By Jennifer Kiilerich
In an outpatient waiting room at the Robert H. Lurie Children鈥檚 Hospital of Chicago, occupational therapist Kevin Durney noticed a problem: the space where children and families spent time before appointments felt sterile, with nothing to do that reflected the kids who sat there. He wanted to fill the room with books that showed the strengths of characters with disabilities and depicted them as full, interesting people who weren鈥檛 defined by their differences. But locating the right titles was harder than he expected.
Then he found the IRIS Center, which had already built a database of the very books he was searching for.
For 25 years, the at Vanderbilt of education and human development has been creating free, online resources that turn education research into accessible, next-day materials that people like Durney can use. In 2025 alone, the center served 1.6 million people across 228 countries and territories, a scale its founders could hardly have imagined when the project launched at Vanderbilt in 2001.
鈥淲e are so proud of the work we have been doing for the past quarter century,鈥� said IRIS Center director Naomi Tyler, 鈥渁nd we are excited to keep building.鈥�
The organization鈥檚 latest annual report tracked IRIS Center use across every U.S. state and territory, in 1,200 public school districts, and at 1,500 colleges and universities. 鈥淲e are embedded now throughout the educator preparation ecosystem,鈥� said Tyler, also associate professor of the practice in special education. In addition, hundreds of health-related entities accessed the tools, along with judicial systems, museums and more.
What began as a federal grant project to strengthen teacher preparation has grown into a global resource used in schools, colleges, hospitals, state training programs and beyond.
How IRIS began: Rewriting teacher preparation
In the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs had begun to identify a critical gap: most students with disabilities were learning in , yet teachers reported feeling unprepared to work with these students. Faculty in college elementary and secondary education programs also reported that they lacked training and foundational knowledge to prepare future teachers for the learners they would inevitably serve.
That insight led to IRIS鈥檚 first U.S. Department of Education grant in 2001, with a clear goal: equip general education faculty to teach special education content more effectively.
With federal support, IRIS resources began reaching college classrooms. Tyler recalled purchasing email lists to spread the word, but as soon as the first IRIS-trained teachers entered K鈥�12 schools, demand grew organically. Soon, school leaders were turning to IRIS not just for teacher preparation, but for professional development.
Since then, subsequent grants from the U.S. Department of Education have expanded the endeavor to include multiple initial preparation pathways and ongoing professional development, while the roster of education personnel continues to grow: elementary, secondary and special education teachers; school leaders; related service providers (e.g., school counselors, speech-language pathologists); paraeducators; school resource officers and more.
IRIS鈥檚 broad appeal and success can be traced to its delivery. Tyler calls it “IRIS-izing”: transforming somewhat dense, peer-reviewed research findings into something a teacher can absorb at the end of a long day, without watering down the content. That means chunking information into digestible nuggets鈥攐ften integrating videos, audio interviews, and interactive practice activities鈥攖hat are combined and scaffolded in a way that gives educators a wealth of knowledge by the time they finish a resource. 鈥淣othing like that really existed at the time,鈥� Tyler said.
Today, the website includes IRIS Modules (the center鈥檚 signature resource), case studies, fundamental skills sheets, information briefs and many other tools. While rooted in helping teachers support students with disabilities, the materials also extend to broader classroom practice. In 2025, some of the most-used modules focused on Universal Design for Learning and differentiated instruction, both of which aim to maximize the education of all students.
Building a better waiting room
Durney鈥檚 waiting room library shows how the center鈥檚 tools move beyond classrooms. Before finding the IRIS resource, he and doctoral student Allison Antman had spent most of their off hours and time between patients scouring Google for books.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that we could have pulled the whole thing off if we didn鈥檛 have that assistance,鈥� Durney said. Ultimately, they selected 170 books that pulled heavily from the IRIS database, completing the library in late 2024.
The IRIS Center鈥檚 breaks down titles by disability topic and age range, making it simple for anyone to find stories shedding a positive light on characters with disabilities. And annual updates allow Durney to keep growing the library.
that when children see themselves mirrored in books, they read more and become stronger readers. 鈥淎 lot of the kids we see are non-speaking,鈥� said Durney, 鈥渁nd the first time that they see someone who’s using a speech-generating AAC device in a book, they just light up. It鈥檚 so socially validating to them.鈥� (AAC, or Augmentative and Alternative Communication, devices are tools that help individuals with speech or language impairments communicate in other ways.)
Sometimes, children enjoy the books so much that they take them home. Luckily, the collection has found local support, allowing a duplicate collection to be created in another area of the hospital and for missing books to be replenished.
鈥淚 can’t stress enough that, if I was starting from scratch, I’d probably still be putting together the book list. Instead, now we have two full collections of books, and we have an ongoing annual budget,鈥� said Durney. 鈥淭he value of that resource was huge, because it enabled me to direct my time towards actually realizing this idea.鈥�
Training that keeps special educators in classrooms
In Arizona, special education advocate Jay Johnson is using IRIS in a different way: to equip educators with the instructional and behavioral education tools that he hopes will keep them around.
Special education teachers leave their roles at roughly of general education teachers. Johnson, who serves as president of the Arizona Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), believes that better preparation and support can slow that loss.
Johnson’s journey has moved through nearly every pressure point in the pipeline. He spent years at the Arizona Department of Education focused on teacher recruitment and retention. Now, through a combination of his CEC work and volunteer time with the Arizona CEEDAR Center, he brings that same focus into school districts, community colleges and rural corners of the state, with IRIS materials as one of his foundations.
When Tucson Unified School District, Arizona’s second largest with around 35,000 students, approached Johnson about inclusion training, he built his sessions around IRIS’s based on a framework developed by the CEC and the CEEDAR Center. He trained approximately 150 principals and 150 teachers, organizing small groups to work through IRIS Modules together before opening discussion.
The topics were practical, such as collaboration, data-driven decision-making and parent engagement. One session using IRIS’s parent collaboration training prompted a teacher to recognize, in real time, a difficult dynamic with a parent. The group used the module to problem-solve together on the spot. The response was strong enough that TUSD now has 100 people on the waitlist for a June follow-up session on teacher-paraprofessional collaboration.
That model also works in places with fewer resources. For example, Johnson brought workshops to special education directors and teachers in rural Navajo and Mohave counties, reaching roughly 85 educators who, in many cases, had never encountered IRIS. But he is ensuring that they learn about everything IRIS offers. Community colleges across Arizona have also begun embedding IRIS into their curricula, including newly launched bachelor’s degree programs in elementary special education.
鈥淚 really feel like if all of our special education directors, principals and teachers knew about what you guys do,” he said of IRIS, “it would really affect change with recruitment and retention of special education teachers.鈥�
IRIS modules power Alabama’s teacher shortage solution
The center鈥檚 role in teacher preparation has taken on added urgency as shortages continue. Nationally, about was either unfilled or filled with under-certified personnel in 2025. That disparity is especially felt in special education, where report shortages.
Alabama responded by creating the Temporary Special Education Certificate program in late 2021, reducing the required certification coursework from 10 classes to five and building an on-demand training pathway around 16 IRIS modules.
The state drew ideas from related efforts in Kentucky and Oklahoma, both of which also use IRIS. Since launching in the fall of 2022, Alabama鈥檚 program has certified 186 special educators, with about 600 participants currently enrolled across all three years. Participants must demonstrate mastery of at least 80 percent of the content before earning certification, and they can complete the work at their own pace while managing classroom responsibilities.
Elizabeth Greene, who oversees special education professional development for the department, said the program was designed to move quickly without sacrificing quality. “Teachers appreciate the modules because they use real-life examples and applicable information from actual teachers,” she explained. “The content helps bridge theory with classroom implementation.”
鈥淭he content helps bridge theory with classroom implementation.鈥�
The IRIS modules cover critical foundational areas including classroom behavior management, Universal Design for Learning, IEP development, and reading and math progress monitoring, topics Greene said are essential for new special educators. The state also extends this training beyond the TSEC program, requiring all new teachers and administrators to complete IRIS modules on classroom behavior management and UDL as baseline training.
“The teacher response has been very positive, particularly due to the practical application components,” Greene said. In fact, in 2025, roughly 212,000 users nationwide accessed free IRIS professional development certificate modules, with that number increasing every year.
Looking ahead: IRIS’s growing role beyond classrooms
That kind of impact still delights Tyler鈥檚 predecessor Deb Smith, who helped launch IRIS more than two decades ago. 鈥淣one of us, in our wildest imaginations, thought that the IRIS modules would be so widely accepted and used nationwide,鈥� she said, a reflection that captures both the center鈥檚 growth and its original purpose.
What started as an effort to help educators better serve students across the ability spectrum has expanded into a resource that is relied upon in classrooms, college programs, hospitals and state certification pathways, often in places where people need practical guidance fast. IRIS endures not just because of its reach, which is broad, but also the way it translates research into something that can change what happens in real rooms, with real children, every day.
