From Fixation to Flourishing: Centering Students With Specific Needs

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

– Alexander Den Heijer

INTRO

Students with disabilities often face barriers rooted in our education system’s focus on deficits rather than strengths. To truly support each and every student, we must shift to a holistic vision of readiness—one that nurtures students’ unique abilities and creates environments where they can thrive.

OBJECTIVES

Shift from deficit-focused models to approaches that recognize and nurture the diverse strengths of students with disabilities, supporting their academic and personal growth.
Use strategies like belonging and engagement surveys and empathy interviews to identify student needs, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive learning environments.

RESOURCES

In most states, students with disabilities consistently experience the lowest graduation rates and performance on traditional measures of academic achievement. This disparity often stems from an educational system overly fixated on classic academic skills, overlooking the broader spectrum of student strengths and readiness. Traditional approaches frequently rely on compensatory models, which focus on addressing deficits in specific skills, rather than conjunctive models that emphasize integrating students’ strengths across various domains. This narrow focus can limit the recognition of diverse abilities, particularly among special needs students.

This is a very personal topic for me, as my daughter has a specific disability in math. Reflecting on my own daughter’s experience, I’m reminded of how a single challenge can overshadow a student’s entire educational journey. Despite excelling in eight out of nine essential skills identified by the State of Oregon, her specific disability in math became the defining feature of her school experience. Instead of engaging her in curriculum that allowed her to show her strengths and find joy in learning, she was double-dosed in math at the expense of other opportunities. The relentless emphasis on this one area created barriers that ultimately led her to not complete high school

What are the Nine Essential Skills identified by the State of Oregon?

The Nine Essential Skills are cross-disciplinary skills that students should be developing across grades K- 12.

Read and comprehend a variety of text*
Write clearly and accurately
Apply mathematics in a variety of settings
Listen actively and speak clearly and coherently
Think critically and analytically
Use technology to learn, live, and work
Demonstrate civic and community engagement
Demonstrate global literacy
Demonstrate personal management and teamwork skills

To serve students with disabilities effectively, we must shift from a narrow academic lens to a holistic vision of readiness. This means not just talking about a holistic vision for readiness, but actually valuing a holistic set of student outcomes equally with traditional measures. A holistic vision of student readiness doesn’t mean focusing on critical social emotional skills or student interests only when reading and math content is on track, it means providing students opportunities to learn and apply those skills even when core content is NOT on track. Universal practices grounded in this vision are critical, particularly for special education students. A system centered on holistic readiness enables students to recognize and build on their strengths, both through instructional approaches and daily classroom experiences. This perspective fosters environments where every student can thrive, not just in areas where they face challenges but across all dimensions of their learning and development.

Tools like the Student Experience Survey can play a pivotal role in this transformation. By identifying when students feel connected and genuinely engaged in their school community, educators gain valuable insights into what conditions foster success. Complementing this, empathy interviews allow students to articulate the specific supports, accommodations, and modifications they need to pursue their goals. Together, these practices help create learning environments where students with disabilities are not defined by their challenges but are celebrated for their diverse strengths and potential.

Check this story out!

Read this story about what happens when schools in Hawai’i align their school performance framework with a holistic vision.

About the Author

Dr. Matt Coleman is the CEO of Inflexion, where he leverages his deep-rooted expertise in school systems change to drive impactful educational reform. With a career spanning various roles—from educational assistant to assistant superintendent—Matt’s experience encompasses every level of secondary education.