jby the School Board, had decided to place two

jby the School Board, had decided to place two of the three third classes in these rooms. After a meeting with some parents of Special Ed children, the principal, David Smith, and the superintendent, Dr. David Gangel, have decided to reconsider using these available rooms for the Pre-K and K-2 Special Ed classes.

Currently, the pre-school class is next to the Kindergarten classes while the K-2 room is two corridors away near the conjunction of the fourth-fifth and six-seventh grade halls.

Should the current plan be put into operation, not only will one third grade be widely separated from the other two, but the K-2 Special Ed students will be better than one and a half times as far from their peers as they are now, while the Pre-K class will loss all proximity. These children’s parents also have concerns about safety, travel supervision, loss of achedemic time, etc.

Most people may not be aware that Federal Law requires childreh in Special Ed programs be in the “Least Restrictive Environment” and have access to their peers. What this translates into in reality is that each Special Ed child is in the Special Ed classroom only for those specific periods of the day when the student requires extra attention and is required to be in the “regular’’ room the rest of the time. The student, therefore, ends up making numerous trips daily between the two rooms. To me, it only makes sense that the Special Ed class should be qn the same corridor as the regular rooms in the same age group.

I would like to remind parents who are fortunate enough not to have had a child bom with conditions requiring special education, that your next child could, or that injury or illness could put any “normal” students in need of these services.

Should anyone wish for additional information or to express an opinion contact Mr. Smith at the El