Hard to Believe It All Started on a Napkin!

Abstract

In an effort to investigate and identify effective instructional practices for students with moderate-to-severe intellectual disability, university researchers partnered with a local, public school system. This new knowledge generated by this partnership has impacted thousands of teachers and students locally, nationally, and internationally. This chapter provides a historical description of the partnership from both the public school and university perspectives over the past 13 years. Specifically, this chapter describes why the partnership was formed, what it took to get it started, how it was organized and reorganized over time, the actions needed to sustain it, and the impact upon the individuals who participated in the partnership. The authors present both the benefits and challenges of the partnership in hopes that such a rich description will encourage and inform others to replicate this partnership. The chapter ends with suggestions for future directions for the partnership and research on school-university partnerships.