Teacher and Inclusion Specialist, NYC Department of Education

So, my name is Ziograin Correa. Most people call me Zio. And my job title is an Inclusion Specialist with the New York City Department of Education, and I work with the Division of Early Childhood Education. Some of my responsibilities or duties include going out to different preschools, preschool programs throughout the city to support students that are struggling. So these are three- and four-year-old students that may have behavioral challenges and we support teachers, we support program leaders, so that includes principals, assistant principals and education directors. So, they run programs that are overseen by the Department of Education but they're community-based organizations. It's basically to ensure that students with disabilities, or suspected to have a disability, that range in age from three to four, sometimes five years old, so they can remain in their least restrictive environment. And what that means is the child may get speech therapy for example, and doesn't necessarily have to move to a special school or more restrictive environment. So the idea behind my role is to support program leaders and teachers so that they are equipped and prepared to support these students so that they can remain in their current settings. Well I recall a child in one of the boroughs, one of the New York City boroughs, that was throwing chairs in the classroom. Four years old, throwing chairs in the classroom, disengaged, meaning he's not participating in activities. After my first observation, one of the key things I identified was the child doesn't really know how to play appropriately with the toys in his classroom, in his environment. The child has some delays, some language delays, for the most part, the child also had a language barrier that no one had really identified because the child did not talk a lot in class or with his peers. But through play, he was able to demonstrate not only that he knew some of his native language, Spanish, he was also acquiring English. Now I don't take all the credit for it because I had to partnership, collaborate with the principal, the assistant principal, the social worker. The school also has, through our division, the division of early childhood, a social worker, an additional social worker, as well as what they call an instructional coordinator. So they help the classroom staff with instruction. We all collaborated, developed a plan to keep the child engaged throughout the day.