Meeting children's needs

Day schools struggle to provide special education

BETH OLSON
Staff Writer

Projected enrollment in the five local Jewish day schools for the fall of 2003 stands at nearly 600 students - a 20 percent increase in three years.

And while some of the schools struggled merely to become viable a few years ago, they now have established themselves in the community.

However, this new stature is not without its challenges.

One of these challenges is meeting the needs of special education students. While children with special needs are protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act - federal law that governs special education for children with disabilities - and state regulations, private schools are not held to the same level of accountability as public schools.

Arizona's public schools have resource rooms, special education aides, school psychologists, and a range of specialists from speech pathologists to reading specialists.

The Jewish day schools, on the other hand, are trying to make due with more limited resources. The Council for Jews With Special Needs provides a special education consultant to the day schools. For the past two years, the part-time position has been held by Gila Brook, who has a bachelor's degree in special education and 10 years experience working with special-needs children.

Brook said her services are available to all the day schools, but are most heavily utilized by Phoenix Hebrew Academy, Pardes Jewish Day School and The King David School.

Ilene Blau, executive director of the Tri-City Jewish Community Center and Jay Schechter, headmaster of the Jess Schwartz Jewish Community High School, both said that they don't currently have any special-needs students at their schools.

In the schools, Brook works with teachers to develop strategies for teaching children with different needs, holds conferences with parents and administrators and makes referrals to doctors or psychologists when needed.

Despite her effort, Brook said it's not enough to meet all of the day schools' needs.

"Even if I worked five days a week, eight hours a day, it still wouldn't be enough," she explained. "They need a special ed person on each campus. That's a lot of money that these schools do not have."

Some families with special-needs children have not found themselves welcome in a Jewish day school environment. Ronda Polesky's son - who has special needs including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a mild muscle disease and symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome - was attending a Jewish day school earlier this year. Polesky said she placed him in the day school after he had problems with other students in his public school.

Polesky's son enjoyed his experience in the day school, and she said that he loved the Judaics, Hebrew and the positive environment among the students.

However, Polesky said she chose to remove her son from the school after a meeting with the administrators in which they told her that her son would not be able to attend the school the following year.

"With the state of Judaism in America today, why would we allow any families to walk away from our schools or our synagogues feeling like they don't belong - feeling like their child isn't accepted or cared for?" questioned Polesky.

Administrators at the school declined comment, citing privacy issues.

On the other hand, schools have a responsibility not to accept students if they can't meet their needs, according to Brook.

"You have to turn some kids away if you don't have the capabilities. You can't just accept anybody because (then) you're failing the student. It's just not fair to the student or the rest of the class," Brook explained.

King David's policies reflect Brook's words.

"As long as the school can accommodate and we have cooperation by the family and the special needs will not detract or impede the education of the class, then we certainly will work with any student, as long as we're able to provide services," explained Esther Feuerberg, head of school at King David.

Bonnie Morris, head of school at Pardes, agreed.

"We have to balance meeting the needs of an individual child with the needs of the group as a whole," she said.

But Polesky believes that greater effort can be made to provide a Jewish education to all children.

"It's a philosophy and it trickles down from the administration to the teachers, and they need a change in perspective. They need to feel more committed to teaching every Jewish child. Period," said Polesky.

Currently, Pardes, King David and the academy have teachers on staff who hold special education certifi-cation, but those teachers all have other primary respon-sibilities.

King David also has a Judaic specialist and a reading specialist on staff, to work with students who need remediation, as well as students who need enrichment, according to Feuerberg.

The schools occasionally are able to utilize services through the students' public school district, but Rabbi Harris Cooperman, principal of the academy, said that can pose a challenge, between the bureaucracy of working with the districts and the challenging dual-curriculum in the day schools.

The inequity between special services in the public schools versus those in the day schools come down to money, Cooperman believes.

"In the public school sector, even though there are cutbacks, there is a tremendous amount of money that has been sunk into different types of programs that we unfortunately don't have in the private school sector," explained Cooper-man.

Brook also believes that the schools are limited by their budgets.

"The schools are trying so hard to accommodate every child. It's tough when you don't know what you're dealing with. They need in-service, they need training, and all that is money," said Brook.

Some parents have hired special education aides for their own children in the day schools. When parents provide someone to work individually with their child, said Feuerberg, the school is willing to provide training for that individual.

Earlier this month, the Council for Jews With Special Needs hosted the annual conference of the Consortium of Special Educators in Central Agencies for Jewish Education. Becca Hornstein, executive director of CJSN, is the local member of the national "support network for Jewish special educators." The group is part of JESNA (Jewish Educational Services of North America).

According to Hornstein, several cities in the United States have much more developed special education systems in their day schools - programs the local community can look to for a model.

"Many communities are finding ways to make this work, but you need the support of the day school, the staff, the parents and most importantly, you need community support to say, 'We're going to have a day school that's willing to adapt its programs and its expectations for children who come in and you know they can't do the same thing a typical child can do.'

"That's a lot of work and it takes tremendously well-trained people," said Hornstein. "We need to look at the diversity of learning styles of the children who present themselves for a day school education."

Not only children with special needs would benefit from having special education teachers in the day schools, believes Hornstein.

While Hornstein believes changes are in order, she also sees the progress that has been made.

"It's a top-to-bottom philo-sophical commitment and I think we're getting there. I haven't been to a school where I've heard anything but a desire to include these children who are challenging," said Hornstein.

Brook said she hopes the community will step forward to assist the schools with educating special-needs children.

"They really have their arms open, but they feel like their hands are tied when they want to give a service, but they just don't have the means or capabilities to do it," said Brook.

Contact the writer at beth_olson@jewishaz.com.

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