Perceptions Matter: Administrators’ Vision of Instruction for Students with Severe Disabilities

School administrators play an important role in shaping teaching and learning. However, very little is known regarding how school administrators perceive instruction for students with severe disabilities and how those perceptions shape expectations and visions for instruction. Semistructured interviews were used to interview 12 administrators responsible for evaluating teachers of students with severe disabilities across a variety of educational settings. The interviews were designed to ascertain administrators’ perceptions about teachers’ expertise and their ideal vision of instruction for students with severe disabilities. Findings highlight administrators’ varying visions of instruction, which reveal the ways these visions might influence their expectations for teachers and students. Implications for inclusion and instructional practices are discussed