BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati Public Schools will mainstream more of its 6,500 disabled students into regular classrooms under a plan announced Wednesday to improve special education services.
Disabled children should be treated the same as their nondisabled peers - unless special treatment is needed to ensure access to the educational opportunities other students enjoy, Assistant Superintendent Rosa Blackwell said.
"Our intent is to help the children," she said. "We don't want to get into the mode where we look for the minimal way to help our children."
The plan calls for:
Including people responsible for special education into Students First, the district's five-year strategic plan, and the Instructional Leadership Teams, which are the primary governing bodies in each school.
Filling special education vacancies with qualified staff. Ensuring that special education students enroll in their neighborhood schools, rather than placing them after their peers have been placed. Superintendent J. Michael Brandt commissioned the plan in March 1997.
Twenty-three groups participated in the yearlong study.
In coming weeks, administrators will make plans to carry out the recommendations. District staff will meet quarterly with the Special Education Advisory Committee and the study's authors to discuss progress.
Kathy Slaughter, president of the Cincinnati Council of PTAs and a member of Citizens for an Accountable School Board, praised the changes.
"A lot of parents are biased about special ed; they feel special ed kids should be in their own schools and not mixing with their kids," she said. "This is opening some eyes, and it should."
Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, placing disabled children in special classes or separate schools or otherwise removing them from the regular education environment is supposed to be the exception, not the norm.
