July 12, 2012
Draft
Why Home Schools for Students with Significant Intellectual Disabilities
Lou Brown, Professor Emeritus
University of Wisconsin
Federal and most state laws require that a school placement for a student with disabilities be provided in
an individually appropriate educational setting as close to home as possible – the least restrictive
environment. It also requires that if an IEP does not describe specific restrictions, an individual is to be
educated in the school he/ she would attend if not disabled – her/his home school. “Home” rather than
“neighborhood” is used to refer to the schools of concern because many students without disabilities do
not attend schools in their neighborhoods for several important reasons.
So contact with students who are perceived as negative influences can be escaped, reduced or
avoided.
Some districts operate “magnet” schools and students choose to travel long distances and
experience the associated inconveniences in order to attend them.
Some districts transport large numbers of students across traditional attendance boundaries for
racial balance purposes.
Some schools set aside percentages of their capacities and allow “choice” or “random selection”
to a limited number of students who do not live in their immediate attendance zones.
Should students with disabilities have the same opportunities as peers who are not nondisabled? Yes,
and at least one more. Specifically, they should be allowed opportunities to attend the schools that serve
the preponderance of peers without disabilities who live in their neighborhoods. Why? Because anything
that can be provided in a nonhome school can be provided in a home school. However, valuable
opportunities and experiences can be provided in a home school that simply cannot be provided in a
nonhome school. We must stop wasting money and other scarce resources transporting students with
disabilities away from valuable and much needed experiences.
Students without disabilities have the social, physical, athletic and other attributes that allow them to
attend schools that do not serve many, or any, students who live near them and still develop critically
needed interpersonal networks in their neighborhoods. The students with disabilities of concern cannot
or do not. If they do not attend schools that serve the preponderance of peers without disabilities who
live in their neighborhoods, they are restricted from the frequent contacts and common experiences over
long periods of time so necessary for them to build social relationships at school and then to express them
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during nonschool days and times in their communities. Far too often the tragic result is social isolation,
loneliness, harsh pressures on family members, low self esteem and underachievement.
It is recognized by almost all involved in public education that the more family involvement, the more
effective the schools and the less family involvement, the less effective the schools. Transporting
students with disabilities out of their neighborhoods restricts family involvement in schools and vice
versa. This is particularly problematic for single parent families and those with low incomes. When
students attend home schools:
The logistics associated with planned and unplanned visits both during and after school hours are
more convenient for all involved;
The time and money needed to get to and from school conferences are decreased;
After school activities can be coordinated more efficiently;
Disruptions in family life are minimized, especially when near age siblings attend the same
schools; and,
Communication and cooperation between parents and school personnel can be
enhanced.
Nonhome schools require substantial amounts of time in transit that is usually
“noninstructional” in nature and wasteful of waking state energy. Thus, the less time spent
getting to and from school the better. Functioning in nonhome schools makes it difficult,
and in too many cases impossible, for students with disabilities to become involved in
school sponsored extracurricular activities with peers who are not disabled. Further, it is
extremely difficult for students with disabilities who do not attend their home schools to
feel as though they belong in their neighborhoods. Too often they arrive home later than
peers without disabilities and are thus excluded from important after school activities with
them.
Many individuals with disabilities are not physically, intellectually or otherwise capable of
driving an automobile safely. However, with individualized instruction over long periods of
time, the overwhelming majority can learn to travel safely and effectively with individuals
who are and are not disabled in an array of conveyances. Thus, the individualized and
systematic instruction of integrated travel skills should be included in every educational
program. At times a travel aide, a mobility specialist or other professional may be needed
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to teach or monitor important travel skills while walking to school, while riding on school
busses etc. However, in most instances, once a student starts to learn to travel to and from
school safely and effectively, extra support can be faded and/or eventually removed.
A primary purpose of schools is to create a well functioning, diverse and inclusive public
community. The millions of students without disabilities currently enrolled in schools are
future firefighters, nurses, store clerks, teachers, job coaches, legislators, secretaries,
physicians, school board members, employers, voters, doctors, lawyers, job creators,
budget determiners, policy analysts, coworkers, crime fighters and taxpayers.
Approximately 15% of them will become parents of children with disabilities. A larger
proportion will have a friend, neighbor or relative who is the parent of a child with a
disability and many others will be paid to provide services to individuals with disabilities.
There is no better way to prepare those without disabilities to function responsibly in a
wide variety of integrated environments and activities than to have them grow up with
natural proportions of students with disabilities in their schools and neighborhoods. If all
students with disabilities attend their home schools, all, not just some, will grow up with
peers who have disabilities.
Due to well documented skill transfer and generalization difficulties, many of the best
environments in which to provide instruction are those that will actually be used during
nonschool days and times and during post school years. When students with disabilities
attend home schools, more frequent direct and individually appropriate instruction in the
actual environments they will use during nonschool days and times and in post school years
can be provided. If the individuals without disabilities who function in neighborhood
environments continually witness someone with disabilities learning to function effectively,
they are more likely to get to know, learn to communicate with, protect and assist her.
Additionally, neighbors without disabilities will realize how important it is to help someone
cross a street, get off at the right bus stop and push a grocery cart down a busy aisle.
Learning when and how to provide individually appropriate voluntary personal assistance
comes best from direct experience over long periods of time in real life situation. Direct
instruction in the actual environments utilized by brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors
also increases practice probabilities. For example, if parents are aware that their son can
purchase three items in their neighborhood grocery store, they are more likely to take him
when they go, send him with brothers and sisters or send him alone.
Social relationships with peers without disabilities
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The overwhelming majority of children with disabilities are restricted from opportunities to
develop a reasonable range of social relationships with peers without disabilities. As a
result: they spend inordinate amounts of time in solitary activities; they spend excessive
amounts of time with adult family members and paid caregivers who almost always become
unnaturally intrusive in their lives; extraordinary pressures are placed upon family members
to arrange, provide, pay for and transport their children to and from time filling activities of
dubious social value; and, the environments and activities most often arranged are
segregated.
Some say loneliness and isolation are the worst disabilities. Thus, perhaps the most important reason for
attending home schools is the opportunities they afford to develop specific relationships and ultimately a
meaningful social network. A social relationship refers to a positive personal interaction between a
student with disabilities and a peer or other person who is not disabled. Without the premeditated,
systematic and otherwise engineered interventions of people in authority over long periods of time, the
development of critically needed social relationships is at best impeded and in far too many instances
prevented.
Eleven of the many nonmutually exclusive kinds of social relationships that should be parts of the life of
every individual with disabilities are outlined in Table 1. Each IEP should include a component specific to
the development, maintenance and enhancement of a healthy range of at least these eleven social
relationships. In fact, one school day should not pass without a student experiencing at least three or four
of these relationships.
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Table 1. Eleven Kinds of Social Relationships
Kind
Definition
1 - Eating companion
A peer without disabilities who agrees to function with a peer with disabilities during
lunch time. While the student without disabilities may provide assistance, the
relationship is primarily for companionship rather than instruction.
peer without disabilities
2 - who
Art, home
provides
economics,
guidance, A peer without disabilities who agrees to provide assistance and encouragement to a
industrial arts, music,
peer with disabilities in integrated instructional and related activities arranged by
physical education
relevant professionals.
companion
3 - Regular class
A peer without disabilities who agrees to sit next to, monitor or assist a student with
companion
disabilities function acceptably in appropriate regular/general education classroom
activities.
4 - During school
A peer without disabilities who “hangs out” with a student with disabilities during
companion
free times at school. The purpose of the relationship is social and it may be
manifested at many places and times throughout the school week.
5 - Friend
A reciprocal, mutual, nurturing and sharing relationship between a student with and a
peer without disabilities.
6 - Extracurricular
A peer without disabilities who guides, assists, monitors and attempts to ensure that
companion
everything goes well for a student with disabilities during school sponsored
extracurricular activities both during and after school days and times.
7 - After school project
A student without disabilities who interacts with a peer with disabilities in the process
companion
of completing projects initiated at school.
8 - After school
A peer without disabilities who “hangs out,” plays with or attends an activity with a
companion
student with disabilities during nonschool days and times.
9 - Travel companion
A peer without disabilities agrees to help, guide, monitor or just be with a peer with
disabilities as she/he walks, wheels or otherwise travels to and from school and
related environments.
10 - Neighbor
A nonpaid person without disabilities who interacts with a student with disabilities
constructively in nonschool environments and activities during nonschool days and
times.
11 - Peer tutor
An instructional relationship between a student who is and one who is not disabled.
The primary purpose of the relationship is for the student without disabilities to teach
something that has been approved by an adult in authority.
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Clustered Schools
Clustered schools are regular/general education schools that are attended by an unnaturally large
proportion of students with disabilities. Often, a regular/general education school in a specific
attendance zone with available space is selected and three, four or five classes of students with
disabilities are placed or otherwise established therein. For some with disabilities it may be their home
school. However, for the overwhelming majority of students with disabilities, the clustered school is not
the one they would attend if they were not disabled. In some instances students with disabilities who
attend clustered schools are based in general education classes. While better than separate self
contained - special education – handicapped only - segregated classrooms or classes, they are too often
overloaded with students with disabilities are ascribed low status by almost all and too often become
ethnic, racial, achievement or lower income repositories. Concomitantly, general education classes in the
clustered school and in those immediately surrounding it will serve few, if any, students with disabilities.
Schools, classrooms and classes that are overloaded with students with disabilities are rarely, if ever, as
effective as those that are not.
Parenthetically, schools are considered naturally proportioned if they only serve students with and
without disabilities who live in typical family style settings within their attendance boundaries. An
attendance zone may contain group homes, large or many foster homes, a residential institution or some
other unnatural residential setting containing individuals with disabilities. As such settings gather
individuals with disabilities from outside the attendance area of a school, they place undue pressures on
the schools that are required to serve the disproportionately large numbers. The solution is to return the
individuals to family style residential settings in the attendance areas in which they would live if not
disabled. This would restore natural proportions of students with disabilities across attendance areas and
balance responsibilities across all schools.
Students with disabilities who attend home schools have realistic opportunities to develop, maintain and
activate all eleven of the social relationships delineated above and many others over long periods of time
in school and nonschool environments, activities, days and times. Conversely, those who attend clustered
schools do not for several important reasons.
When unnatural proportions of students with disabilities attend clustered schools, segregated areas and
services for them are almost always established. It is then more difficult to engender individualized social,
educational and other kinds of integrative relationships. Home schools by definition contain only natural
proportions of students who are disabled. Thus, proclivities toward establishing separate classrooms,
bathrooms, wings and music, art, adapted physical education and other segregated classes are
attenuated.
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Many relationships that begin in home schools are practiced, enjoyed and enhanced in nonschool
environments and activities during nonschool days and times because the students with disabilities who
attend home schools live near and have better access to neighborhood peers without disabilities. Few,
and in many instances no, students with disabilities who attend clustered schools live in the same
neighborhoods as their schoolmates without disabilities.
A home school offers opportunities to develop, maintain and enhance relationships while in transit. If a
student attends a clustered school, it is more likely that he will use transportation modes, times and
routes that are different from those used by neighborhood peers without disabilities.
When students with disabilities attend clustered schools, involvement in extracurricular activities is
sometimes possible, but extremely unlikely because of prohibitive transportation costs, conflicting
schedules and times. Most parents must travel relatively long distances to a clustered school to pick up
their sons and daughters after an activity. When a student with disabilities attends a home school, he/she
can walk, wheel or ride a bus home with coparticipants who are not disabled or be transported by other
parents in the neighborhood.
Segregated - Separate - Special Schools
As segregated schools are attended only by students with disabilities, their very nature requires
expensive, counterproductive and unnecessary specialized transportation services. Typically, the only
persons without disabilities involved are paid to be there. Most students who attend segregated schools
must spend unusual amounts of time and energy traveling long distances getting to and from them. They
are categorically restricted from opportunities to interact with and develop a wide range of integrated
travel skills and social relationships with peers without disabilities. Segregated schools are devoid of good
language, social, behavior, dress and other important models. In short, consider the positive
opportunities associated with attendance in home schools delineated above. Then contrast them with
the dearth of similar, even the inverse of, opportunities associated with attending segregated schools.
Additional Thoughts
If converting from segregated and clustered schools to home schools results in savings
in transportation costs, those savings should be diverted to improving instructional
services in school and nonschool settings and activities.
It is particularly important to allocate the resources necessary to transport students to
and from the integrated nonschool work and related environments for instructional
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purposes during school days and times that are so critical for integrated post school
outcomes.
In the relatively few instances when a nonhome school and/or specialized
transportation is absolutely necessary, it should be arranged.
All school vehicles used to transport students should be made accessible to those with disabilities. Over
time, doing so will save millions of dollars. Adapting traditional school vehicles so students with disabilities
can attend home schools can be paid for with the money saved by reducing specialized transportation
services.
If the specialized and segregated transportation services typically provided during
school years generate the skills and experiences necessary for successful integrated
travel in post school life, let us continue providing them. Tragically, they do not and
there is no logical or empirical reason to expect they can. This makes most specialized
and segregated transit during school years terribly restrictive, counterproductive and
cost wasteful.
The best companions to travel to and from school with are brothers, sisters, friends and
neighbors who are and are not disabled.
In order for home school options to work, students with a wide range of abilities must function in the
same space and a small percentage of the adults who function with them must be reasonably competent
and responsible. In order for home school options to work well, to contribute joyously to the celebration
of differences and to prepare all children for integrated lives, several additional factors would be helpful.
It would be nice if the parents and guardians of all children who attend a school participated in its general
functioning. It would be facilitative if all the professionals in the school were creative, compassionate,
ingenious, flexible and committed to generating environments in which individual differences are
respected and honored. It would be wonderful if the human, financial and other resources so critical for
growth and achievement in a complex and heterogeneous society could be made available. It would be
marvelous if local, state and national officials interpret laws and regulations in creative, supportive and
integrative, rather than in categorical, restrictive and segregative ways. It would be great if all people used
the dignity and worth of an individual to obliterate attitudinal barriers so that each of us can be the best
we can be. It would be fabulous if all the laws, regulations and constitutional protections used to free
others were made available to citizens with disabilities. It would be heartening if …….
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