It's September. The hallways are buzzing with fresh energy, new supplies smell like possibility, and your to-do list is longer than a CVS receipt. In the rush to get services running and stay compliant, it's easy to skip the foundational work that actually makes special education programs thrive.
After working with schools across the country—including four DC charter schools who just transformed their special education systems—we've seen brilliant, dedicated leaders make the same costly mistakes. The good news? They're completely avoidable.
Here are the five most common missteps we see, and exactly how to fix them.
1. You're Jumping to Action Without Setting Your North Star
In the scramble to start services and check compliance boxes, leaders often skip the step that holds everything together: establishing a clear vision for inclusion.
We get it. Vision-setting can feel like luxury when you have IEP meetings to schedule and services to coordinate. But without a shared understanding of why you're doing this work and what success looks like, your team will burn out fighting fires instead of building systems. You can learn more about the THRIVE Framework, our vision, in this short video.
The Fix: Dedicate 90 minutes this week to setting your vision with key stakeholders. Not endless wordsmithing—just a clear, shared statement of what you're all working toward. Our Vision Setting Template from the THRIVE toolkit walks you through this process step-by-step. When one partner school did this, it transformed how their entire team approached challenges.
2. You're Asking for Collaboration Without Creating Time for It
Here's a sobering statistic: 70% of educators say collaboration is essential for improving special education, but only 35% of schools have co-planning built into their schedules.
That's like asking someone to bake a cake without giving them an oven.
If you want general and special educators to truly collaborate—not just exchange emails in the parking lot—you need to build the infrastructure for it. This means protected time, clear structures, and training on how to collaborate effectively.
The Fix: Start with 30 minutes weekly for co-planning between teaching teams. Use our Co-Planning Agenda Template to make those minutes count. AppleTree Southwest saw student engagement jump from 42% to 67% after implementing structured co-planning. The template is free—the impact is priceless.
3. You're Flying Blind Without Data
Too often, schools rely on the squeaky wheel approach—whoever complains loudest gets attention. But what about the quiet struggles? The patterns you're missing.sing? The interventions that aren't actually working?
At ABC, we use a simple cycle: Inspect-Interpret-Intervene. Look at the data, understand what it's telling you, then act. Without this, you're making million-dollar decisions based on hunches.
The Fix: Start collecting one meaningful data point this month. Survey teachers about co-planning effectiveness using our Co-Planning Teacher Survey. Track behavior incidents. Monitor IEP goal progress. The specific metric matters less than building the habit of data-informed decision-making.
4. You're Creating Change in a Vacuum
Remember when your district or network rolled out that initiative that nobody understood and everyone ignored? That's what happens when we fail to engage stakeholders authentically.
Change doesn't stick when it's done to people instead of with them. Your teachers, paraprofessionals, families, and students all need to be part of building the systems that serve them.
The Fix: Use our Selecting a System Tool to engage your team in identifying which challenges to tackle first. Watch Center City Petworth’s video to learn more about their journey. When people help choose the priority, they're invested in the solution. This isn't about consensus—it's about building collective ownership.
5. You're Only Targeting One Dimension of Change
Some schools focus entirely on changing mindsets ("We need to believe all students can learn!"). Others pour resources into knowledge-building (endless PD sessions). Still others jump straight to practice changes without addressing beliefs or understanding.
Real transformation requires all three: shifting mindsets, building knowledge, AND changing practices. Miss one, and your initiative will sputter out by November.
The Fix: For any new system you're implementing, map out how you'll address:
- Mindsets: What beliefs need to shift?
- Knowledge: What do people need to understand?
- Practices: What behaviors need to change?
Our Pilot Planning Template helps you think through all three dimensions before you launch.
The Bottom Line
These mistakes aren't character flaws—they're the natural result of trying to do too much with too little time. But here's what we learned from our THRIVE cohort schools: When you slow down to build the right foundation, everything else accelerates.
The schools in our new case study didn't have more resources or easier challenges than you. They just avoided these five pitfalls and built systems that actually work.
Ready to learn from their success? Download our complete THRIVE Systems Toolkit with all the templates, guides, and tools mentioned above.
Because September is hard enough without reinventing the wheel.
Want to dive deeper? Read our full case study, "Building Schools Where All Students Thrive," documenting how four DC charter schools transformed their special education systems. Available at www.theabilitychallenge.org.
