THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 19, 1995 TAG: 9509170037
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SPECIAL EDUCATION
The Challenge
TODAY: More special ed students are moving to general classes for most
of the school day.
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 390 lines
The room was stone-quiet, but, fingers flashing in the air, Jasmin Morrison and Andrea Watson were rapt in conversation. Jasmin was helping Andrea understand a visitor's question about their friendship.
``We've been friends for a long time,'' Andrea said in sign language, a matter-of-fact look on her face. Nearly five years, to be exact.
They met at Calcott Elementary in Norfolk in a first-grade class that mixed disabled kids with other students.
``One day, it was `Jasmin, Jasmin, Jasmin,' '' recalled Andrea's mother, Lola. ``Then I was finding letters in her purse. . . . Last year she didn't miss one day (of school) because she wanted to see her.''
That Andrea is deaf and Jasmin isn't has never been a barrier to their friendship. They study together. They sleep over at each other's houses. They talk regularly on a special phone for the hearing-impaired, supplied by the school.
Since first grade, Lola Watson said, her daughter has ``just blossomed. She used to be shy; I used to have to push her to play with kids. Now, she wants to call Jasmin and go to parties at school.''
Roderick Morrison said his daughter ``has grown into a compassionate girl in the hard times we're living in now. She cares. That's important to me.'' Morrison said some people object to putting disabled kids in general classrooms because ``they're afraid it's going to take their children down. To me, my child has gone up 500 feet.''
The 11-year-olds have left Calcott, but they're still together in classes at Northside Middle School.
It didn't used to be that way for kids like Jasmin and Andrea.
Just 10 years ago, they might never have met. Jasmin would have been in the ``regular'' class, Andrea in the ``deaf'' class down the hall, or even across the city in a ``special'' school. Worlds apart.
But schools across the region and the country are moving more special ed students into the general classroom for most of the school day. More than one-third of all special ed students in the country - about 1.7 million out of 5 million - now spend most of their time in so-called inclusion classes, where most of their peers don't have disabilities.
Supporters of ``inclusion'' say it typifies the American dream at its brightest - breaking down barriers, downplaying differences, working toward a common vision.
Advocates for the disabled see the campaign for inclusion much as blacks did the desegregation and civil rights movements of the previous generation: the best shot, maybe the only one, to stamp out prejudice and widen opportunities in the classroom - and the work force.
``The children find they're able to perform,'' said Jane Palmer, a special ed teacher at Portsmouth's Olive Branch Elementary, where inclusion has become a schoolwide mission. ``They don't stand out. Their confidence increases, their social skills increase. They seem much happier.''
But almost in one voice, educators and researchers caution that inclusion isn't for everyone: Students with severe mental disabilities or emotional problems still might do best in segregated classes.
And, the experts say, some schools have sped to inclusion without proper training for teachers or enough preparation, creating chaos in the classroom. That's what happened in Norfolk, say the city's teacher groups, which successfully lobbied last year for a slowdown in the spread of inclusion.
``For too long in the history of special education, we had a knee-jerk removal of kids from the regular classroom,'' said James M. Kauffman, professor of special education at the University of Virginia. ``The danger we face now is the idea that kids should go to regular classes until it's proven that it won't work. I think one is as bad as the other.''
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, signed in 1975, laid the groundwork for the push for inclusion. The law advocated the ``least restrictive environment'' for disabled students and said the government must ensure that ``to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities .
That encouraged what became known as mainstreaming: Special ed students remained in separate classes most of the day, but they'd join general classes for subjects like art, music, physical education.
Only in the last five years have school systems moved to fully integrate some special ed students with their non-disabled peers. The inclusion movement sprung partly from court decisions ordering school systems to take children out of special ed classes, partly from impatience voiced by advocates of the disabled, partly from interest generated by the Oscar-winning 1992 documentary ``Educating Peter'' about a mentally handicapped Blacksburg boy who succeeded in a general class.
Statistics aren't available on the number of special ed kids in general classes in each local city, but since last year, all have had some form of inclusion.
Suffolk, for instance, began a pilot project last year with 12 special ed students in fourth grade at Elephant's Fork Elementary School. In Portsmouth, on the other hand, every school practices inclusion, though few have programs as far-reaching as Olive Branch's, administrators say. In Virginia Beach, at least 40 of the 75 schools have drawn up inclusion plans, officials say.
Usually, no more than a handful of special ed students are placed in a general class. From there, the classroom practices can vary widely. Sometimes the class has two teachers - one general, one special ed - the whole day; more often, the special ed teacher travels from room to room. Sometimes, the teachers take turns lecturing; sometimes, as the general teacher speaks, the special ed teacher works one-on-one with students, and not only those from special ed.
That doesn't mean that everyone in the class is required to learn the same thing. For instance, while most students might be reviewing the nutritional value of foods, some mentally retarded students might be learning to identify the colors of fruits, said Maritsa Alger, the inclusion specialist at Calcott Elementary.
The students seem to take it all in stride.
At Oceanair Elementary in Norfolk one day last semester, kindergarten teacher Debbie Query tried to coax one mentally handicapped youngster to his assigned circle on the floor.
``Go to your rug spot, Joseph.''
He crawled on the floor.
``You need to stand on your rug spot.''
He stood up, approached some students, shook his hands at them and then found his place. No one flinched.
Later, in Judy Brooks' third-grade class, another mentally retarded student was paired with a classmate who appeared to relish his role as mentor. ``My buddy,'' he said, patting his friend's shoulder. But the next minute, he was Mr. Tough Guy, making sure his partner was doing his coloring assignment.
``Color, David, color!'' he urged. ``Don't play. You want me to tell Mrs. Brooks?''
A second later, his pleas still unheeded, his hand shot up. He was going to tell the teacher.
Recent graduates of Olive Branch Elementary in Portsmouth, which has practiced inclusion since 1992, view it with a mix of nonchalance and understanding.
``I don't think it affects us at all because kids are kids,'' said Rachel Cater, almost 11. ``We're all human beings.''
Asharna Wright, 13, said, ``For people that have disabilities, it's good to stay in the same class because they won't be joked on. They will learn what other children learn.''
Parents of special ed students also speak glowingly of the benefits for their children. Twelve-year-old Stefanie Ward, who has Down syndrome, went through general classes at North Landing Elementary in Virginia Beach, where she graduated this summer.
``Her speech is much better than a lot of other children with Down syndrome,'' said her mother, Cheryl Ward. ``I think inclusion has helped.''
Even an assignment as mundane as class lunch monitor - a task rarely doled out in special ed classes - can have a lasting effect. ``She's always excited to have a specific job. She doesn't want to be left out; she sees herself as a normal child.''
Sabrina Alston's 6-year-old daughter, Mia, has Rett syndrome, a progressive neurological disorder that has left her unable to walk and speak. She uses a wheelchair and sometimes makes rapid hand gestures.
Since she joined a general kindergarten class at Suburban Park Elementary in Norfolk in March, ``she's almost a different person,'' Alston said. ``She was drooling before. She didn't seem to be excited about a lot of things. Now she'll have that big smile on her face. She loves to ride on that bus. When she goes to school, she grins and the kids greet her.
``All the kids in the class have been been very responsive. She's gotten flowers from them. They send home piles and piles of artwork.''
Bonnie Teig, principal at Olive Branch, said some of the biggest benefits have gone not to special ed children, but to students at risk of failure.
``For the first time,'' she said, ``we can reach children falling through the cracks.'' The pair of teachers can zero in on the at-risk students and offer them the attention they have sometimes lacked.
``We've had children who've come from making D's and F's to the honor roll within one year,'' Teig said.
But not all accounts are so rosy.
Bonnie Ditto's learning-disabled daughter, Candice, was moved to general classes at Norfolk's Rosemont Middle two years ago.
``I've had teachers come up to me and say they resent having LD students in their class,'' she said. One ``informed me she wasn't making accommodations for her. She didn't have time to waste.''
From the teachers' perspective, the experience can be equally frustrating. One Norfolk middle-school teacher of English said she had a class of 16 last year, including nine students with learning disabilities. Most of the time, the special ed teacher wasn't there to help her.
``I didn't have any planning time so I could sit down with her and ask, `Here are my lesson plans; can you tell me what adaptations to make?' '' said the teacher, who spoke openly on condition of not being identified. The general students ``began picking up the behavior of the special ed kids. They began mouthing off and taking longer on projects. They would just do a halfway job because some other students did a halfway job.''
Both of the city's teachers unions - the Education Association of Norfolk and the Norfolk Federation of Teachers - were hearing similar complaints as inclusion percolated throughout Norfolk in the '90s.
Charlene Christopher, a special ed teacher who recently stepped down as president of the education association, said: ``The program was spreading without the benefit of training (for everyone). You had these blanket `go forth and multiply' edicts, and they didn't always work.''
The School Board got the message. Last year, board members stopped short of scaling back inclusion, but sent a strong signal to avoid further expansion.
About 26 Norfolk elementary schools - or roughly two-thirds - integrate some special ed and other students, and all secondary schools integrate most learning-disabled students, said Regina Carpenter, senior coordinator of special education in Norfolk.
Carpenter said the city has worked harder to ensure that teachers get enough training and planning time for inclusion. But Christopher said that, although she's seen improvements, ``some of the same issues still exist. First-year teachers should not be put into inclusion; that's sabotage. . . . I don't think there is a concerted districtwide policy on how we're going to deal with it.''
To avoid similar problems, most local school administrators are adopting a slow and easy approach. For instance, teachers uneasy about inclusion are often allowed not to participate. ``If a teacher does not buy into the concept, you're not going to have success,'' said Teig, the Olive Branch principal, where a couple of teachers have been permitted to opt out of the program.
A slow expansion is the best way to win over teachers and parents, said Brenda Spain, special ed coordinator in Suffolk, who doesn't foresee more than three schools in her district taking on inclusion in the next couple of years.
``You've got to sell the program,'' Spain said. ``I don't think it will be that controversial once people see it working. But it's not going to work if you try to force it.''
That attitude isn't acceptable to supporters of the disabled, who say they've waited far too long already. ``It's hard to imagine 20 years ago that we'd still be sitting here 20 years later talking about this issue,'' said Maureen Hollowell, a mother of a teenager in special ed in Virginia Beach.
She is educational coordinator of the Endependence Center in Norfolk, which fights to ensure the rights of the disabled. ``Congress never intended this to take 20 years.''
Elie Cohen, 10, sits barely a foot from the TV set at home, eating a burger and fries, watching ``Jeopardy.'' ``Make it loud,'' he tells his mother.
Elie, who has Down syndrome, was in inclusion classes for five years at Oceanair Elementary in Norfolk. His mother, Sara, has seen the results: ``Elie knows all his colors and numbers. He's writing his name and reading on a primary level.''
But last month, the Cohens moved to Powhatan, outside Richmond, and Elie began fifth grade in a special ed class with about 10 kids. Sara Cohen is not complaining. ``Inclusion is vital for very young children; it works really well until 10 or 11,'' she said. But now, Cohen thinks her son will best be able to improve his reading skills in a special ed setting.
``He also needs to learn how to handle money and self-help skills. Before, we didn't work on shoe-tying and button-snapping because that wasn't age-appropriate for the other students in the classroom.''
For Taylor Thurmond, inclusion wasn't helpful even in kindergarten.
Taylor - who has attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity and extreme sensitivity to lights and noises - was in a regular class with two dozen other kids at Thoroughgood Elementary in Virginia Beach last year. ``With all the other kids, he couldn't focus. He had difficulty staying in his seat,'' said his mother, Anna, who had him transferred to a special ed room. ``For some children, it just doesn't work.''
Elie and Taylor illustrate a cardinal rule for local educators: Inclusion isn't for all special ed children, and even if it's good for some, it may not be during their entire school careers.
``There is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that all students with disabilities can be unilaterally moved into the regular classroom and served at the same level,'' said Robert A. Gable, professor of special education at Old Dominion University, who has advised several schools, including Olive Branch, about inclusion.
Even those schools practicing inclusion generally don't place all special ed kids in mixed classes. Olive Branch, for instance, has 37 special ed students, with disabilities including autism, mental retardation and moderate emotional disturbances, in its general classes. But it still has one special ed class with seven kids who administrators believed either would not benefit from general classes or would disrupt them.
That philosophy has kept this area relatively free of the sorts of horror stories associated with inclusion in other parts of the country: Children who slap and kick teachers and other students or scream and curse throughout the day.
Those types of experiences led the American Federation of Teachers, the parent of one of the Norfolk teacher unions, last year to pass a resolution opposing inclusion, defining it in its most extreme form as placing all special ed students in mixed classes.
But Virginia L. McLaughlin, dean of the School of Education at the College of William and Mary, said the mistakes should not blind parents and teachers to the value: ``There's a difference between a bad idea and a good idea that's being implemented badly. The benefits can be so immense for students that it's worth pursuing.''
But what is the cost of providing those benefits?
Margaret J. McLaughlin, a researcher at the University of Maryland at College Park, surveyed 12 cities and found mixed results: Some reported increases primarily from hiring more teacher's aides, and others reported savings from cutting down on busing to segregated schools for special ed students. In most cases, she said in an interview, inclusion ``will not be a cash drain.''
The financial question hit home in Virginia Beach in May, when, weeks before his departure, Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette blamed a financial shortfall partly on inclusion. He said the school system failed to budget $2.5 million to hire an additional 64 teachers, primarily for inclusion.
But Robert L. Mitchell, director of the city's Programs for Exceptional Children, said the figures weren't accurate.
The district, he said, hired 28 additional special ed teachers after classes started in 1994-95 at a cost of $850,000. He said that it was difficult to single out expenses for inclusion, but that inclusion surely accounted for less than half that amount. ``I would say it costs,'' he said, ``but I wouldn't say it's costly.''
Elsewhere, officials agreed. In Chesapeake, which began pilot programs in inclusion at seven schools last year, the only added expense was $750 per school for training, special ed director Jan Garner said.
Advocates of the disabled say inclusion can save the country money in the long haul by better preparing handicapped people for jobs - and for day-to-day life in the real world. Federal studies show that two-thirds of disabled adults are unemployed.
Cheryl Ward of Virginia Beach sees the potential for her daughter, who has Down syndrome.
``If I want her to become a member of society, it's much easier for her to get into the flow of things if she's been in the flow all along rather than to suddenly throw her out in the real world and say, `Now fit in,' '' she said. ``It's like coming from a foreign country.''
And equally important, inclusion will make society more open to hiring the disabled, Sara Cohen said. ``I know inclusion works when John owns McDonald's and says, `Elie can do the job here. I know; I went to school with Elie.'
`` `I'm not hiring the retarded; I'm hiring Elie.' '' MEMO: [For a related article, see page A9 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: STEVE EARLEY/Staff
Jasmin Morrison, left, uses sign language to seak to friend Andrea
Watson at Northside Middle School in Norfolk. Parents of both girls
say they have benefited greatly from Watson's inclusion in regular
classes.
Jane Palmer, special education teacher in an inclusion class at
Olive Branch Elementary School in Portsmouth, works with Carlton
Davis. Such classes include regular and special education students,
as well as regular and special education teachers.
STEVE EARLEY/Staff photos
Sara Cohen was pleased with theprogress that her son, Elie, 10, made
in inclusion classes at Oceanair Elementary School in Norfolk. Now
that he's beginning fifth grade, however, she thinks it's
appropriate that he attends a special ed class.
Jane Palmer, left, special education teacher, confers with Marsha
Matthews in their fifth grade inclusion class at Olive Branch
Elementary School Portsmouth.
RESPONSIBLE INCLUSION
1. The student comes first.
The first priority is the extent to which the student with
disabilities is making academic and/or social progress in the
general education classroom.
2. Teachers choose to participate in inclusive classrooms.
Teachers are provided opportunities to participate and select
their level of involvement.
3. Adequate resources are provided.
4. Models are developed and implemented at the school-based
level.
School personnel develop inclusive models that meet the needs of
students and families in their community.
5. A continuum of services is maintained.
It is not expected that the needs of all students will be met
with full-time placement in the general education classroom.
6. Ongoing professional development is offered.
Personnel realize that for teachers to be effective at inclusion,
ongoing development at the school site is required.
7. Teachers discuss and develop their own philosophy on
inclusion.
The philosophy guides practice at the school and sets a tone of
acceptance of all students.
IRRESPONSIBLE INCLUSION
1. The place comes first.
Students' academic and social progress is second to the location
in which their education occurs.
2. Teachers are mandated to participate in inclusive classrooms.
Teachers feel no opportunity to provide feedback about the extent
to which their skills will allow them to be successful.
3. Resources are not considered prior to the establishment of
inclusive classrooms.
4. School district, state or federal directives provide the
guidelines.
Key personnel in the school and community are rarely engaged in
the development of the model.
5. Full inclusion is the only model.
All students are placed in general education classrooms
full-time, regardless of their needs or their successes.
6. Professional development is not part of the model.
Teachers and others are not provided adequate time or opportunity
to improve their skills and increase their knowledge.
7. A school philosophy on inclusion is not developed.
Several teachers in the school may participate and understand
inclusion, but it is not part of the school philosophy as a whole.
SOURCE: Sharon R. Vaughn, University of Miami
GRAPHIC BY VIRGINIAN-PILOT STAFF
WHERE THEY GO TO SCHOOL
Almost 40 percent of Virginia's 128,000 students with
disabilities spend most of the school day in general classes. That's
slightly higher than the national average of 35.7 percent.
Regular class - 38.3%
Resource room - 31.4%
Separate class - 26.8%
Public separate school facility - 1.2%
Homebound/hospital placement - 0.9%
Private separate school facility - 0.7%
Public or private residential facility - 0.7%
SOURCE: Virginia Department of Education for 1993-94 school year
GETTING HELP
[For addresses of groups and agencies, see microfilm on page A9 of
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this date.]
KEYWORDS: SPECIAL EDUCATION INCLUSION by CNB