Expanding Horizons for Disabled Students

Victor, who is 9 years old and mentally retarded, isn’t very attentive in class. “Usually he just sits a lot and doesn’t do much,” said Jane Spicka, who works as a teaching assistant at the Fred S. Lull Special Education Center in Encino. “Sometimes he can be very violent, kicking and hitting other kids.”

But Victor found some peace early this month during a class hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. He spent the hour gazing at pine trees, laughing at ducks in a pond and holding the hand of his new friend Max, a fourth-grader from Emelita Street Elementary School in Encino.

“I had no idea Victor would be so absorbed,” Spicka said. “It’s a thrill to see this reaction.” It’s also a thrill for the volunteers who lead the nature walks. “The students absorb so much more than we’d ever think,” said Rosanne Sachson, who supervises hikes for special-needs students twice a month.

Sachson is one of 90 volunteer docents for the William O. Douglas Outdoor Classroom, a nonprofit environmental organization that offers school programs for students throughout Los Angeles and special activities for the physically and developmentally disabled. The organization, which owns three acres of land in the 300-acre Franklin Canyon area, is financed by public grants and private donations.

The group also sponsors free hikes, bird-watching tours and geology classes.

Sachson led her group of eight students along a wooded path to a redwood tree. While the students sat on logs, she passed around rocks, arrowheads and rattlesnake tails. Later, she took the students to the edge of pond and gave them pellets to feed three ducks that came waddling onto the shore.

Jeannie Bateman, who teaches a class of autistic students, said almost all of the Lull students are from low-income, inner-city families. Many of them, including an autistic girl named Hripsik, cannot speak.

“You know they’re getting something out of this,” she said, while Hripsik ran toward the ducks with a big smile on her face. “Hripsik isn’t going to go home and say, ‘Mom, I saw a pine cone.’ But it’s opening her mind a little. At least she’s seeing something other than asphalt.”

For program information, call (213) 858-3834.