All Means All
Model & Strategy
All Means All (AMA) partners with school and system leaders to increase equitable outcomes for students with disabilities and other students who have been historically marginalized. Through their 15-month program, 190 leaders across 14 states have built more inclusive schools impacting 244,000 students, including nearly 50,000 students with disabilities.
The Problem
One in five students has a disability. While 70% of students with disabilities (SWD) spend 80% of their day in general education, only 17% of teachers report feeling prepared to teach them. SWD consistently lag behind all students, particularly Black and Brown SWD, on every major life outcome. In schools, Black SWD are disciplined at a higher rate than their white disabled and non-disabled peers, and suspended and restrained at higher rates.
Research shows up to 90% percent of SWD are capable of graduating high school fully prepared to tackle college or a career if they receive proper support along the way. As schools and systems work to implement support for SWD, they typically struggle in two ways. First, they only invest in special education or language departments, reinforcing traditional staffing silos and often leaving talented leaders to manage across systems that may not be aligned to this vision. Second, they often approach it as only a technical problem that must have a technical solution but then face resistance, confusion, or challenges when implementing that solution.
The Solution
All Means All champions a transformative approach to education: creating school cultures where students with disabilities are seen for their assets and held to high expectations. Their 15-month program supports school and system leaders by uniquely building adaptive and technical skills with high-quality training, relevant tools, and context-responsive coaching. This provides a rigorous and impactful approach to building better overall schools and systems while closing disproportionalities for SWD.
Leaders ground in what is possible by studying the AMA Habits of Mind with real-life stories from schools, supported by practicable behaviors. They build two foundational adaptive skills to apply to any technical change in service of all students:
- Leading Believers: Systematically building mindsets, identity, and culture of adults to collaboratively own the success of all students throughout hiring, orientation, and continuous reinforcement.
- Radical Problem Solving: Establishing inclusive and ambitious goals that address the needs of all students, and ensuring these goals are collectively owned by the leadership team, who work together to create solutions for even the most seemingly intractable problems.
Leaders apply these skills to implementing AMA’s ‘Inclusive Program Components’ and consistently iterate, using data to drive adult culture and technical changes to shrink and ultimately eliminate disproportionalities in outcomes for SWD.
In the next five years, AMA aims to serve 200 leaders annually, resulting in over 780 leaders collectively, supporting more than 1 million students, including 178,000 students with disabilities. This will provide enough successful models to demonstrate that this work is both possible and replicable. Program tuition will cover at least 80% of the costs, with additional revenue from alumni coaching and support covering the remainder.
Lindsay has created multiple high-performing leadership programs at the intersection of equity, instruction, and learning differences and disabilities. She developed the National Principals Academy Fellowship program at Relay Graduate School of Education, which has grown in size and scale by more than 5x, and worked closely with experts in learning differences and disability to develop educator resources at the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) and Understood. Prior to the work at Relay and NCLD, she was on the founding team of Uncommon Schools and provided human capital and leadership development consulting for multiple districts and CMOs. She is a proud parent on the journey of supporting two children with physical and learning differences.
Impact
AMA has partnered with 190 leaders across 78 schools and 36 partner organizations in 14 states to impact 244,000 students, including nearly 50,000 students with disabilities.
83% of AMA partner organizations have been able to shrink disproportionate academic or social outcomes for students with disabilities and/or multilingual learners.
