Inclusion Collaboration — Pull-Out + Push-In Strategies

Source: "Collaborating for Inclusion.pptx" — Shannon Flaherty SharePoint share, 2024-05-03. Localized 2026-05-10. Three-presenter training deck from Bancroft SpEd team meeting.

Presenters:

• Muller — Pull-Out Group strategies
• Gruensfelder — Push-In instruction
• Krchnavy — Solution-focused group discussion

When to use: Anytime you're planning pull-out groups or push-in support and want a structured set of strategies that have worked at Bancroft. This is craft-level guidance, not procedural compliance.

Part 1: Pull-Out Group Strategies (Muller)

Common challenges

• Frequently shifting schedules — testing, embassy visits, pacing adjustments, field trips, fire drills, reading buddies, vision screening, picture day, eclipses, extra-recess incentives
• Maintaining pacing — keeping pull-out students aligned with what gen ed is doing, given they work at their own pace during pull-out

Strategies

1. Use a simplified shared scheduling document. A shared living document — calendar-style — that all team members update with schedule changes. Reduces the friction of constantly re-syncing pull-out times when gen ed shifts.

2. Use a shared lesson plan / resource document. Co-teachers/case managers + gen ed teachers contribute to one document. Everyone sees what's happening when, what's been covered, what's coming.

3. Condense the quantity to focus on the Learning Target. Don't try to cover the same volume as gen ed in pull-out. Pick the learning target and work it deeply with less material.

"Use chapter summaries so students stay on pace with the events of the book. Use close reading passages from the book as the material to work on the learning target or skill. In this way students are reading for the same amount of time but getting a lot more out of it."

Concrete example (Esperanza Rising):

• Book is 14 chapters, 262 pages, ~68,000 words. At 25 wpm that's 45 hours of reading.
• Solution: Chapter summaries written by the teacher → student reads ~1-2 pages per chapter to stay on pace with the story
• Close reading passages → ~1-2 pages of text used to work on the actual reading-skill goal in depth
• Benefits: students stay on pace with story events and can participate in gen ed discussions; key vocabulary integrated; promotes interest; positions students as "detectives doing the close read."

4. Quizzes integrated into pull-out — not an add-on. Use the time you have rather than expecting a separate assessment session.

Part 2: Push-In Instruction (Gruensfelder)

Common challenges

• Inflexibility of content-specific block schedules
• Trust and relationship-building with co-teacher(s)
• Lack of time/support for co-planning effectively
• Inconsistent understandings of roles
• "Drifting" time that feels unfocused

Beginning of Year (BOY) routines

Meet to establish norms and expectations for communication and planning.

Share details about your approach / teaching style:

• What are my goals during push-in?
• What has worked for me in the past?
• Establish boundaries regarding my purpose in the classroom during this time

Review/discuss IEPs (provide copy of IEP document and/or IEP at a Glance to the gen ed teacher).

Observe 1-2 class sessions without "drifting" to gain understanding of routines, teaching style, and how students function with baseline gen ed instruction.

• Optional: loop back with co-teacher to share observations

Ongoing routines (throughout the year)

• Shared pacing calendar
• Daily or weekly check-ins about specific learning targets
  • Decide in advance if a different co-teaching structure is needed for specific lessons
  • Align on:
    • How to execute specific strategies
    • Hierarchy of objectives
• Co-create the seating chart
• Share planned modifications

During instruction

• Take notes (when possible) of follow-up points for next meeting with co-teacher
• Support student participation (e.g., signal to gen ed teacher when a target student should be called upon)
• Vocalize observations from the group for gen ed teacher to address in the moment
  • E.g., ask a question that represents a common misunderstanding observed while drifting
• Speak up with comments or additive group instruction, reminders

After instruction

• Share student work (problem sets, exit tickets)
• Debrief how students accessed learning objectives, adjust future plans as necessary
• Share notes/observations of how to leverage collaboration to improve student outcomes in future lessons

Part 3: Making Co-Teaching the "Norm" (Krchnavy)

Common roadblocks

• Time
• Planning
• Physical space

Strategies

Include co-teaching in unit planning. Don't treat it as an afterthought. When planning the unit, decide which co-teaching model fits each objective: station teaching, parallel teaching, alternative teaching, team teaching, one-teach-one-assist, one-teach-one-observe — these aren't equivalent. Match the model to the lesson's purpose.

Use data for push-in groupings.

• Use exit-ticket data from previous lessons to create flexible groupings for centers
• More inclusive of broader student abilities
• Creates a "whole class" culture rather than "class and so-and-so's group" — this is the key cultural shift

Establish dedicated physical space. Each push-in teacher should have a designated physical space in the classroom from BOY. Reduces ambiguity about role and location during instruction.

Cross-cutting principles

From the deck (paraphrased)

• Trust and rapport matter more than any specific co-teaching model. Without trust, the model fails. With trust, multiple models can work.
• Flexibility within structure — having a shared plan + space + norms doesn't mean rigid execution. It means everyone knows what's happening, then can flex.
• Position the SpEd teacher as integral, not auxiliary. "Whole class culture, not class + Mr. X's group" — the framing applies across models.

Connection to research

This deck operationalizes what research/iep-writing-best-practices.md §3 (SDI) and §5 (LRE) point at conceptually. SDI delivered via push-in inside gen ed is the LRE-respectful default; pull-out is justified when the SDI requires a more controlled environment than push-in can provide.

For the federal framing: per OSEP, LRE is determined after services and SDI are designed, not before. The strategies in this deck are how you make push-in genuinely effective so that push-in + supplementary aids becomes a viable LRE rather than rubber-stamped pull-out.

What's NOT in the deck (gaps for follow-up)

• No specific scripts for the gen-ed-teacher conversation when establishing BOY norms
• No co-planning template — referenced as an open challenge ("co-planning, what even is that?")
• No specific co-teaching-model decision tree (which model for which lesson type)

If Bancroft has subsequent training material on these gaps, look in the same SharePoint folder:

https://dck12.sharepoint.com/sites/BancroftESSY22-23/Shared%20Documents/Special%20Education/

Source URL (in case Shannon updates the deck)

https://dck12.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/sites/BancroftESSY22-23/Shared%20Documents/Special%20Education/Collaborating%20for%20Inclusion.pptx