MAILBAG:

The problems in Newport-Mesa special education are not unique (“District plan worries parents,” Nov. 26).

School districts across the U.S. have been hit hard by the autism epidemic.

In 1993, one in 10,000 people had autism; today, one in 150 has autism. Federal law mandates that students with autism receive a “free appropriate public education,” just like any other student. So what’s the problem? Why can’t they go to school just like everyone else? They can, if the school has teachers trained in teaching children with autism.

I decided to speak out because it appears the Newport Mesa School Board is unaware autism teachers in our district are grossly undertrained and undersupported. And regular education teachers who have students with autism “mainstreamed” in their classes don’t get the support they need either.

I have four children in the district — three in regular education and one with autism, in special education. My “regular ed.” kids are receiving a superior education in Newport Mesa schools. Their standardized test scores are at the top of their respective schools each year. I credit and thank their teachers for these results.

For the past four years, my son with autism has had teachers who told me early in the school year that they have little or no training in autism. When standardized testing time comes each spring, I am asked to sign a waiver so that my son with autism doesn’t take the standardized tests and bring the school scores down. I don’t fault the teachers for this — most are dedicated and doing their best under trying circumstances.

I fault the Newport-Mesa School District for failing to train autism teachers adequately and for demanding that we parents accept substandard teaching for our children with autism.

To become a regular education teacher, one must obtain many hours of clinical experience, in an actual classroom under the supervision of an experienced teacher. I ask that the district provide the same training to teachers of children with autism. A weekend autism seminar isn’t sufficient training to manage an autism class, even for a credentialed special education teacher.

Autism teachers deserve the same intensive clinical training with the autism population that regular education teachers receive with the students they are asked to teach. They deserve in-service days focused on autism. They deserve the supervision of experienced autism teachers. And if a student with autism is placed in a regular education class, then that regular education teacher deserves additional training, as well.

Autism is a complex disorder and children with severe autism need highly specialized teaching in order to learn, according to more than 20 years of research coming out of UCLA. Since the percentage of children with autism in this district has grown, the percentage of the district’s attention to the teachers of these children must also increase proportionately.

My severely autistic son doesn’t know what to pay attention to. He doesn’t comprehend everything that is spoken to him. It takes him minutes to respond to a simple question. But he knows how to read, how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. He is teachable. He learned these skills not in school, but at home through a private agency experienced at teaching children with autism.

If he could learn like this in school, I would praise the special education department as highly as I praise regular education in our district. But the dirty little secret in our district is that children with autism are marginalized. One year, the school district had as a goal for my son that he would learn 20 new words in a year. At home, he can learn that in one week.

The current special education administrators in our district are ignoring the substandard teaching of children with autism. When the district says it is trying to “rein in work with private agencies” it means that it is cutting off experienced professionals who can actually teach our children with autism. That is the “final phase” of the district’s plan — to bring everything “in-house” — from qualified teachers to unqualified teachers.

And they wonder why parents are angry.

POITA CERNIUS

Newport Beach

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