SWIFT Center offers school, states, and districts the ability to build capacity to scale up and sustain new practices for schoolwide inclusive reform in urban, rural, and high-need schools in grades K-8 for students with disabilities. SWIFT Center focuses on improving the knowledge and skills of classroom educators to implement inclusive schoolwide reform; increasing the capacity of schools to implement fully inclusive reform in academic, extracurricular, and school-based settings; and increasing family and community engagement in schoolwide reform.
Project goals include:
- Identifying and examining six knowledge development schools using rigorous evaluation measures and field assessments to determine the unique features of effective inclusive school-wide reform
- Recruiting, selecting, and then providing intensive technical assistance to four states to build capacity to install SWIFT in 64 schools
- Building capacity to sustain SWIFT schools and extending SWIFT practices to additional schools within implementing districts
- Implementing a system to support Multi-Level State Leadership and Coordination to scale up SWIFT
- Establishing and disseminating the output of a national knowledge bank on school-wide inclusive reform
For more information, visit the SWIFT website.
SWIFT Center is funded by a five-year, $24.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs to the University of Kansas. The Center on Inclusive Education (CIE) at the Institute on Disability is participating in Center activities via a $825,000 subcontract.
Project Partners
Partners with the University of Kansas on SWIFT Center include:
- University of Oregon
- University of New Hampshire
- University of North Carolina
- University of South Florida
- Arizona State University
- Louisiana Technical University
- Council of Chief State School Officers
- National Association of State Directors of Special Education
- TASH
- Institute for Educational Leadership
- Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education
- PEAK Parent Center
- Clickfarm Interactive for website design and management
