Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for August 29, 2008 READING, 'RITING...REJECTION?

You're a mean one, Mr. Grode...

Program a victim of No Child Left Behind? Hey, they don't test for sensitivity to the disabled on the ISAT, so it must not be important in life!

Superintendent ends buddy program

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD

MURPHYSBORO - A need to spend more time learning the basics of reading, writing and math prompted Murphysboro public schools superintendent Christopher Grode to end a program involving fifth graders from Carruthers School and students with special needs from Tri-County Special Education Center.

"Since this was a one-classroom project, we had to look at the mission as a whole and our basics are reading, writing and math," Grode said Thursday in response to a parent's outcry. "We couldn't schedule this."

Patti Parks, who has a son at Tri-County, was offended by Grode's decision.

"Teaching children how to interact with disabled or different children is something that can never be taught out of a book or in a classroom," Parks said. "I am deeply offended by this decision."

Grode said he made his decision during the 2007-08 school year to end the program that extended over a multi-year period.

Kelly Mahoney, a fifth-grade teacher at Carruthers School, worked a buddy program that allowed students in her class to do various projects during different times of the year with students with disabilities or learning difficulties from Tri-County, Grode said.

Some of those projects were literacy programs where students from Carruthers would help Tri-County students develop their reading skills. Other projects included field trips to shopping malls and events like the Apple Festival.

Parks said she found out the program had been canceled when her son brought home a letter from his teacher stating the Carruthers students would not be accompanying Tri-County students to the Murphysboro Apple Festival.

She praised the program for its practicality, saying the interaction benefited Carruthers students as well.

"The lessons these children (Carruthers students) learn cannot be taught in a book," Parks said. "Children these days are sometimes cruel in situations they do no understand such as disabled children."

Grode said he would be open to reactivating the program if there is a way to incorporate all fifth grade classes within the district to be involved. There are currently six fifth-grade classes, an increase of one from the previous school year, he said.