Educating All Learners Alliance releases new practitioner's guide to drive systemic inclusion for students with disabilities
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 31, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA), a project of InnovateEDU, announced the release of its latest report, All Learners Action Lab: A Practitioner's Guide to Supporting Students with Disabilities. The report details field-tested, scalable strategies developed by a cohort of ten school teams from across the U.S. working to bridge the achievement gap and foster genuine belonging for students with learning differences.
The All Learners Action Lab (ALAL) launched as an extension of EALA's School Study Tours, which previously placed over 100 educators across 29 districts into innovative schools in San Diego, Chicago, Nashville, and New Orleans. The ALAL empowered teams of general educators, special educators, and school leaders to take the best practices observed during the tours and adapt them to address specific challenges within their home schools.
"Systemic transformation in education doesn't happen through top-down mandates; rather, it happens when we empower practitioners to innovate, test, and adapt proven strategies," said Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU. "The All Learners Action Lab demonstrates that when school leaders work with peer networks and are equipped with the resources to solve local challenges, we can dismantle systemic barriers and create learning environments where every student thrives."
The report outlines actionable takeaways across three core pillars that enabled participating schools – including urban charter, traditional public, and specialized academies – to move beyond standard compliance toward deeply rooted inclusion for all students.
The first takeaway focused on high-impact inclusion, which requires shared instructional ownership. Schools that protected recurring, non-evaluative co-planning blocks saw dramatic gains. Explore! Community School logged 99 dedicated co-planning blocks across six teaching partnerships, driving a critical mass of students with disabilities into higher academic performance bands. Genesee Community Charter School embedded interventionists into core instruction with weekly co-planning, raising kindergarten math proficiency from 41% to 77%.
The second pillar centered on low-stakes, engaging community touch points in order to rebuild trust with families. Washington Leadership Academy created identity-centered spaces like the "Dad's Den" and "Moms' Lounge" to foster organic relationships. Meanwhile, Eagle Bay Academy redesigned its daily schedule to include unified lunch blocks and flexible family presentation hours, resulting in a 25% increase in post-lunch attendance and a 20% decrease in hallway wandering.
Centralizing accommodations data, the final pillar, dramatically reduced administrative burdens while improving real-time support. Jefferson RISE created a single-source Master Dashboard to eliminate guesswork about outdated accommodations. Creative Performing and Media Arts (CPMA) Middle School used targeted diagnostic tracking to deliver 30 minutes of weekly remediation for 111 students with mild-to-moderate disabilities.
"The commitment to moving beyond basic compliance to build deeply rooted, sustainable practices was so remarkable to witness," said Aurora Dreger, Project Lead for EALA. "These ten teams proved that practitioner-led collaboration creates measurable, life-changing outcomes for students who learn differently."
District leaders, policymakers, and funders must move beyond passive compliance and invest directly in practitioner-driven innovation to scale these transformative outcomes nationwide. This requires funding school-level cohorts to tackle local challenges and reconfiguring master schedules to safeguard essential co-planning time for cross-functional teams. Equally crucial is reframing family engagement around identity and authentic community, while establishing centralized data dashboards to streamline accommodations and drive real-time instructional coaching. Ultimately, equipping educators with these systemic supports turns isolated success into lasting impact for students with learning differences.
Read the full report and access the complete practitioner framework here.
About Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA)
The Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA), a project of InnovateEDU, is an uncommon coalition of organizations committed to resource sharing and community-building that supports the education community's efforts to meet the needs of students with learning differences.
Media Contact
Jessica Duff, InnovateEDU, 1 501-319-4901, [email protected], www.innovateedunyc.org
SOURCE InnovateEDU
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