Identify the part(s) of your plan you were able to implement (given the nature of leadership work, your project may actually continue beyond submission of your capstone portfolio).

We used the information from the "Inclusion Needs Survey", identifying resources to share with teachers and ways to address their concerns. We also wanted to have short-term opportunities for educators to work with both the DHH and the BLV students in 1 group together. We encouraged staff to create blended groups for their whole school activities and to not divide students into abilities/disabilities, but rather combine populations of students needing both DHH and VI supports for their groups. Two different on-campus activities where this occurred:

• Indian Education for All (IEFA) Day- Collaborated with the IEFA coordinator to provide accessibility to the whole group activities offered during the event. Students and staff learned to work together to produce tactile art with a Native theme. Staff were provided their groupings in advance and given opportunities to seek support by Denise Rutledge, myself, and our IEFA coordinator on how to facilitate the projects. The majority of the learning occurred on the day of the event as we learned how to use a variety of accommodations to help support one another. (As shown in Evidence A)

• White Cane Day celebrations- White Cane Day typically celebrates the unique needs and skills of individuals with visual impairments. For this year's White Cane Day, staff and students were mixed and taught to play the recreational activity of goalball. Goalball is a team sport specifically created for athletes with visual impairments. It was a great way to introduce our DHH students (and staff) to acknowledging (and hopefully appreciating) the unique needs of students with visual impairments when in active settings. We worked with orientation and mobility instructor for this event to prepare groupings and identify accommodations for the Deaf. Accommodations for both sensory needs were shared with participants in advance so they would know how to communicate with one another. (As shown in Evidence A)

Do-Evidence A

How successful was your plan of action at addressing the challenge?

While we did have positive feedback from our stakeholder groups (teacher students, and administrators), it was difficult to train others due to no common planning times and then the COVID-19 quarantine occurred. Teachers were so overwhelmed learning how to teach virtually and learning new platforms to do so, we did not want to add one more thing to their plates.

Which stakeholders and practice or program were impacted? Administration, teachers, para professionals, students, specialists, cottage staff, parents

How do you know (site evidence)?

For the five teachers that were able to have some mixed sensory classrooms this year, we gathered some evidence through email questionnaires. We asked these teachers to share what worked, as well as ideas of things they would change. (Evidence B below) We hope to use this commentary to help guide the effectiveness of future changes to how instruction is delivered at MSDB with mixed sensory populations.

Do-Evidence B

How were your four chosen competencies used in the implementation of your project?

Overarching Competency #1- Group Processes: Completing these short-term, combined department activities, allowed for my skills in this competency to move into the 'performing' area as I worked to encourage others to see a shared vision of fully accessible combined activities.

Overarching Competency #2- Adult Learning: By collaborating with educators with specialties different than mine, I was able to move into the 'performing' area because I was utilizing their areas of expertise to impact adult learning.

Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Competency,-Cultivate Socially Just Learning Environment: Identifying the diverse needs and cultures of our learning environment, and organization of our short-term events, allowed for 'developing' skills. This is evident by exploring ways to improve the learning environments tied to these events and understanding issues that would potentially impede their successes.

Instructional Leadership Competency- Facilitating Collaborative Relationships: By identifying the needs of staff working with combination classrooms through our survey, I was able to progress into areas of 'performing' for this competency by focusing on the improvement of existing programs by supporting the developmental needs of my colleagues.

What obstacles, if any, did you encounter? How did you address them?

COVID-19 and the quarantine order was the biggest obstacle for this project. Being required to teach virtually was a challenge and our goal to have in-person training wasn't able to occur. We did have one opportunity in mid-March to work with staff and address accessibility challenges of distance learning. We also shared some ideas for instruction via ZOOM, emails, phone conversations and videos as distance learning progressed. Evidence C shows pictures of Denise Rutledge delivering information on using accessibility features within Google Classroom for distance learning (training given March 18th to full educational staff) and a screenshot of myself delivering a distance learning math lesson live to both DHH students and a VI student simultaneously and a paraprofessional. The para would join the sessions to provide additional tutoring to students and to learn the different technology used to deliver the lessons virtually.

Do-Evidence C

Given the outcomes, describe any changes you might make to the Capstone project plan of action.

The ultimate goal is to continue training and to extend the number of mixed sensory need classrooms in the future. However, this will be dependent on upcoming educational decisions and the restructuring of our educational setting due to COVID-19. With our recent online instruction and virtual classroom experiences, we would need to conduct another teacher survey which would include questions related to the needs teachers could foresee having if distance learning becomes the platform. Training would also need to include additional accessibility features so all teachers have an understanding of how to provide audio descriptions, captioning and live interpreting to all of their distance learning platforms.