Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 17, 1991 TAG: 9103170185
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A/6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's called "mainstreaming."
It's the preferred method of teaching handicapped students, some local teachers, administrators and even parents say.
"It benefits the child, but it also teaches us some lessons," said Eddie Kolb, Roanoke County's pupil personnel services director.
"It's a good experience for both of them," said Virginia Heights Elementary School principal James Mullens, referring to pupils at his school with and without hearing.
In Roanoke, there are about 20 blind or visually handicapped students; Roanoke County has about 36. They are taught in regular classrooms but get extra help from roving regional teachers. There are 91 so-called "itinerant teachers" in Virginia. About 11 of them and four regional supervisors help 216 students in Roanoke and surrounding counties.
Deaf and hearing-impaired students are taught differently. Instead of going to the school closest to their home, they travel to one of four Roanoke schools as part of a regional program. Roanoke, Botetourt, Franklin and Craig counties, Roanoke and Salem participate. Each contributes about $16,000 a year to a regional partnership for each student sent to the program.
Thirty students from the six partnership districts (including a few from Henry County) now attend classes at Virginia Heights, Grandin Court Elementary, Woodrow Wilson Middle or Patrick Henry High.
Ellen Austin has taught hearing impaired pupils at Virginia Heights for 12 years.
Coincidentally, Austin's pupils were studying the human ear one recent Thursday.
Most days, they study in their own classroom on the first floor. But two days a week, Austin takes her pupils upstairs to another class and teaches the whole group.
On this day, the subject is health and the day's topic is hearing. Austin uses flash cards and a diagram of the outer and inner ear to show pupils how sound is heard.
"You have to understand why you hear, so you can understand why they can't hear," Austin tells the class, at the same time signing to her deaf and hearing impaired pupils.
After class, Adam Lackey, 7, said he likes when the deaf students visit his class.
"We learn how to do some sign language. That's fun," he said.
It's a special class because it represents why many people argue for teaching deaf and hearing-impaired students - as well as the blind and visually impaired - at regular public schools.
Austin said students who need intensive one-on-one training are better off being taught at a residential school like the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind in Staunton. She said she doesn't always have enough time to spend with all of them, "and every minute counts."
But she thinks it's better for them to live at home and learn in public schools. "They're with their deaf peers yet they're learning to survive in a hearing world," she said.
Kitty Ailstock agrees.
Her son, Matt, who is blind, spent last year at the Staunton school. He didn't like it and his grades suffered, so he returned to Glenvar High School this year.
Ailstock thinks he's better off.
"I've always felt real strongly that if he's going to live in a world with sighted people, he's going to have to learn to live with sighted people," she said.
"I was so homesick it wasn't even funny," said Matt, 14. "I think that was another reason I didn't do so well at that school. I just feel more comfortable at Glenvar."
by CNB