For four years Mary Andrews sent her son to neighborhood public grade schools, and it was almost always a disaster.
In most cases, enrollment in schools like Vaughn is voluntary; placement is determined according to something called an IEP (individual education program). “An IEP is written in conjunction with the student, the parents, and the student’s teachers, counselors, and psychologists,” says Jay Mulberry, Vaughn’s principal. “The point is to determine what kind of a program would best meet that student’s needs.”
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By and large, Vaughn offers its students training in job-related skills. “Students in our English classes do not study the difference between nouns and verbs, but they will study newspapers to learn the words they will need to use in everyday life,” says Mulberry. “There’s a strong emphasis on preparing the students for the work world. They will work with our kitchen attendants and janitorial staff to get used to the ethic of work. In their junior and senior years, there’s a greater effort to get them jobs outside the building.”
Proponents of inclusion maintain that rather than being set aside in separate schools, mentally disabled students should be given special services in their neighborhood schools, where they can mix freely with so-called normal students. The debate over inclusion involves thousands of Chicago public school children with a wide range of disabilities. Some have serious mental or emotional problems, such as schizophrenia. Others are violent, having consistently attacked classmates, friends, family, and even teachers. These students are classified as E/BD, which is social science jargon for “emotionally or behavior disabled.”
Although Green would not respond directly for comment, Dawn Simmons, a CPS spokesperson, said that the Special Education Department has no ability to close a school and that it is standard operating procedure for the department to review the IEPs of Vaughn students when they are initially enrolled and to reexamine them periodically throughout their high school careers.
“Special education is embarrassed that there are so-called segregated schools for students like my son–well, excuse me,” says Andrews. “What about segregated schools for so-called gifted kids? If you’re going to shut down Vaughn, then let’s get rid of all the gifted programs and the magnet schools and throw everybody into the same school. Remember, all kids are the same, right? Oh, but they’ll never touch those gifted schools. The hypocrisy really bothers me.”
