Recent events make it difficult to determine in which direction Howard County school officials are headed regarding special education.
Restrictions on the number of students enrolled in a program for emotionally disturbed students at Waterloo Elementary School, along with a proposal to house some of those students at Stevens Forest Elementary next year, raise questions about which of the trends in special ed the school system is following.
There are certainly elements of inclusion -- whereby special education students are integrated into mainstream classrooms -- that can be seen in the system's most recent moves. Limiting the number of students enrolled in the Waterloo program this year has meant keeping some students identified as emotionally disturbed in their home schools.
But officials also say that they are not abandoning the idea of separate programs for these students, although they oppose placing a sizable number of emotionally disturbed children at one school.
That is essentially what has happened at Waterloo, where a year ago nearly 40 students were enrolled in the program for students who were often physically aggressive. But parents of students not in the program complained that special education students were too disruptive, even to the point of locking themselves in restrooms for hours while teachers waited for them to come out.
The administration's decision to split the program between two schools seems a good one under the circumstances, and should result in no more than a dozen or so students at each school. But that is only for elementary-age children. School officials plan to split the program at the middle school level in 1996, while the high school program for the emotionally disturbed is already housed in two buildings.
Along with limiting these programs to the most severely disturbed, school officials say they are working with the staffs in individual schools to help them cope with the students who would have been sent to Waterloo. While that approach is consistent with inclusion, it still needs to be monitored closely to ensure it is the most effective way of providing service to those children.
We agree with school officials that the prudent course is one that tries to keep students in their home schools, but also recognizes that some students may need a more intensive program.