Timothy realized the need for a robust and customizable solution for educating children with special needs through his vast experience as a special needs educator and curriculum director. He founded Action Driven Education, a company that develops effective tools such as Accomods™ to empower educators, parents, and Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) teams to create and implement student-specific instruction for students with special needs.

What inspired you to found “Action Driven Education”?T: I've spent 22 years working in public education as a special education teacher and administrator. During that time, I worked beside incredible teachers who strived to educate children from all walks of life while being dedicated to their profession, subject, and, most importantly, their students. However, I noticed that when it came to educating children with special needs, teachers were struggling. Each teacher's struggle looked different, ranging from what appeared to be resistance to teachers doing what they knew to do, all the way to teachers who would spend every waking minute researching to find the perfect solution to meet a child's needs. In the end, I found that most teachers wanted what was best for their students. I worked hard to support this mindset, but we were all struggling with the need for solutions.
Action Driven Education's mission is to provide teachers, parents, and IEP teams with the tools they need to develop and implement effective inclusion for students with special needs. Effective inclusion happens when teams support a child past their special needs to effectively learn in the general education classroom. This type of support comes through developing effective Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) in a child's IEP, 504 Plan, or pre-referral interventions. This is what leads Action Driven Education to develop Accomods™, a user-friendly web app designed to guide the development and implementation of genuinely individualized SDI. Together with meaningful "action-driven" professional development, Accomods™ empowers teachers with the solutions they need to educate their students.
You can learn more about Accomods™ by Action Driven Education at www.ActionDrivenEducation.com

Can you talk about the research and expertise that helped you in this endeavor?T: As a special education teacher and administrator, I worked with countless teachers, service providers, and parents to individualize instruction for thousands of students. This combined experience culminated in the effort to create Accomods™. Today I am working with forward-thinking schools, teachers, advocates, service providers, parents, and individuals to continue to refine and grow Accomods™ into the premiere tool for individualizing instruction. As the founder of Action Driven Education, I am the curator of thousands of dedicated individuals' ideas and methods.

What improvements are needed in the current special education curriculum?T: A curriculum that works best for a child with special needs is skill and strategy-focused, not focused on a given material, book, or resource. For example, a common reading strategy for a third-grade student to develop is the ability to identify an unknown word using context clues. This statement is skill-focused and not limited to a given story, textbook, or material. In other words, it can be learned and mastered using any unknown word in any text regardless of the child's reading level. In fact, it is best practiced using a text that is just slightly harder than the child's independent reading level, not in one that is too hard or too easy. Notice that this practice is also equally supportive of the child who is reading well above grade level. This child cannot master the skill if the book is too easy; chances are they already know all the words, so they cannot practice identifying an unknown word if they already know all of the words! By focusing curriculum on the development of skills and strategies, teachers will be better able to meet all children's needs.

How can we address challenges faced by students with special needs?T: I believe that the best way to address the challenges faced by students with special needs is not to advocate for a complete change to the system instead to find ways to improve the system by looking at places where it fails then showing how these changes can improve education for every child. Let us consider an accessibility issue our communities have already been working on mastering, the wheelchair ramp. While I could use thousands of examples, as I write, I am fresh off knee surgery, so this example seems all too relevant. When wheelchair ramps were invented, their purpose was not to change the approach to how we build, rather merely to make it possible for an individual who uses a wheelchair to gain entrance to public buildings by changing one feature, the stairs. Since then, the building industry has stepped up to this challenge, and we have all benefitted. For example, now, in the COVID pandemic, everyone can tap a button on the wall with our elbows to open a door without touching it. These changes came about by finding ways to improve systems, as they existed, for individuals with special needs and then snowballed into things that ultimately enhanced the system for everyone.
Accomods™ is an excellent example of this premise. Accommodations are slight tweaks that change the way a student accesses or demonstrates their learning. These tweaks give a nod of success to most of the educational environment the teacher has built while acknowledging that there is, perhaps, a simple change that can be made to make their efforts more accessible to a child.

What is your message for parents of children with disabilities?T: Parents are the best advocate for their children and should recognize this as their role when working with teachers. However, teachers work hard to create a unique environment in their classes. Most teachers desperately want to effectively educate the students that walk in their door and in many cases, believe that they are. When you observe, or your child shares, a struggle from a given class, it is best to share this insight with the teacher; they often may not be aware. Doing so in a teamwork approach is what works best. The goal is to support your child past their need, but that does not necessarily mean that they need to do the same thing as another teacher. If our goal as advocates for children with special needs is to individualize education, we should approach the conversation using that same lens. Realizing that teachers are individuals helps to encourage individualization for your child. Work with the teacher to support your child past the need they are displaying in each classroom individually. Doing so helps make the accommodations match the teacher's unique style, personality, and atmosphere, thereby making inclusion much more authentic. In summary, advocate for your child. Share your observations and input. Collaborate with the teacher to find a solution that works in their unique environment. Think individualization!