Students With Disabilities

With Christmas right around the corner and holiday celebrations in full swing, Columbia residents are probably looking for something a little different on the party scene.Tomorrow's holiday get-together at the Riverside Roastery & Espresso coffee cafe in Hickory Ridge Plaza will be just that: a Christmas party done beatnik-style. Ten or more local high school students will read aloud their original writings and poetry.Someone will tinkle out a tune on the piano, and the readings promise to be personal and heartfelt.

Teachers receive state-level honorsSeveral Carroll County educators were honored recently at the state level.Four teachers have been selected by the Maryland State Department of Education to attend the Maryland Technology Academy from July 26 to Aug. 12 at Towson University.The academy provides a cadre of teachers from around the state with the opportunity to learn how to use technology to support Content Standards, Maryland Learning Outcomes and Core Learning Goals.The Carroll teachers are Kim Sauers and Kelly Hammond from Manchester Elementary; Kim Kelly from Eldersburg Elementary; and Chuck Beaver from Westminster High.

Don't shortchange special education students who need helpKalman Hettleman started out with a very good point in his article ("Special-ed funding isn't fair to all students," May 17). Since 1975, there have been laws that mandate a free, appropriate, public education for students with disabilities.Mr. Hettleman's first line used the word "entitled." It would be real nice if all students received an appropriate education. Just because a student is entitled to an appropriate education, doesn't mean it always occurs.

A Baltimore County girl's two-year drive to create a playground that could be used by her disabled friends became reality yesterday when she returned to her old elementary school to help dedicate one of the county's premier places to play.What was a small, old playground with wood and metal equipment is now an expansive, colorful array of plastic slides, climbing bars and miniature diggers at Oakleigh Elementary School."It's so exciting to see something I worked on for so long actually be built," said 12-year-old Caroline Merrey, now a seventh-grader at Pine Grove Middle School.

Once Harford's budget was ratified by the County Council in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Harford County schools had $340,000 more for special education.The council, which gave the school system $1 million more than the County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann had budgeted, unanimously approved the executive's proposed $237.3 million budget for fiscal 1995.The budget includes a $175 million operating budget -- almost 10 percent higher than fiscal 1994's $160 million -- and $62 million for the highway, water and sewer, and solid-waste budgets.

Three public schools run by a controversial private Minnesota company did not follow federal procedures for special education students and must file a corrective plan by Aug. 1, the state Department of Education announced yesterday.Investigators found: Some students with disabilities were being included in mainstream classes without sufficient parental notice or consent; individualized programs for students with disabilities who are included in mainstream classes were not adequately implemented; evaluations of disabled students were not always completed in the required time period; and insufficient evidence of teacher participation in student placement decisions.

Margaret Kahlor didn't look like the typical Howard Community College student in her biker boots, jeans, Harley-Davidson T-shirt and leather jacket."She didn't look like anyone in Columbia," says Janice Marks, director of HCC's Learning Assistance Center. "She was intimidating and kind of angry that she might not be accepted at the college."Her persona helped mask a fear about re-entering academia, especially since high school was an unpleasant experience."I never went to high school. I was rarely ever there," Ms. Kahlor says.

The county's special education supervisor says he's proud that the Carroll public school system is able to develop and maintain programs for children from birth to age 21."In my opinion, special education programs in Carroll County are [among] the best in the state and on the East Coast," Dr. Harry Fogle, the supervisor, told members of the Carroll County Children's Council yesterday.There are approximately 23,000 students who presently attend Carroll County schools, including 2,815 students with disabilities, Dr. Fogle said.

TC Even though some of the participants could not speak, thei smiles said a lot.The Carroll County Education Center for children with disabilities had its annual spring program yesterday in the activities room of the Westminster school.This year's theme was "Growing Up Great," and the prekindergarten through intermediate classes performed skits about professions."We have specific units we do, and we rotate," said Robin Shamer, a music teacher who organized the program. "Whatever is the last unit is the theme for the program."

It's lunchtime at Southampton Middle School, and the roar from hundreds of adolescents spills out of the cafeteria and into the halls.Tracy Hollenshade and Laura Wienholt shout to make themselves heard. Tracy taps Gina Panza on the shoulder to get her attention. "Hello, Gina, how are you?" she asks.Gina claps her hands, her brown braid bobbing through the white plastic helmet she wears because of her cerebral palsy.L Laura and Tracy, both 12 and in seventh grade, are ecstatic."Oh Gina, that's really good," Laura says, clapping back.

These tables show the percentage of middle school students who scored at advanced or proficient levels on reading and math tests as part of the Maryland School Assessment. The official scores are online at the Maryland Report Card Web site ( www.mdreportcard.org). Scores published here may differ from some reported online because The Sun analysis includes results from students with disabilities, while the state tabulates those separately. Also, scores reported here from past years may differ slightly from scores reported online because of interim corrections.

These tables show the percentage of elementary school students who scored at advanced or proficient levels on reading and math tests as part of the Maryland School Assessment. The official scores are online at the Maryland Report Card Web site ( www.mdreportcard.org). Scores published here may differ from some reported online because The Sun analysis includes results from students with disabilities, while the state tabulates those separately. Also, scores reported here from past years may differ slightly from scores reported online because of interim corrections.

A state audit has found significant improvement in the Baltimore school system's delivery of services such as speech therapy and counseling to students with disabilities. State auditors examined the files of 358 special-education students who were entitled to 678 sessions of services between August and December. Twenty-five of the 358 students had a problem with service delivery, a noncompliance rate of 7 percent, down from 30 percent when a similar audit was done a year ago. But the consent decree in a decades-old lawsuit involving the city's special-education program requires that no more than 2 percent of students with disabilities have their services interrupted over the course of a school year.

The seemingly endless court supervision of the Baltimore City Public Schools' special education programs may finally be moving closer to a successful end. Last week, a special master overseeing a decades-old federal lawsuit on behalf of students with disabilities reported that city elementary schools have made substantial progress toward meeting goals set out in a 2000 agreement to improve special ed programs. The report suggested that the city's elementary schools were nearly in compliance with most of the benchmarks established to measure progress.

Praising reforms initiated by Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso, a special master overseeing a 25-year-old special-education lawsuit is recommending less judicial oversight at most of the city's elementary schools. Alonso publicly committed yesterday to ending the wide-ranging case that costs the school system millions of dollars a year by 2011, when his contract as CEO is up for renewal. But much work lies ahead to improve services to special-education students in the system's middle and high schools.

Eating meat causes systematic suffering It's that time of year again: The time when we read about the 4-H kids at the state fair who experience sadness and grief when the animals they've lovingly raised are taken away to go to the slaughterhouse ("Livestock raised, life lessons gained," Aug. 24). I'm relieved that many of the people involved in this process admit that it's sad. But I'm weary of hearing the justifications for this sadness, such as that meat is "part of a balanced diet" and "this is what [the animals]

With three years to implement a new law requiring Maryland schools to provide disabled students access to sports programs, state education officials say they will spend the coming academic year collecting data and drafting regulations in hopes of setting up a smooth introduction of the measure. In the spring, the General Assembly passed the bill, titled Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities, which requires schools to allow athletes with disabilities to play wheelchair basketball or tennis, to swim or to otherwise play sports, either among themselves or side by side with able-bodied students.

Special-ed students to be held to same test standard 1 The Maryland State Board of Education voted yesterday to make the passing standard for a group of special-education students who take a modified high school test the same as it is for students without disabilities. The decision came after advocates for students with disabilities said those students should be held to the same standards as other students. State statistics showed, however, that only 9 percent or 10 percent of students who took a modified high school assessment last year passed.

Three years ago, amid great fanfare, a federal judge ordered a team of state managers to oversee special education in the Baltimore schools, a move that many viewed as a partial state takeover without the controversial title. Today, the head of that management team, Harry Fogle, is retiring and, as the state scales back on its intervention, he is not being replaced. The three parties in a quarter-century-old lawsuit agree that services to students with disabilities have improved since 2005, when the state and the city were openly sparring for control of Baltimore's schools amid a gubernatorial campaign.

Bill will open doors for disabled athletes Milton Kent fears that passage of the Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities bill opens up a "potentially massive can of worms" ("Bill went too far," April 15). But those of us who daily serve the disability community are appalled at the can of worms his elitist comments have opened up. This bill may not be perfect. What piece of legislation ever is? And there will certainly be bumps along the way. The transition from big-picture theory to implementation at the grassroots level is never simple, no matter what the issue is. But this bill marks the first step toward equality on the playing fields for students with disabilities.