Today I finally watched Including Samuel. The documentary tells the story of one family's journey to educate and integrate their son Samuel, who has cerebral palsy. I've wanted to watch the film for a long time. The family is from New Hampshire, my home state. I also consider myself an inclusion success story.
I began my public school career at the age of three. I had been receiving therapy through my county's Early Intervention program since about nine months old. Federal law says that at age three services should be provided by the public school. So I was bussed about an hour each way every day to a preschool program in another district that was tailored to meet the needs of students with disabilities. After that first year, my parents led the charge to bring the teacher from that program to my district. The program that was born out of that idea still exists today. I spent two years in the preschool program. The hope was that with the right support my motor skills would catch up and I could join my classmates. At age five, I became one of the last kids to participate in what was called "Readiness." It was a class between preschool and kindergarten I spent a lot of time working to improve my fine motor skills.
I had a fantastic one-on-one aide in those years. She was literally an ever-present helping hand, She also learned the range of motion routine that we needed to do twice a day to maintain my flexibility. I admit it wasn't always easy to have to be pulled away from my class to do the stretching, but as I got older we were able to find time during the day to do it that was minimally disruptive. Eventually, we did it either during gym or recess.
Aside from needing more physical help than my peers, I and my parents wanted me to be treated just like the other kids. I did the same classwork, took the same tests, completed the same projects as everyone else. I had accommodations yes, but academic expectations were no different for me because of them. Starting in second grade, I was provided with a computer for use in completing class and homework. This accommodation was made once my school team realized that writing by hand was never going an easy thing for me. I was provided a laptop every couple of years through the end of high school.
There were battles at every turn it seemed. I participated in a summer school program of sorts focused on maintaining my physical abilities over the summers and minimize the risk of physical regression. My parents always went to the mat to get the district to continue paying for my aide so that I could start each year in the best shape possible, One year, the district even threatened to cut my aide's job during a round of spending cuts. I wrote a speech and was ready to deliver it at a school board meeting when the matter was somehow resolved without any job losses.
There's a lot more to say on my experiences with inclusion, so I plan to make this a series of posts. Stay tuned for more!
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