SPECIAL EDUCATION

He bites, he kicks, he spits right in your face. He flails, and four letter words spew from his mouth. He has the face of an angel and the throwing arm of a major leaguer. Rodney is five years old and assigned to a mainstream kindergarten. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and has his own one-on-one teaching assistant. However, due to his unruliness, Rodney spends little time in the classroom. If not physically restrained, he will run out the door leading everyone on a merry goose chase. He spends most of the day throwing and catching a ball on the yard with his “one-on-one”.

The school is required to educate him in a regular classroom despite his totally disruptive behavior, which distracts the other children and interrupts their learning. The teacher is not trained to handle him and it is not fair for the teacher or the other students.

So where does he belong? He is quite bright, so he would not benefit from being placed in a Special Education classroom, where most are of limited intelligence and ability. The law says he must be educated, but how? What do we do with Rodney?

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a federal civil rights act that requires that students with mental or physical disabilities be provided a free appropriate public education.

A disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more life activities. Major life activities include walking, seeing, speaking, breathing, learning, caring for one’s self, working, and performing manual tasks.

Some examples of disabilities that might substantially limit a major life activity are chronic asthma, physical disabilities, severe allergies, diabetes, cancer and that great catch-all, ADD/HD.

I had two months teaching in a Special Ed classroom on a long term assignment that every other sub turned down. Two months with sixteen students; fourteen boys and two girls, who ranged from kindergarten to third grade. Two months trying to teach four grade levels of children, each with separate and distinct learning, physical, mental, and behavioral disabilities. I had two aides and zero knowledge of how these children learn. Each child comes with an Individual Education Plan that sets goals to be accomplished. Yeah, right!

Four kindergartners had no speech; no discernible speech anyway. They made grunting or whistling noises, or screaming, angry, and crying sounds. They could follow a few directions - “sit down” worked if it was followed with physically moving him down into the chair. I called them the Not Ready for Prime Time kids. They were not ready for school!

Three of the students were very low birth weight preemies and really needed a lot more mommy and maturation time, preferably in an environment better suited to younger children. But they were five years old chronologically and the law says we have to take them into school.

“How do you do it?” my boyfriend asked as I straggled home one afternoon. Small victories, I said, like today Keesha only cried for one hour instead of two. We’re making progress!

The first and second graders struggled to trace and print their names. Two students appeared to be mentally retarded. There are special classes for the MRs, but their parents would not allow them to be transferred to that group. A few children recognized many of their letters and sounds and did know some vocabulary words. Others could count to ten or twenty and could write the numbers. Every recognized sound or word, any direction followed, or moment of recall, felt like a huge accomplishment - for me as well as for my youngsters.

And then there were two boys who read as well as, and knew as much as, most other third graders in the school. Why were they here? I was told they had an IEP, an Individual Education Plan, the magic words which mean that somehow the boys were deemed Special Ed by a teacher, parent, and specialist team. Often it is the parents who pressure for the identification because it comes with certain financial incentives from the government.