By Jeremy P. Meyer
At first, Patricia Valdez was not sure she wanted her 4-year-old daughter, Arianna, in a full-day preschool classroom with typically developing children.
Doctors suspect Arianna may have autism, her mother said. The girl's speech is delayed, and she sometimes has trouble communicating.
Until this year, Denver Public Schools would have placed Arianna with other preschool kids with disabilities in a self-contained classroom staffed by special-education teachers and therapists.
This year the district tried out a pilot program to include 50 kids with disabilities in six of its preschools, and Arianna is in one of them.
The district sends two special-ed teachers, a speech therapist and an occupational therapist from school to school to help out in the classrooms.
"It has speeded her up," said Valdez as she dropped off Arianna at Trevista at Horace Mann, in northwest Denver. "She's made great improvements. She knows her colors and numbers. She is starting to express herself more and is not all blank."
About 11,000 3- to 4-year-olds in 2006 received special-education preschool services in Colorado, according to the state Department of Education. Their disabilities ranged from minor speech problems to more intense conditions such as cognitive delays.
Eighty-five percent of those children were in inclusive preschool settings, said Susan Smith, preschool special-education coordinator for the Colorado Department of Education.
DPS historically has used self-contained, center- based classrooms for kids with disabilities to provide them with more specialized services, such as speech, physical and occupational therapy.
Over the years, there has been a movement away from specialized classrooms to placing kids with disabilities in more inclusive environments, a practice known as mainstreaming.
More parents are demanding inclusion as research shows it benefits kids with disabilities and their nondisabled peers.
"We believe that kids with disabilities do better when they are able to be in classrooms with kids who are more typically developing," said Cheryl Caldwell, director of early education at DPS. "In inclusive classrooms, kids with disabilities have models for higher-level skills, and kids without disabilities get to learn that different kids are differently abled."
Debate continues over inclusion, with some arguing that mainstreaming takes attention and resources away from other kids.
Federal and state laws require public schools to offer the least restrictive environment to kids with disabilities.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has directed states to use federal stimulus money to train teachers to differentiate their teaching styles to reach kids with disabilities.
Denver still has 13 self-contained preschool classrooms, including two for hearing-impaired students, two for kids with autism and the rest for children with moderate to severe disabilities.
"We are trying to do more," Caldwell said. "If I were king of the world, there would be no self-contained classrooms. Inclusion is less expensive than center-based programs."
This year, only 38 kids signed up for the 50 inclusive preschool slots in Denver. Next year, the district again will offer 50. The district selects kids who will best adapt to the mainstreamed classroom.
"We are looking for children who work well in a group or have the potential to work well in a group," said Bonnie Soman, director of special education at DPS.
Of the 38 students, all but four will transition into mainstreamed kindergarten classes next year, Soman said.
"The kids made phenomenal growth this year," she said. "I think this will get bigger and bigger."
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