• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

High Expectations Set, Met: State Honors Five Schools in Central Ohio

Posted on: Friday, 5 May 2006, 12:02 CDT

By Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

May 5--Kelsey Andrews can't stop giggling.

It's all Mark Imler's fault. During an online shopping excursion for their special-education math lesson, he decided to buy Jockey briefs. Underwear.

Andrews can't stand it. It's too funny.

Imler, a senior at Grandview Heights High School, and Andrews, a junior, forge ahead, recording purchases in their virtual debit-card register and using a calculator. Both have Down syndrome.

A decade ago, many teachers would have considered a lesson such as this one way too advanced for such students. But now some schools, including Grandview Heights, are being honored for pushing students with disabilities to learn more.

In addition to Grandview Heights, four other central Ohio schools recently were named Schools of Distinction by the Ohio Department of Education for the achievements of their special-education students: Columbus Alternative High School, Granville High School, Greensview Elementary School in Upper Arlington and Columbus' Winterset Elementary School.

"We have high expectations here," said Chris Sidon, who teaches Grandview's students with cognitive disabilities. "We ask kids to attempt the (Ohio Graduation Test) and have them keep trying."

The insistence that students with disabilities can learn the material on state exams and then pass them is one of the things that sets these schools apart.

To get the award, schools had to serve students of varying disabilities, have at least a 75 percent passage rate for special-education and regular-education students for the past three years, and meet federal testing goals on the most recent tests. They couldn't be involved in any investigation that would have called their test scores into question.

Only 21 schools of nearly 4,000 schools statewide met those criteria.

One of the things that sets the schools apart is that they mesh the teaching of important life skills -- how to shop, how to apply for jobs, how to behave in public -- with the required English, math, science and social-studies material.

"We have to give the kids hope, give them a meaningful educational experience and point them down the road to a full life," Grandview Principal Steven Andersson said.

That's one of the tenets of No Child Left Behind. It aims to encourage teaching special-education students more difficult material. At Winterset, teachers aren't afraid to push students to master complex ideas.

"Ten years ago ... a classroom of multiple-disabilities students would be sorting, matching," said Mary Ey, who oversees Columbus' specialeducation program. "There (is) a team of individuals here that puts children first, has high expectations and gets very good results. You don't see that in every building."

Winterset's students, many of whom have significant mental disabilities, have learned about the solar system. Students made a model of the planets. They learned words such as galaxy.

"I don't hold back on terminology," teacher Peggy Amos said.

Added teacher Yvonne Rammel, "I think all kids can learn, and we have very high expectations here."

The state award applauds that attitude, and so do the Winterset parents.

"When I go back to when we first found out (my son Lorenzo) was autistic, he wouldn't come out of the coat room," Sherry Watts said. "When you see the progress they've made with him, you're overwhelmed by it."

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

More News in this Category