Twenty years ago the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted by the U.S. Congress. Without the law’s enactment my husband, who had recently become dependent on a wheel chair, would have been unable to go out to lunch, go to church, go shopping or enter a number of buildings. Without the help of ramps, curb cuts and building accessibility he would have been home bound.

Disability is defined by the ADA as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.” The four goals for public policy for people with disabilities were defined as equality of opportunity,  full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency. As Public Law 94 142 was designed to provide “free and equal public education” to all children, the ADA expands equal rights to people of all ages.

We have grown accustomed to interpreters for those with hearing impairments, braille instructions on elevators and designated parking areas for those with physical disabilities. However, it appears that we are falling short of the stated goals when we look at the poverty rates, unemployment and underemployment figures, and lack of access to cutting edge technologies.

President Obama marked Monday’s 20th anniversary of this landmark anti-discrimination law for people with disabilities by promising to boost government efforts at recruiting, hiring and retaining people with physical and mental limitations. The president’s White House adviser on disability policy said advances in technology make revisiting the law a necessity.

In future blogs we will look at various needs and opportunities in housing, employment, and full participation. We welcome your questions, suggestions, and comments.

Have you, or someone you know, experienced discrimination in the workplace, housing accommodations, or participation in normal activities?

Almost 50 years ago my son Billy was denied entrance into a special education school because he wasn’t 8 years old. We enrolled him in a regular kindergarten class where he blossomed as he interacted with non-disabled children. That started my firm belief in inclusion of children with disabilities into regular classes. After he entered the special school, I continued to seek opportunities for him to participate in non-segregated situations.

I belong to the generation of parents who fought for Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (later amended to be called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA). I gladly joined other parents in pushing for this legislation and rejoicing in its passage. Although it was implemented the year that Billy graduated from high school, I knew that many other children would benefit from its mandates.

The principle of PL 94-142 that is used for the rationale for inclusion of students with disabilities into regular classrooms is referred to as Least Restrictive Environment. The mandate states that “To the maximum extent appropriate children with disabilities… are educated with children who are nondisabled…”

Thus it pained me to read the blog of a mother whose child has been denied the benefit of inclusion. Her daughter, who has Down syndrome, had a successful year in kindergarten. It was determined by the mother and the teacher that repeating kindergarten would benefit the child and the Individualized Education Plan was developed on that premise. At the meeting to plan goals for the coming school year, the mother was informed that her child would be placed in a special class for children with severe disabilities (a living skills class) and would not be engaged in any academic activities.

There is an involved process where parents can dispute the decision of the school personnel regarding placement of a child who has disabilities. This parent went through the legal process and was so disappointed and enraged with the school’s point of view that she gave up the fight and decided to home school her daughter.

Research and experience clearly demonstrate that children with disabilities learn more when included in regular classrooms, where they have normal patterns of speech, behavior, and learning to emulate. I believe in this so strongly that I am disappointed in the outcome of this particular case. To add to my dismay, 95 people have commented on this blog, mostly to applaud this mother’s decision.

I must make a plea to these parents who choose not to pursue their rights. If we do not insist on the mandates of IDEA being followed, they WILL disappear. Please, families, stay the course – insist on the best situation for your child. If the school disagrees with you, the success of your child will change their views.

There are many teachers and administrators who are diligent in insuring that children with disabilities are placed in the least restrictive environment and are receiving the services to which they are entitled. These professionals are concerned with providing the best education possible to ALL children.

I’m sure that on Billy’s file there was a stamp that read “Pushy Parent.” Believe me, if I had it to do over, I would have pushed harder. We must be proactive if we wish to secure the rights for our children to have the best education possible.

Since my last blog I have had positive, endearing comments from many of you, my former students. Do you know how much this means to me? I would have a big head if I didn’t know the whole truth.

Teachers are only as successful as their students are. You are the ones who inspired me, who gave me energy, who made my career possible. I used to walk into the classroom where you were seated, knowing that most of you really wanted to be there and were excited about the experiences that were to follow. You were concerned about the children you were preparing to teach and eager to know more about them and the teaching strategies that you would employ. You were creative and industrious and brought out those qualities in me. And you did have questions: questions that sent me to inquire and to learn. You brought your problems and joys to me and I shared many of my own with you. We were family.

School administrators have long sought direction in evaluating teachers – you have been involved in many of these attempts. The truth is that teachers are successful to the degree that their students succeed and this takes a long time to evaluate. As I hear from you and know that you are good teachers I taste our mutual success.

Thank you, students, for making me look so good!

Jane and Billy Schulz, featured on the cover of Western Carolina, The Magazine of Western Carolina University

Dear Followers of my blog,

We have moved this blog from blogspot to our website for easier access and ability to interact. We’re glad to have you join us here!

We do have some exciting news! We are featured in the Western Carolina Magazine, which you can see on the website. The author of the article, Teresa Killian Tate, came to see Billy and me give a presentation at Western Carolina University in April. She was interested in our story and wrote a beautiful article, commenting on our book Grown Man Now and adding other observations. We are very grateful to her and hope you will enjoy her point of view.

One of the most exciting results of the article is the response I am receiving from some of my former students at Western. They bring back memories of my interactions and friendships with them and of their involvements with Billy. I am so grateful for those years, for those dedicated students and their evolving careers.

I hope you will join us in our journey. We cherish your friendship and your interest.

We hope to hear from you here on our blog!

Jane and Billy

PS:
We recommend that you read another of Ms. Tate’s articles in the same magazine. It’s about Special Education at WCU and it features Dr. David Westling of Western—we have enjoyed giving presentations to his classes for many years.

We have been writing on blogspot and have decided to bring our blog directly to our website. Click on this image or the tabs above to explore the rest of the site, and come back to talk to us!

Read Billy Schulz's blogs: "I Got a Good Life"

This is me and Nancy Tate. Nancy is in charge of ushers and I be an usher in July and August and lots of times. And Nancy is so pretty.

When me and my mom joined the church someone came to see us. They asked “What do you want to do in the church?” I told them “I like to usher.” I was usher when we lived in Sylva and I like to usher. I like to pass out the bulletins and show people where to sit. I like to take up the offering and take it to the alter. And I like to show people when it’s their turn to take communion.

I meet lots of people when I be usher. My captains are David Lively and Jim Dobyns. They tell me which job I have each Sunday and sometimes we sit together in the back room during the sermon. When I don’t usher I sit with my mom.

Everybody tells me I be a good usher and I see lots of the people at my store too. People from my church. Ushering is important. I try to look nice in my suit and tie. Everybody does. We have a great church.

While equal opportunity employment is a vital element in the inclusion of persons with disabilities into the community, there are other important ways to help accomplish this goal. An organization called SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tomorrow) makes a concerted effort to introduce diverse groups of people to selected high school students.

SHOUT is sponsored by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce and is designed to inform future leaders of possibilities for service in the area. For several years, Billy and I have been asked to meet with the group on Diversity Day, one of the five categories in the program. One of the stated goals for this session is: “To initiate, foster, and promote an understanding and appreciation for all people and their unique perspectives and contributions to the world.”

My thrust is the development of attitudes from tolerance to acceptance to celebration of diversity. Billy shows his slides, pointing out the normalcy of his life and the importance of his family. His real message, however takes place during his interaction with the students at lunch time and after the program. Initially reticent, they find that he is easy to talk with and fun to be around. Evaluations referred to it as “an eye-opening day,” stating, “Billy was awesome; it was definitely an amazing experience.” In planning their graduation ceremony, the students asked that Billy hand out their certificates. On the appropriate night Billy, dressed in suit and tie, shook hands and gave out certificates to all the students. At the end of the program, students write letters to thank the session leaders. One letter addressed to me read:

We were very privileged to have you speak to us on Diversity Day. Your presentation was a touching and heartwarming experience. Not only did you show us that you should not be ashamed of or try to hide your differences, but you urged everyone to CELEBRATE what makes them special. I think nearly everyone can agree with you that Billy has a way of teaching people that no one else is capable of. He has an extraordinary gift and that is something to celebrate.On behalf of everyone in the SHOUT program, thank you. We were blessed to have you!

It is a joyful opportunity to be involved with this group – future parents, professionals, and employers.

Do you know of community organizations that encourage and promote the inclusion of people with disabilities? Is there potential in any of your social organizations to develop such ideals?

Jonathan is my best friend. When I started my job at Food City, I was so confused. Jonathan was my helper. He showed me how to pack bags. Put the cans on the bottom. Put the eggs on top. Put the pie by itself in a bag.

Jonathan showed me how to bring in the carts. He got in front. I got in back. We pushed the buggies together. We had fun doing that. He teased me and I teased him. We laughed a lot. In the winter we put on gloves and jackets. One time I fell down. He helped me up and I was all right. What I like best is parking the buggie cars. It’s like driving a car. Jonathan said take it slow and be careful. He told me to help Martha in the video shop. I help check out the DVDs.

He told me not to take too long at breaks. He said if the groceries go too fast I ask the cashier to help. He said don’t fool around when it’s busy. Be nice to the customers.

Now Jonathan is gone. He and his wife moved to Alabama. He left last Saturday. Me and my mom took Jonathan to lunch one day last week. Mom went home. Jonathan and I hung out at the mall. We went to FYE and I got him a DVD of The Lone Ranger. He liked that. Then he brought me home. We hung out at my partment. I cried when he left.

We had a party for Jonathan at Food City. Courtney brought freshments and everybody came. Ed said Jonathan will be back but Jonathan said nothing.

I miss Jonathan. He is like my big brother and my best friend. I hope he is happy in Alabama. I try to get over it but I do miss him. It’s breaking my heart.

Have you had to say goodbye to a good friend? How do you deal with the loss? How can we help Billy?

Dear Abby: I am writing to thank the teachers who were kind to me when I was an at-risk child. My mother was mentally ill, my father was absent and the school was my haven. I often wish I could tell some of those adults who helped me along the way that I’m so grateful for the ways they intervened in my life. (June 3, 2010)

Although I never considered myself an at-risk child, with a working mother and an absent father, I was concerned about my family. School was my haven also and I, too, wish I could tell some of my teachers what they meant to me. It’s a safe bet that people old enough to have been my high school teachers are no longer living, so these will be belated thank you letters.

Dear Miss Quinn,

Because our high school was small, I was fortunate to have you as my freshman English teacher, my senior English teacher, and my drama coach. (As you know, this situation was not an advantage when it related to math teachers.)

You really were a dedicated teacher, one who was always prepared to stimulate us to love literature as you did. You also slipped in a life lesson each day as you had a special message on the blackboard every morning. One I remember well was “I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

You led me to love poetry as you required us to memorize poems you treasured and ones we found. Many of those poems are still in my mind, food for thought and comfort. Between my freshman and senior years I decided to enter an oratory contest. I chose Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s lovely ode “When Melindy Sings.” One day when we were rehearsing, you came into the auditorium to listen. Although I was not your student that year, you pulled me aside and coached me in the beautiful dialect and cadence. I didn’t win the contest but both of us knew that I should have.

You encouraged – required – us to write. I wrote my first journal in your class, a skill that has enabled me to write articles and books for my professional and personal benefit. I remember one day when I was looking out the window, daydreaming, and suddenly picked up my pencil to write. Rather than chastising me, you asked me to read the poem I had written.

I’d like to take a tree
And shake its bristles dry,
To dip it in the sea
And brush across the sky.

As a drama coach, you were relentless. You gave me the character roles I loved and the self-assurance I needed. I would love to have your thoughts on the things I have written and the words I have spoken since that time. You would be painfully honest and always encouraging. I am grateful to you for teaching me and for helping me to be a good teacher.

With love and respect,

Jane Bolton

Much later, when I returned to college after 20 years and 4 children, I was probably at greater risk but with more determination than ever. My first encounter was with a math teacher who had a major, if negative, effect on me. As indicated above, I did not have a good background in math and learned from my children that the current approach to math was quite different from the rote method used in my early days. As a class, we were experiencing a great deal of difficulty with the new concepts. Our teacher, apparently frustrated with our lack of understanding, stated “I don’t care whether you get this or not!”
That was a useful lesson in what not to do.

Then along came this lovely, quiet-spoken professor from the Department of Elementary Education.
Like Miss Quinn, she was my teacher in my undergraduate and graduate years. I really meant to write to her and learned that she had died. I hope that somehow she will know how important she was to me.

Dear Dr. Newell,

I entered your class with trepidation and left it with confidence. You had been giving demonstrations on TV on the “new math.” You came into the classroom with an overhead projector and a number of simple objects to show us the concepts of commutative and associative, words totally foreign to me. You manipulated the objects, saying, “See how simple it is.” And magically, I did!

At the graduate level, you had us make math teaching materials, particularly applicable to my special education needs. I remember bringing home the wires and colored balls to make an abacus, and my husband saying, “Good. Now that you know your colors, I think it’s great you’re learning to count.”
(Little did we know that my own student who was blind would find this tool so valuable.) Dr. Newell, do you know what happened? I loved math!

Years later, when I was teaching my college class in math methods for exceptional children, one of the comments on my class evaluation stated, “You’ve got to love someone who thinks a place value chart is beautiful.” I owe that to you. That and the fact that you were my stimulus and model for becoming a college teacher. Thank you for leading me to an exciting and fulfilling career.

With love and respect,

Jane Schulz

“Ready for an exciting and fulfilling career.”

I know I shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, Miss Quinn, but I ask you reader -
whom would you write a belated thank you note to?

Graduation is a memory jogger. I don’t know how many of these ceremonies I have attended: those of my own, my children, my grandchildren and at least 19 in which I marched as a university faculty member.

Sitting in the Martin Luther King Jr. Arena in Savannah, Georgia, I had plenty of time to remember. Each ceremony had been special as I watched family members and students march proudly across the stage to receive their well-earned diplomas. Daniel, the one who graduated this year and Warren, who just finished his freshman year in college and now sat beside me, are my youngest grandchildren. Although they represent a generation in which a college education is expected, as I watched and heard people in the multi-cultural audience I knew that this was a new experience for many of them.

The aftermath of the graduation was fascinating. Leaving the auditorium and congregating in the nearby park, the students were exuberant – the young women struggling in their high-heeled shoes (another memory jogger), the men loosening their ties, families smiling and aiming their cameras toward the graduates. It was a marvelous celebration! I heard shouts of “Hurray, it’s over!” and I wanted to say “No, baby, it’s just beginning. What do you think Commencement means?” And then I heard:

“I got a job in California!”
“I’m headed for New York!”

Daniel took me to see the house in which he and his friends had lived and out on the porch to sit on the sofa where he went to play his guitar and sing. He pointed out the beautiful trees, the wonderful old houses, and I knew he would miss this captivating city. But he is ready to move on.

It was such a joy to be around these beautiful people. They are fresh, intelligent, full of hope and expecting great things to happen. World, be kind to them; we need them.