Special Education in Rural Schools: Why Less Takes More

Abstract

We can all understand the challenges teachers face in organizing and supervising field trips, challenges that are even greater when the students have special needs and live in poverty. But how daunting, the authors ask, are the challenges these students face every day? VERY FEW people who have never tried it are truly aware of all the preparation, care, and challenges that go into taking any group of students on an evening outing of dinner and a play. The following story of one teacher's experience taking six prevocational, special education secondary students to see Beauty and the Beast, followed by dinner at Bennigan's, describes not only the challenges of a field trip with students with disabilities but also the plight of children living in poor, rural school districts. Mrs. Anderson1 teaches special education at a high school in one of the north-central states. The county where this high school is located has been identified as the second most impoverished county in the state. The high school is in a school district in which 57% of the students qualify for free- and reduced-price lunch, a share that is well above the state average.2 The community's median household income is $24,438 -- a figure slightly more than half the state median.3 The challenges Mrs. Anderson faced were not just those related to students with mild cognitive impairment but also those related to students from low-income backgrounds. The field trip required her to do more than just help the students learn to read the menu at the restaurant; figure costs plus tips; and master car, restaurant, and theater etiquette. She needed to actually confront the daily lives of her students. Here's how she describes it: When planning a field trip, you have the obvious tasks of ordering tickets, notifying parents, collecting permission slips and money, coordinating events, etc. But I think the additional steps it took to prepare to take six special education students for such a trip and what we learned through planning for this evening are interesting. One of the boys did pretty well on the trip. But he planned on walking home at 12:30 a.m., so we had to give him a ride. Another boy who planned to walk home also needed a ride, as well as clothing for the evening. We worked closely with his dad to make sure that the boy practiced good hygiene (shower, shave, brush teeth, comb hair, clip and clean fingernails, etc.) that day. This is an ongoing problem with him. And, because he goes home quite frequently after lunch complaining of stomach pains, I requested that his father send along meds for his stomach. Two weeks before the trip, we discovered that one of the girls had a severe incontinence problem that had been further complicated by an infection. After numerous phone calls to her parents, other school personnel, and the administration, we finally compromised on a plan to help protect her and what she sat on that day. We brought along extra protection and made many extra trips to the bathroom. Her father was the only parent who showed up to pick up a child from the school that night. One of the other girls had to fill out two permission slips because she kept insisting she was riding with Mrs. Robin, a paraprofessional at the high school, who wasn't driving. This girl was another reason I chose to protect my car seats because she has a feminine hygiene problem. She needed help with appropriate clothing, so we shopped at Goodwill for slacks and a top. Otherwise, she had planned on wearing her brother-in- law's size-36 khaki pants. She wears a size 12. Another girl needed help with clothing, too. We bought her a top, slacks, and shoes. When she tried the top on, she asked if she could wear it that day. Her mother was supposed to take three girls home that night, and she requested that we call her when we were close to the school so that she wouldn't have to wait. We did, and she wouldn't answer the phone. …