Forsyth County Public Schools, Georgia

In previous years, the county conducted a formal needs assessment, which indicated that the school district should focus on the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular education classrooms. In the past the schools used "pull-out" or self-contained classrooms for children with disabilities, but they have now moved away from those methods to adopt inclusive educational practices. In conjunction with this, Forsyth County collaborated with Project WINS, whose goal is to provide teacher training to all county instructors and encourage their comfort in teaching students with physical and mental disabilities in regular education classrooms. Project WINS is operated by staff and university personnel at nearby Kennesaw State University. Forsyth County also works with the Emory University Autism Resource Center, which operates programs for autistic school-age students in the area.

This year the county is focusing on expanding efforts to include all students in the general education curriculum. The goal of the schools is to try to ensure that each child's day is as regular and normal as possible. For example, if a student has therapy or other activities in the middle of the school day, the schools tries to create a schedule that is as unobtrusive to the child's day as possible. Therefore, Forsyth County is implementing Project Winning Team, a state-funded initiative stemming from Project WINS, that seeks to build the personnel capacity of schools and districts and to promote inclusion of students with disabilities. By increasing the number of personnel, the transition from special education classrooms to regular education classrooms will be made smoother for the students with disabilities, because there will be more staff ensuring that the curricular needs of the students are met adequately.

The Linking Agent, and Linking Agent team, is responsible for coordinating district involvement with Project Winning Team. They work together to ensure that school personnel are supporting students' involvement in the general education curriculum to the greatest extent possible. The Linking Agent regularly visits inclusion classrooms to observe and occasionally to model inclusive methods to teachers and district staff.

The district is also investigating reading programs to ensure that all children can read at grade level by third grade. This initiative is being focused on by the Vickery Creek Elementary and Middle Schools.

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