The Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation, or SWIFT, an initiative led by educational researchers from the University of Kansas, selected Willard and five other U.S. schools for their use of “inclusive education,” said Wayne Sailor, a professor in the University of Kansas’ School of Education and director of the SWIFT Center.

Inclusive education is a classroom model in which students of all learning types, such as gifted, special education and English as a Second Language students, learn in one general classroom setting rather than under separate programs, with the idea that all students mutually benefit from the shared learning environment.

“A big problem is that if you go into a typical low-performing school, there are lots of resources that could help, but they don’t connect with each other — special education being an example,” Sailor said. “It looks for its own resources and provides a system only for those identified as such.”

The six schools chosen by SWIFT are already successfully operating on an inclusive model and will be studied by Sailor and his affiliates so the advances these schools demonstrate can be applied elsewhere.

At Willard, inclusive education has been around for 11 years, said Willard Middle School Principal Robert Ithurburn.

“There is not so much an ‘us-them’ mentality,” Ithurburn said of the learning environment at Willard. “I think it’s more of a real-world situation.”

In the United States, there has been a trend toward including more students in general education classrooms, which has been accelerating for several decades, said Jennifer Russell, a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education who is now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

At Willard, students with severe disabilities have an instructional aid with them all day long, and there are teachers’ aids who check in on particular students throughout the day, said Jessica Lee, Willard’s teacher librarian. Lee is also a parent of a Willard Middle School student.

Teachers may also practice “modified education,” in which students of differing abilities can be given parallel assignments, with a co-teacher focusing on modifying the lesson for others based on learning needs, she added.

An increasing number of educators, including SWIFT researchers, tout the benefits of an inclusive classroom model over a segregated one, but it’s a model with potential that is not always realized, Russell said.

With $24.5 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, SWIFT will spend now until October researching the six inclusive model schools, Sailor said.

As compensation for cooperation with researchers, each of the six model schools will receive a one-time payment of $16,500, Sailor said. He added that the schools additionally benefit from getting national recognition on the researchers’ website.

The schools will continue working and perfecting their model of education in the coming months.

“We’re excited to find out what we can do to be stronger, taking strategies and techniques from the other five schools,” Ithurburn said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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More than 300 ambitious young entrepreneurs and seasoned businesspeople alike gathered Thursday at Hotel Shattuck for Innovate@Berkeley, an event that showcased some of Berkeley’s startups and featured a panel of prominent speakers.

Organized by UC Berkeley undergraduate business fraternity Alpha Epsilon Zeta, the event consisted of a startup expo showcasing 26 different startup companies, a speaker panel and a pitch competition, during which high-profile judges selected five startups to present their work on stage to compete for cash prizes and other awards from sponsors.

UC Berkeley sophomore Sameen Karim, a computer science major who founded his own startup, Eventable, and organized the event, hopes that events such as Innovate@Berkeley will bring more attention to the startup community in Berkeley.

“Everyone always focuses on Stanford or MIT,” Karim said. “Berkeley is just a sleeping giant … We’re trying to bring awareness to the fact that Berkeley is pumping out some really high-quality companies.”

The event, however, also drew in significant city support. The Berkeley Startup Cluster, a sponsor of the event, helped student organizers connect with prominent individuals like publicists, judges and speakers, according to Jennifer Cogley, the sustainable business coordinator in the city of Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development.

“The fact that (the event) was produced by students is significant,” Cogley said. “The level of energy and creativity was beyond what we’ve seen before.”

The Berkeley Startup Cluster consists of a committee of representatives from the city of Berkeley, the Downtown Berkeley Association, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and UC Berkeley, all of whom work in collaboration to develop and support the startup community in the Berkeley area.

Additionally, Michael Cohen, UC Berkeley’s director of innovation ecosystem development, hopes that by sponsoring events like Innovate@Berkeley, Berkeley will develop into a prominent startup community.

“One of our objectives (at Berkeley Startup Cluster) is to make UC Berkeley and Downtown Berkeley a world-class cluster of high-tech-oriented companies,” Cohen said.

Although the event was not necessarily the first of its kind, Innovate@Berkeley was one of the largest forums to bring a variety of different startups together, according to Jessica Lee, marketing manager at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, which also helped sponsor the event.

The event is just one of many initiatives in the Berkeley area to support and build the startup community, which have also included SkyDeck, NextSpace and the hackerspace that recently opened in Cory Hall.

“(Startups are) a great source of jobs,” Cogley said. “A lot of students now are making their own businesses once they graduate, and we’d rather have them do that (in Berkeley) than somewhere else.”

Eventually, Alpha Epsilon Zeta hopes to expand the number of companies featured in the expo and make Innovate@Berkeley an annual event.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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