Special Ed Students to Join Regular Classes

Re “L.A. to Integrate Disabled Pupils,” Jan. 31: I’ve been a secondary school, regular classroom teacher for 14 years and my observation is that there are already so many disruptive students and behavioral problems that it’s almost impossible to teach. Some studies show that integrating physically and psychologically disabled students helps them. My concern is for the regular students who want to learn. Any teacher will tell you that more special ed students in the classroom will dilute the learning experience for regular students. Not to mention burning out the teacher sooner!

Gwen Roberts

Los Angeles

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I am a teacher at the Perez special education center in East L.A. Thank you for your positive words about our program. We have about 194 secondary students. Approximately 99 of those are past normal high school age. There would be no program in regular schools for these young adults. Many of our students participate in the “High Five League,” consisting of eight special education high schools. We also have a cheerleaders program. None of these students would be afforded the opportunity to participate, as they certainly would not maintain a C average. Where is their least restrictive environment? Please look at the entire picture.

Peter Auerbach

Los Angeles

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I was sorry to see a rather negative view of the upcoming move toward total mainstreaming in the L.A. school district. Your article stresses the difficulties of integration and seems to see advantages only for the disabled students. There are also clear advantages for the regular students; will they not learn important things about the world if they are seated next to a student in a wheelchair who cannot speak clearly yet excels in math; or an autistic student who doesn’t know how to say hello in the morning but spells better than anyone else in the school; or a child with Down syndrome who has an infinitely kind disposition?

Why do we have to resign ourselves to the prospect of all these students being teased rather than seeing this change as an opportunity to teach all children to get along and help each other?

Ellen Finkelpearl

Claremont