s a little something for everyone there. And at the center of the Early Childhood Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model is the premise of providing those systematic supports so that children and families can be served wherever they are. The guide walks through different components to think through with this model, and then there’s a ton of resources embedded within, so whatever section you’re kind of working through, you should be able to grab some resources to help you implement it. We also have some really wonderful, free, I’ll add, professional development for early childhood special education in Illinois. So, Early Choices focuses on early childhood inclusion. They have a training that’s specific to this model. But then they also have trainings on inclusion in general, so whatever you’re looking for, for support there, they would most likely be able to help you out there. And then we also have StarNet. It’s another professional development project. It’s based on a regional model throughout the state, and they support school districts in all things early childhood special education. So, districts can always reach out to either one of those projects to talk about, what trainings they have available, and look through their websites, too, because they have a lot of resources on those.
Natalie Danner: Great resources, Kristy. We will link those below so that our audience can get to those.
Kristy Doan: Great!
Natalie Danner: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us as we finish this podcast episode about the Collaborative Itinerant Teaching Model?
Kristy Doan: Yeah, you know, I think it’s really important to remember that this is one service delivery option for serving early childhood students. So, ultimately, we want to create plans that benefit the students. So, this may be one model that your program can use to help do that. But within a district, you may have several different models. So, you might have a dually certified
teacher for some of your classrooms, or you might have a co-teaching model. So, there’s no one right way to serve children inclusively. But as we’re hearing from districts that they’re experiencing larger numbers of children needing specialized services, it’s important to look out into the community to identify those potential placement options, just so all children can have access, really, to the inclusive learning environments. That’s our goal here.
Natalie Danner: Great closing points. So much information has been shared here about the itinerant model. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kristy, for being our guest on the Illinois Early Learning Podcast.
Kristy Doan: Thank you for having me!
Natalie Danner (Outro): And until next time, thank you, and keep early learning at the forefront.
You have just heard a podcast by the Illinois Early Learning Project. For more information, please visit us at illinoisearlylearning.org where you can find evidence-based, reliable information on early care and education for parents, caregivers, and teachers of young children. Thanks for listening and for helping the children in your home, classroom, and community have a strong start in their early learning.
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