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The 1998-99 school year was the inaugural year of inclusion at DeSoto
High School in DeSoto, TX. As a Life Skills teacher there, I had been
asked to develop implementation of this program at the end of the
previous year. A little overwhelmed, I looked for what I felt would be
the best method and developed the Supportive Peer Relations Class.
Recruiting 1lth and 12th graders through recommendations of teachers,
sponsors and coaches, we initiated our program with 22 peer tutors,
adding several more through the school year. These young people would
be responsible for attending various classes with 10 students with very
special needs. The peer tutors spent three weeks in classroom training
before being matched with one or two students. Classes were
hand-scheduled, and teachers were provided information on the students
who would be included, most for the first time in their lives. Classes
varied from content areas in social studies and science to art to
aquaculture to keyboarding.
Peer tutors are required to keep daily journals, maintain goal
achievement sheets to assist in determining grades, do a research
project on some disabling condition, and plan and participate in an
out-of-school activity with their peer each grading period. In
addition, this year they also participated in Special Olympics and
helped plan and implement our first "Circle of Friends" prom. They also
made posters promoting the class for next year and brought many friends
in to discuss the class and to get approval for participating in the
program next year.
The results were fantastic! Our newly-included students showed
wonderful social gains, and many were able to grasp much of the material
presented in the classes. One autistic student, who does not speak, was
handling the changing out of fish tank water all by himself by the end
of the first semester. Another who spoke only in one or two word
responses is now walking in and asking, "Ms. Lueth, what did you do this
weekend?" The classroom students were supportive and responsive from the
get-go,and although there were a few who had to make snide remarks, others
defended the rights of education for everyone.
More exciting is the response from the teachers who had never worked
with special needs students of this magnitude. Their comments have
motivated me more than anything. One shared how his included student
was teaching manners to his regular students. Suddenly everyone is "God
blessing" everyone else when someone sneezes. Or when students started
pushing around, though probably just in fun, a newly included student
cited "Rule number 4: keep hands and everything else to yourself."
Another teacher shared how one of his included actually had some of the
best grades in his keyboarding class, and asked to be assigned students
again next year. All but one of the 16 teachers who participated have
remained totally enthusiastic and wish to remain active in the program.
However, the most wonderful teacher was the one teaching health across
the hall who had a particularly pleasing voice to a non-seeing student
with extremely exceptional needs. This student stayed in the Life
Skills Center where students came to spend time with her. Known for her
screaming in junior high, we had done something to make her feel
comfortable with us. She had wheeled her chair out into the hall and
into this teacher's class on several occasions. One day when the
student had not been over to visit in "a while," Ms. B-T came over and
asked L where she had been, that she had missed her in class. The next
time L wheeled in, Ms. B-T welcomed her by saying, "We've missed you,
where have you been?" And when L would start to make some noise, she
would remark on how much she appreciated L's comments. The modeling
that this teacher has done for her students is unbelievable. She has
truly become my hero.
There were very few pitfalls in the first year, though I have some ideas
to make the program more dynamic for the peer tutors and plan to do a
more in-depth staff development with the inclusion teachers in the
future. I only know that I could never go back to keeping the life
skills students in a self-contained environment all day. If the
district would decide to drop the program, I would seek a district that
supported this win-win program. Fortunately, that is not a situation
that confronts me, as everyone has only rave reviews for the
program.
Contributed by Audrey Lueth. Reprinted with permission from
Inclusion...Yours, Mine, Ours
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School systems are responsible for assuring that transition planning becomes
a component of the IEP beginning at age 14; however, it may be necessary to
start transition planning much earlier in order to allow the student to
achieve meaningful post-school outcomes. (From the Georgia Department of
Education's Transition Manual) Read more about the topic in the
Roadmap
Transition section. |
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