(00:00:00) Well a great deal has happened more in the in these recent years. I think then you know history in our attempts to serve handicapped individuals in this year. The one we're in right now the school year that is 1978-79 is really at the Mountaintop. There's just more activity right now than ever before events are running well ahead of us. That is a so many things are happening that we have great difficulty getting our policies and shape and getting our training programs in shape so that we can deliver fully on on many of the promises that are involved who take just a moment to go back. I think one of the critical events occurred in 1971 one a federal court in Pennsylvania, a three-judge federal court made a decision. It's become known as the park decision Parc standing for Pennsylvania Association for retarded children a group of parents initiated this case suggesting that their children had been denied suitable educational opportunities, and it reached federal court and the state Secretary of Education that would be equivalent to our state Commissioner of Education Minnesota rather than to see the case fully litigated entered into a consent agreement. in among the elements in that agreement where these that every child has a right to education (00:01:37) Bar None (00:01:38) absolutely all youngsters no matter how seriously and again have a right to education and it's the obligation of the schools to delivered and secondly, they Advanced the concept of least restrictive environment that is to say that when a public agency and that includes the public schools finds it necessary to intervene in the life of an individual it must do so in the way which is least interfering in the life of that individual for example in mental health When a person is found to have mental health problems public officials may not. Remove that person from his or her natural environment to a special hospital or special station for treatment. I guess we did that in the past but we may no longer do that rather. It's the job of the mental health authorities to deliver program to deliver supports into the life of that individual in his natural environment is the first is the preferred alternative. Now that concept was applied has been applied in the public schools and handicapped children. Now that came through in the park decision and that was based on the 14th Amendment the case has been persuasive. It has come through in many cases across the country and those Concepts among others have been entered again into legislation in many states and then quite recently in federal legislation and the schools and other institutions are very busy making changes making more integrated Arrangements. Applying or implementing the concept of the least restrictive environment in programs for the handicapped. (00:03:25) Is this a national Mandate of sorts this least restrictive environment or is it or does that already exist or is it something that you see is going to be National or Nationwide very soon. (00:03:37) It's National. Now the original part case that I mentioned was officially effective only in the district court region of Pennsylvania. But as I say the case was persuasive and there were dozens of similar cases, but in 1975 the Congress the the Senate and House of our federal government passed Public Law, 94-142 School people and know those the numbers very well these days and that legislation passed in 1975 became fully effective this year. That is this was the year in which it was to be fully implemented. So it is it is applicable to Only through the United States this (00:04:20) year and who is it up to to interpret this rather broad phrase of least restrictive environment it is it up to the school boards or the superintendent and how do they go about doing it? Is there a uniform way of doing it? (00:04:38) Well, the legal imperative in a general way comes down from the federal government to State education officers and from there to local school districts and on down to the individual child, it's truly notable. I think that that the emphasis here is on the individual child, but when you finally get to that individual boy or girl The plans are made by school officials working with the parents or when the student becomes age 18 they may work directly with the student. And in fact as youngsters reach age, 10, 12, 13 14, they're increasingly involved in writing their own plans. But finally an individual educational program must be agreed upon by the school officials in the family and it must be signed off in one of the requirements of that program plan is that they agree on what the least restrictive environment might be the whole logic of placement has been changed in the past. We used to identify handicapped children. Mike rude categories I'm afraid and then quite automatically displace them into special classes there are schools and they would finish that school year and start the next one in special settings. (00:05:58) Now (00:05:59) it is assumed that the child will be served in the same classroom in the same schools with his brothers and sisters and children from his neighborhood and that child may be displaced to a special setting only on plan for a Time limited period agreed on by the parents and the school. So what we have is a kind of a procedural approach to this definition requiring agreement by family and school but with the strong press in the direction of developing as much accommodate of power to deal with handicaps is possible in the base system or in the in the regular school program. (00:06:39) Are we talking about physically handicapped as well as mentally handicapped children? Yes, you (00:06:46) certainly are in the In the discussions before the Congress there has been a figure used approximately 10 to 12 percent of children that were talking about at any one moment. But as you know, not all handicaps are permanent so that even over a period of a year. We may be talking about as many as 20% of children about one out of five and if you follow group of children all the way from kindergarten through grade 6, we may be talking about as many as 40 to 50 percent of children now included there are those who have physical handicaps has orthopedic problems hearing and vision problems may have major neurological problems, but also included are those who show major learning disabilities who just aren't responding in the basic skill areas in school fall badly behind in Reading Writing arithmetic also included would be would be children who show major behavior disorders, so did it covers the full range of Of handicaps one of my friends has recently said that being non-handicapped is a temporary condition and that that little phrase and it strikes me particularly as I get older. I'm more aware of the fact that that the kinds of policies in such that we're talking about could really affect most of (00:08:17) us. (00:08:19) What about the teachers who are involved in classrooms, which up until now have been what we might for a better word for lack of a better word called regular or normal classrooms teachers who have no training really to work with a child who is physically or mentally handicapped and rather suddenly finds himself or herself confronted with some children who don't fit into the so-called normal mold and he or she is told that he or she must go ahead and educate those children what kinds of training programs if any are are being put into action for those teachers. Well, I think is your question suggests. This is a (00:08:59) terrific problem. It's really one of the big difficulties that we face. If we try to serve youngsters who are very special needs and regular programs. That means the teachers they're going to have to be competent to do that. And in the past we've tended to give away a displacement of the youngsters who are inconvenient or difficult to teach and now these youngsters are coming back into the regular classrooms. And for the young ones, they're never going out and the regular classroom teachers face the problem of Consulting with collaborating with specialists in whole new modes of practice of their other profession, and there's a lot of concern it's becoming one of the popular topics for negotiation between teachers and school boards. They want to make sure their class sizes. Don't get too large that they in fact do have the support of Specialists psychologists social workers teachers who are specialists in teaching the Blind and so on they want adequate supplies of materials and such the bringing an awful lot of energy to these topics and I think they're right in general that is I think always have to be concerned about not asking teachers to do something which is really impossible so that I think there isn't any big argument about this. It's only a very practical problem of getting it all organized. Now, there's an enormous amount of training going on in service training for regular teachers and others and the colleges and universities are beginning to stir to their little bit behind in all of this because they weren't immediately affected or directly affected by the illegal imperatives. So they they they've been running about two years behind I think the public schools but they're beginning to stir now and to participate fully and training programs one of the interesting and I think very important observations to be made in this territory. Is that when you get into teacher training, It seems that what's important is not just giving lessons on handicapped children. Like what is it to be blind or what? Is it to be deaf or to be mentally retarded? But what is it like to live in an environment that involves greater diversity human beings who show greater diversity. How can we that is the teacher and the other children of the classroom learn to create a friendly and really useful and helpful environment for youngsters who may have special needs teachers find they need better management skills. They need to know a lot more about measurement and about case study. They need to have help in approaching consultation problems as professionals mostly, you know teachers in the past of taking their groups of 30 and closed the door gone into their little box that isn't that way anymore. They're asked to write explicit (00:11:53) plans. (00:11:55) In public (00:11:56) and to share in that negotiate that with with parents and so on. Well you if you consider the topics I just mentioned concern for the social environment that they create in their classroom better measurement measure better diagnosis ability to consult and many other topics. Those go well Beyond Simple lesson giving as I've said about the handicap and they really are important to education for all children. And I think this is one of the things that's very exciting about this movement. As we as we try hard to develop the competencies necessary to serve the handicapped. We developed further in our abilities to serve all youngsters. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about this really that is why we try to serve individuals who are handicapped. We have an opportunity to recreate a sense of community. I think in our classrooms into more generally in which the handicap can be included in the end effectively help to grow. (00:12:59) Do you have a sense for how well that's going nationally? (00:13:04) So far, I think it's going mostly rather badly. There's some exciting places. It's a terrific challenge to try to turn more of it. I think to do good things but the load has been so great and it's come so rapidly on to the school's individual plans for handicapped children had to be written literally overnight almost in the schools. And in the regular teachers had to be involved this last fall nearly four million of those IEPs as they're referred to individual educational program plans were written by teachers the activity became so pervasive that I understand in one large city a bumper stickers appeared saying how your IEPs almost anybody associated with schools in any way knows knows about the it came very suddenly. on many people and I think almost inevitably that means that The activity was kind of superficial at least in the first round. And so we did kind of a surface job most places but there are there are good examples. Those are the things that that summers are trying to make visible the the really serious efforts the good at good efforts and see if we can to encourage all schools to make themselves accountable in terms of those best performances wherever we need a lot of leadership from everywhere we can get it I think and identifying the most fundamental concepts ideas that are embedded in this whole change process and direct as quickly as we can our training efforts and our leadership efforts to the to the fundamental topics rather than to the kind of simple compliance mechanisms, which we resort to when you you get just a crushing federal law on you. (00:14:55) So this is what you meant when you started off by saying that that events were running well ahead of the Situation. Yes, that's (00:15:07) true events have been running ahead. Let me add just a little bit to that if you have a moment in Minnesota, for example, and I think we're not different (00:15:15) our largest (00:15:16) Institution for mentally retarded person's was in Faribault and perhaps still is but it used to run well over 3,000 patients. It did for years and years. I check last fall and it was 800 plus and someone told me recently it's below 800 now our school for the deaf has dropped drastically in her School for the Blind in st. Paul is reasonably close at special school for the orthopedically and again to special schools for for retarded in his clothes of small unit for preschool blind and for deaf and those youngsters Seriously handicapped are still in small clusters many of them but at least those clusters of children are located in regular school buildings, very complex people have come back from institutions. And there's a special schools in the direction of the regular school programs. They're writing the school buses and they're on the agenda the school principal and they're moving into special classes in the regular classes. We're definitely making more inclusive Arrangements, but it's just a fact that a lot of that happened before we got our policies and shape and got all the training done. So there's a lot there's an awful lot of awkwardness out there and enough lot of frustration as we play catch-up baseball really with the situation.