New Principal--
Every time we choose hope over despair, acceptance over intolerance, and optimism over negativity, we are doing our part to change the world.—Leeza Gibbons
At the end of Sean’s second-grade year, the principal retired. I danced at his retirement party! While he didn’t stand in our way, he certainly didn’t contribute at all to Sean’s success. He had been silently tolerant, unsupportive, and skating his way to retirement. The new principal, Mrs. Easton, was a woman who was extremely fit. She taught Pilates classes on the side. She was beautiful, strong, and very interested in this inclusion model that Sean was pioneering at our school. There were two special day classes at our school first, second, and third grade were in one class, and fourth, fifth, and sixth were in the other. There were 12 students in each of those classes.
During third grade, Mrs. Sunshine apologized to me. Seems she had remembered trying to talk me out of inclusion at the end of Sean’s kindergarten IEP when he was transitioning from special education
kindergarten to regular education kindergarten. She told me that she had been wrong and was amazed at his progress and at the way his classmates adored him.
Mrs. Sunshine and Mrs. Easton teamed up to transition our elementary school into an inclusive school! They met with the parents of the students in the special day classes during their IEP meetings, inviting them to include their children in regular education classes for the following year. They arranged with the district to transfer the two special day classes to another school’s campus for the students who
were going to stay segregated in special education.
I had encouraged Sean’s teachers the past couple of summers to attend the Inclusion Institute, and neither had attended. The second grade
teacher was in Paris during one that summer, and the third grade teacher simply wasn’t interested. I had received a very large bonus check from my company and decided to offer to pay for the fourth-grade teacher to attend. She accepted, and I was thrilled that Mrs. Easton and Mrs. Sunshine also attended! Sean’s tutor was there, and it was a great 2½ days of learning and team building. With everyone
educated, fourth grade was shaping up to be a banner year.
---Fourth Grade---
Alone, hearts are one of life’s most fragile things, but together, their passion can accomplish the impossible.—Byrd Baggett
Fourth grade was a turning point for our school. Mrs. Easton had met with each family whose students were previously in the segregated special education classes and invited them to have their child
fully included in regular education classes! A few parents took her up on the offer (those that didn’t transferred with the special education classes to a neighboring school). Sean had a new friend in his fourth grade
class. She shared the classroom aides. He now had somebody
that he could mentor in class and that gave him more confidence and built his self-esteem greatly.
Fourth grade was a big year in several ways. From kindergarten till third grade there were only 20 students in each class. Starting in
fourth grade, there were 32 students! This was the year they learned about California state history too. And California has a very colorful
history! On field trips they visited missions and learned about the mission system. They spent a day on the tall ship Pilgrim and learned what it was like to be a swab on a ship.
Then the big trip—overnight to our capitol city—Sacramento. I went to chaperone the trip, but Sean stayed with three other boys in their own hotel room. The trip was two nonstop days, including a visit
to the capitol and a tour of the train museum. Sutter’s Fort gave a great feeling of what it was like in the early settlements of California. But
the best part was going to the American River and panning for gold! There was a demonstration of how to pan for gold, and everybody was given a small vial in case they uncovered any gold to hold their flakes! All of the students talked about what they would purchase
with their new found fortunes. Sean panned and panned, and voilà! He actually acquired one tiny flake! I helped him put his flake into the vial, and he was done. He was then totally content to take the rocks from the shoreline and throw them into the water for the rest of
the 30 minutes of gold panning . . . He was the only student to leave with a flake of gold.
Sean also learned how to play the recorder this year in his music class, and once again participated in the after-school choir and performed
in the Christmas and End-of-School performances.
I started getting phone calls from friends who were trying to include their children in other schools in our district. I realized that
Sean was enjoying a pocket of perfection in his school within a district that was not supporting inclusion overall. One of my five friends whose son had been fully included made the decision to transfer her son to a special education class at another school. They
had a new principal too, but he was nothing like our new principal. He made the suggestion that her son discontinue inclusion on the
campus. When school started in the fall the students and their parents were looking for “that boy with Down syndrome” and voiced their disappointment to the principal that he wasn’t there anymore. That sent a message to that principal, he had made a mistake, but
the damage had already been done. Inclusion died at that school, while it thrived at Sean’s school.
One parent’s observation caused me to think. She pointed out, “Every year, Sean gets the BEST teacher in that grade. How do you pull it off?”
“I simply have the principal ask the teachers to volunteer to have
him. I guess he gets the best teachers because they are the ones who want the challenge, the ones who love teaching, and the ones who know they will become better teachers by educating Sean. You are
right, he does get the best teachers, and the fact that they choose Sean is the proof!”
