To meet the challenge posed by population changes, the faculty and staff at SMS initiated and sustained several reforms including shared decision making (SDM), a district-sponsored initiative, and the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES). In 1992, SMS collaborated with the University of Florida (UF) on Project RISES, a U.S. Department of Education grant with a focus on including students with disabilities in the process of systemic reform. In the following section, we briefly describe the evolution of inclusion during RISES; a more complete account can be found in Kilgore, Griffin, Sindelar, and Webb (2001, 2002).