Bright, but Falls Asleep in Class

As 10th grade was about to begin, Lazor followed the advice of friends and had a private-education diagnostician test John. That consultant suggested he go back to the New School. Lazor and her husband agreed. Also, hoping to share what they had learned, they used the three-minutes-per-person allotted for public comment at the start of each Arlington school board meeting to recommend the county look into the possibility that other children might be affected by narcolepsy.

The first year of John's return to the New School went smoothly. His second year, however, did not work out so well, in part because of his choice of friends, a problem familiar even to parents who don't have to deal with learning disabilities. In looking for something better, Lazor and her husband joined other parents in speaking out at an Arlington school board meeting about the need for a program for gifted children with learning disabilities. One of the school board members, Libby Garvey, asked that Alvin Crawley, the assistant superintendent for student services, look into it.

Lazor and her husband also discovered a program at Arlington's Career Center. John was interested in its industrial arts courses, ranging from metal fabrication and welding to auto technology, because he wanted to go to a tech school instead of college. Here the Arlington school staff stumbled. They informed Lazor that John could not be accepted into the program because it "did not accept students with IEPs."

John saw no alternative but to drop out of high school and earn his General Equivalency Diploma instead. In the weird way that school rules often work, it was this decision that allowed him to take the courses at the Career Center that he had been denied when he was still a registered student. Under Arlington's Individualized Student Alternative Education Program, he could prepare for the GED in special county classes. These included, he learned, the Career Center vocational courses he was eager to try, as long as they had openings. "John did so well in his auto tech class that his instructor, Mike McGhee, moved him up to Auto Tech II the second half of the year," Lazor said.

Lazor and her husband wondered: Why didn't they know about this choice long before? Since they were seasoned veterans of the three-minutes-per-person public comment part of Arlington School Board meetings, they showed up again to suggest that school counselors offer the GED/ISAEP to more kids like John, and put the program on the school district's Web site. She said they knew it sounded as if they were recommending the school system encourage kids to drop out -- some critics of the No Child Left Behind law had accused other districts of doing just that to raise their state test passing rates. "But we felt it was important for students and their parents to at least know the program was out there," Lazor said.

They also hired a lawyer who sent a letter to Garvey, then the school board chair, saying the district was in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for refusing to admit students with IEPs into the Career Center program. When lawyers get involved, as happened in the Henck case, relations often turn ugly, but not this time. Arlington School Superintendent Robert G. Smith thanked them for the letter and said plans were underway to fix the problem.

John is now 19. He is enrolled at Universal Technical Institute, an auto tech school, in Exton, Penn. "The school is a perfect fit," Lazor said. "He studies one course at a time, six hours a day, and five days a week. Each session lasts three weeks. Students spend part of the time in the classroom and part of the time doing lab work, where they learn by doing. John is on the honor roll at UTI. To date, he hasn't missed a day of school."

Last fall, Lazor called the Career Center and confirmed that Smith had followed through with his promise to let students with IEPs into the program. She and the center director, Jerry Caputo, discussed their shared belief that if programs like that were open to ninth-graders, students like John might be more likely to stay in school. She said she is also happy that the district set up a program for gifted students with learning disabilities at Wakefield High School.

This is a very long story to make a simple point, but I wanted to provide as much detail as I had in the Henck case, where the school district took a very different attitude toward the parents' complaints.

I have kept a close eye on Arlington County since I was assigned to cover its schools in 1997. It has been blessed with a smart school board that has been wise in its choice of superintendents. It also benefits from an old political tradition that prefers leaders who keep an open mind when parents complain.

It is, of course, impossible to satisfy everyone, but staying in touch with families in trouble and not ruling out options without some thought, seems to me the best way to handle the unique difficulties of special education, and find the right solutions for students like John.