TRIPIL Web Article Archives

Still Not Equal - Peers, not Classmates

Article By: Observer Reporter
Published: 1998-07-26
By: Joe Smydo and Stan Diamond

Article has been reformatted for archival purposes.

It's a tiresome commute for a 7-year-old.

Jocelyn Brandl of Somerset Township travels more than an hour and 15 minutes to Leet Township, near Sewickley, for class because Bentworth School District's new elementary school is not prepared to meet her needs.

Opened last year at a cost of nearly $9 million, the building has wheelchair-accessible doors and rest rooms, but Jocelyn needs much more.

"I would like to have her down here, but as long as they're not prepared for it, I would not push her into it," said Bob Brandl, Jocelyn's father.

Disability rights activists say the separate-but-equal approach to education is still alive, 44 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in the landmark case known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

In that case, the court dealt with the legality of separate schools for black students, not students with disabilities. To members of the disability community, however, that is a distinction without a difference.

Jim Glozier, assistant director of Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living (TRIPIL) in Washington, said "segregated" schools are used to tuck children with disabilities out of sight.

"It's prejudice ... we don't want to look at these people," said Glozier, whose son, Kyle, 12, has cerebral palsy.

In recent years, the high cost of special education has come under scrutiny. People with disabilities say the furor is part of the "backlash" they are experiencing for pursuing their rights -- in education and other areas of life -- at an inconvenience to others.

Marla Cade of Springhill Township, Greene County, has a stock response for those who gripe about cost.

"You know what I tell them? My kids are never going to use their $6 million football field," said Cade, whose sons, Luke, 16, and Gene, 10, have developmental disabilities.

John Lorence Jr., a civil rights specialist with TRIPIL, said it's important for children with disabilities to be educated with nondisabled peers. Without role models, he said, children with disabilities learn to be powerless.

Jocelyn, who has mesmerizing brown eyes, was born with a rare malformation of the brain.

Subject to seizures, she cannot color inside the lines of a picture as well as her 3-year-old brother, Christopher. She wears diapers and cannot walk. The Brandls' family vehicle is an old mini-school bus with a wheelchair lift.

Five days a week, Jocelyn goes to The Education Center at D.T. Watson, leaving the house as early as 7 a.m. and getting home as late as 5 p.m.

On some days, she is the first member of the family to leave in the morning and the last to return in the evening. Jocelyn naps during the commute, said her mom, Becky Brandl.

Is Bentworth unable or unwilling to meet Jocelyn's needs? "A little bit of both," her mom said.

She said it's easier and less expensive to send Jocelyn to D.T. Watson than it would be to provide physical therapy and other special services within the district. But the Brandls also said that in the grade-level system used by public schools, there's no pigeonhole for Jocelyn, who has the speech skills of a 4 1/2-year-old and the motor skills of a 2-year-old.

Because of the distance to D.T. Watson, the Brandls considered trying to force Bentworth to educate Jocelyn in the district. But they concluded that such a move would hurt Jocelyn more than it would help her.

Jocelyn missed the first week of school last year because the independent contractor the district hired to drive her did not have a van with a wheelchair lift and tie-down equipment.

He installed tie-down equipment, and he maneuvered the chair up two planks of wood into the back of the vehicle each day, Becky Brandl said.

Dr. Mary Ravita, Bentworth's assistant superintendent, said cost is not the determining factor in how Jocelyn or other children with disabilities are educated.

Rather, she said, students are educated in the places that best meet their needs. She said only a small number of special education students are educated outside the district.

Under the federal special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children must be educated in the "least restrictive environment." The vagueness of that term sometimes has parents and school officials at odds.

Nancy Hubley said "many, or most, maybe all" kids who go to class outside their home districts do so because officials haven't "tried or explored all the possibilities of educating them within the district." Cost, she said, shouldn't be an issue.

Hubley is managing attorney of the Education Law Center in Pittsburgh, a subcontractor of Pennsylvania Protection and Advocacy Inc. (PP&A), which helps parents and special education students fight for their rights. She said some don't know their rights or let the system wear them down.

"The system can last a lot longer than can parents with children with disabilities," she said.

In some cases, special education students have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) that call for them to spend part of the school day in a classroom with nondisabled students. The classroom may be in the student's home district or another district.

Parents say they must watch, lest school officials ignore the IEPs.

With the help of the law center, Cade and her husband, Thomas Bussoletti, filed a complaint against the West Greene School District and Intermediate Unit 1, claiming officials violated the IEP that had been written for their son, Gene. The IU operates special education programs for school districts in Washington and Greene counties.

Gene attended a special education class that the IU operated in a school district adjoining West Greene, and his IEP called for him to go to library and art with nondisabled students.

At the end of the school year, however, Gene's parents learned that he did not go to library and art as often as called for in the IEP. Officials claimed they could not free an aide to accompany him, Cade and Bussoletti said.

"If that was the case, they should have called an IEP meeting, and they should have discussed it with us," Cade said.

Hubley filed the complaint with the state Department of Education, which determined that Gene and other special education students "had been deprived of an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment," according to a report by PP&A.

"This case has been significant because it has been the catalyst for the school district and the Intermediate Unit to re-evaluate their inclusion practices and to increase their training and support services for teachers and students to improve and increase inclusive opportunities for all children," the report said.

Dr. Lawrence J. O'Shea, director of special education services for the IU, declined to discuss specific cases.

But he acknowledged that IU officials sometimes "have erred" in the provision of special education services. When that happens, he said, the IU is willing to "make the necessary corrections."

Parents and advocates also have found fault with the preschool programs that are supposed to help children with disabilities get an early start on their education.

In 1996, the law center challenged Washington-Greene Behavioral Health Services over a policy requiring parents to accompany their children to "early intervention services" provided through the agency. The policy had no basis in law and was a hardship to parents, Hubley's agency contended.

Vickie Amos, a mental retardation program specialist with the behavioral health agency, said the policy was meant to dovetail with the state's wishes for parental involvement in early intervention services. She said the policy was dropped following a meeting between parents and United Cerebral Palsy, which provided the early intervention services for the agency.

For two years, Gene Bussoletti attended an early intervention program at a privately owned building in Carmichaels. United Cerebral Palsy also ran a program in the building for younger children with disabilities.

Thomas Bussoletti said the building had torn insulation, was too hot in the summer and did not meet the accessibility standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He said Gene's wheelchair had to be pushed across a gravel parking lot.

"They shouldn't even have had the class there without it being under ADA regulations. The segregation allows the substandard arrangement," he said.

William Groves, the building owner, referred questions to the IU. While the building did have some "accessibility issues" that required the IU's attention, O'Shea said, state agencies deemed the place safe for kids.

Instead of putting early intervention programs in a private building, Bussoletti said, the IU should hold its classes in schools.

He noted that the federal special education regulations name elementary schools as appropriate sites for early intervention services.

The regulations also state that education officials can meet the least restrictive environment requirement by mixing early intervention students, even part time, with students in regular preschools and Head Start programs.

O'Shea said space in schools can be hard to find. Also, he said state officials told one Greene County school district that they would not pay for the construction of an early intervention classroom in a new school.

O'Shea said the IU early intervention class in Carmichaels may be moved to another building, one that houses a Head Start program.

Becky Brandl said the IU's early intervention class in Charleroi shares a building with at least one preschool for nondisabled children.

The classes mix for play time occasionally, but more integration is necessary, she said. Not only is integration healthy for disabled children, she said, but it helps nondisabled children come to an early acceptance of peers who are disabled.

Many people are uncomfortable around people with disabilities, Bob Brandl said. If exposure occurs at an early age, that discomfort can be nipped in the bud, "before it even exists," he said.

O'Shea said the IU recognizes the value of integration. In addition to mixing nondisabled children and children with disabilities when possible, he said, the IU in some cases provides supportive services that enable children with disabilities to attend regular preschools.

Sometimes, students have access to programs, but not to the buildings where the programs are taking place.

In 1996, Disability Rights Center sued the Winthrop (Maine) Board of Education on behalf of a student with a connective tissue disorder.

The center, Maine's protection and advocacy agency, claimed that Elizabeth McKay could not get her wheelchair into rest rooms at the middle school or high school or into the chorus room and cafeteria at the high school.

"For the majority of Ms. McKay's first year at Winthrop High School, she was not able to complete the labs for her science class because the lab tables/stations were not accessible to her," the federal lawsuit stated. "Ms. McKay cannot use the front entrance to Winthrop High School because it is not accessible."

On the first day of her sophomore year, McKay waited an hour to enter the high school because the only accessible door was locked. Her peers were well into orientation activities by the time she got inside, the suit said.

The school system and the center settled the lawsuit last fall. The settlement required school officials to make their buildings accessible and to pay $80,000 in damages -- possibly the biggest award of damages in a physical accessibility case anywhere in the country, said Russell Stryker, director of the center's developmental disabilities program.

The settlement also required officials at Winthrop to send a letter to every other school system in Maine, explaining their experiences with the ADA, Stryker said.

Roger LaJeunesse, superintendent, said the 1,150-student district already had begun the process of making the schools accessible when the lawsuit was filed. He said the suit may have been intended to force the electorate's approval of a bond issue to finance the work. He said the voters rejected the bond issue anyway.

On top of the damages, LaJeunesse said, the McKay case cost the district $50,000 in attorneys' fees. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The district has spent more than $900,000 to make its buildings accessible and will spend more in coming years. LaJeunesse described the work as a financial burden for a district with an annual budget of $7 million, 60 percent of which comes from property taxes.

The radical group ADAPT has not been active on the education front of the disability rights movement, though members have fought their own individual battles.

Glozier said he threatened to sue a Wisconsin school system unless it placed his son, Kyle, in a regular-education classroom for the entire school day and provided an aide to assist him.

School officials agreed, and from the regular classroom, Kyle could look out a window and see the trailer where other children with disabilities were having class, Glozier said.

Last year, the Gloziers moved from Wisconsin to Freeport Township. They said they brought Kyle's IEP with them and requested that West Greene put him in a regular-education classroom for the entire school day, figuring they would have to threaten to sue again.

To the family's joy, the district offered no resistance. Kyle was elected president of his sixth-grade class.

"My advice? Keep on squeaking, yelling, screaming, suing, whatever it takes to get what you want for your child," Kyle's mom, Laura Glozier, wrote in the November-December 1997 issue of the disability rights magazine Mouth.

-- End of Part 4

Other Parts of the Story

• Part 1. Freedom Fighters:
  The disability rights movement is a struggle for independence, respect and equality. And that fight is far from over.
• Part 2. Access is a Civil Right:
  People with disabilities encounter barriers daily.
• Part 3. No Place Like Home:
  Disability rights advocates want to replace the hodgepodge of state programs with a national attendant care initiative.
• Part 4. Peers, not Classmates:
  Children with disabilities find themselves fighting for equal opportunities in the classroom.
• Part 5. 'We Will Ride':
  Transportation remains an acute problem, especially in rural areas.
• Part 6. Myths and stereotypes:
  People with disabilities are fighting attitudinal barriers, as well.
• Return to Main Article

Behind the Story

• Reporter Joe Smydo, 28, graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1991 with a degree in history. He was a staff writer at The Pittsburgh Press before joinging the O-R in June 1993. He covers county government and politics and has won Keystone and Golden Quill awards.
• Photographer Stan Diamond, 55, is a native of Burgettstown who began his career in 1966 in the Greene County Bureau in Waynesburg. He was a general assignment reporter and the bureau's primary photographer. In 1985, he transferred to the Washington office as a photographer. He has won several Keystone Press awards for his photography.

Copyright

Copyright © 1998 Observer Publishing Co. - Republished with permission