Organizational Learning to Meet Students' Special Needs

• In Event: Understanding the Influence of Campus Typologies, Structures, and Organization on School Effectiveness

Abstract

Scholarship for diverse democracies seeks to reduce the marginalization of students with special needs. “Special needs” encompass a range of barriers to school success. Administrators play a central role shaping school policies and practices for meeting students’ special needs. This case study seeks to support school leaders’ efforts to elevate and reframe public discourse around the marginalization of these students. School leaders face the challenge of ensuring that all students experience ambitious opportunities to learn. The school described here pursued this end by implementing a service delivery model emphasizing heterogeneous, flexible grouping of students and collaborative relationships of faculty. It addresses the question: “How does a school – as an organization – learn to meet students’ special needs?”

Author

• Martin Scanlan, Boston College