When Bingham High junior Boston Richards had a chance to enroll in a co-taught English class, he jumped at the chance.

“Both of the teachers have helped me; they see things differently, but they have the same goal,” he said. “Sometimes one takes the lead and the other supports, or they’ll divide us into groups and switch so we’re getting more personal attention. When we’re in one big group, we can raise our hands and they can help us twice as fast. They work well with each other, and I definitely feel I’ve become a better writer from having two teachers.”

Richards is in a class taught by teachers Kari Ortiz and Braxton Thornley, who through co-planning and co-teaching, help each other develop and practice all aspects of teaching, and seamlessly alternate between leading and assisting students in their lessons. 

On that particular day, the class was learning about personal narratives. Thornley, who teaches English, took the lead on instruction, while they both interacted with students about their themes and dialogue that add value and personalized their stories.

Students had prompts to describe a time when they were extremely happy, sad, angry, new or did something new. They read and learned a personal narrative can be as simple as a conversation as Jason Reynolds wrote, “Eleven Minutes: A Call from Kobe Bryant” days after the NBA star tragically died.

The two teachers have taught together for three years and before that, Ortiz co-taught with another teacher.

“Our collaboration helps improve my own classes; his teaching style is dynamic and energetic, and he has a lot of ideas, so I think about that when I plan and deliver my lessons in my classes,” Ortiz said, adding that she may take this narrative writing assignment and “tweak it to serve our special education students” in her other classes. 

The two usually plan together and Thornley keeps an organized calendar of lesson plans and responsibilities.

“We decide together if we need to focus more on something or if we’ve got the new seating chart, we decide who will work well together in a strategic grouping,” she said, adding that they assess students’ learning together.

While not everyone will know the classes are co-taught, Ortiz said the students who have disabilities and have individualized educational plans are aware of it. She said the classes help all students with non-subject related learning.

“The IEP students benefit from working with their general education peers because we often work in groups and pairs,” Ortiz said. “It helps our gen ed students be able to talk about the subject and my students absorb that confidence in expressing themselves.”

Thornley said that he has seen students’ performance improve in the co-teaching model.

“Co-teaching allows us to integrate special education students into the general education classroom so all students can not only learn, but they also learn about how to work with each other,” he said. “When people come in, they can’t tell, but half of the students in the room have a learning disability or a behavior need. They’re all together.”

The former Special Olympics’ Bingham High unified coach said when he learned of co-teaching, he was immediately on board.

“I love working with those students who maybe just need a little bit extra help,” Thornley said. “I also really like having Kari there; it’s easier to reflect on what’s happening and brainstorm solutions together or clarify instruction or vice versa. We’re able to pull aside students who may need help, to intervene and review that concept. We can look at our class and give them what is needed to improve their student achievement.”

Those are words that Jordan School District’s special education curriculum & instructional specialist Renee Sass likes to hear.

“There is no one model, no one way to co-teach, but one of the goals is to help these kiddos learn not only the subject matter, but also strategies to become successful and some soft skills and life skills to be good citizens,” she said.

Co-teaching began in the 1970s when the Disabilities Education Act was put in place to make sure “access to education wasn’t denied for students with disabilities,” Sass said. 

While co-teaching provided a structure by which licensed general and special educators could work together to deliver instruction, it has expanded to include content teachers, intervention specialists, multilingual teachers and others, she said.

Sass said she began the co-teaching push in Jordan District about 15 years ago.

“I remember saying, ‘if they can be in a gen ed setting with just a little bit of support, then that’s what we should be offering them,’” she said.

Since her early days of co-teaching math, the momentum has skyrocketed. There are co-teaching professional development opportunities for teachers as well as Jordan District’s own two-year training program.

“I love that while one teacher may be giving the instruction, the other teacher is able to go around and see a few mistakes of students who have an increase in anxiety or fear of failing, but they aren’t saying anything. So, that teacher is able to say, ‘I’d love for some clarification’ and help those struggling students who may be fearful of raising their hands,” she said. “Our kids are learning from each other how to be a good student, how to take notes, how to listen and not be on their cell phones, how to raise their hand and take a chance.”

 Another initial unseen reward is when students observe their teachers, two adults, interacting with each other.

“Many of these kids come from broken homes or homes that are dysfunctional. These kids are in a safe place where they can see how they talk to each other, how they do things for each other without yelling and screaming at each other,” Sass said. “They can see disagreements between the two teachers, but they see how they resolve it, too. So not only are our students getting that additional help and support with the content, they’re observing teachers who are role modeling appropriate behavior. As a result, inappropriate behaviors are decreasing.”

Bingham High special education chair Katherine Manousakis co-teaches a math class where she will trade off instructing and helping students or she and her co-teacher will walk around the class during independent practice. Sometimes, they’ll put students in small groups to review a concept or work with one individually.

Manousakis has co-taught the past seven years.

“It’s been good to have another teacher because part of teaching is not only teaching the concept, but managing all of the other things,” she said. “We’re able to gel, use different strategies for teaching and presenting concepts, and work together to help students. The students get twice the knowledge from having two teachers and we bring a lot of different references into the class. We have flexibility to review, to enhance, to explain and to show how concepts apply to real life.”