RESEDA : Lessons Learned Outside Classroom

It sounds odd--a school that aims to get students out of the classroom and onto the streets.

But at the Community-Based Instruction Program at Leichman High School in Reseda, that’s precisely the goal.

As part of the special education program, which teaches developmentally disabled teen-agers to function in the community, about 25 students decorated the yard outside Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick’s office Thursday for Halloween, kicking off what will be a monthly ritual.

Using decorations made out of paper and plastic trash, the 17- to 21-year-olds stuffed pumpkin-orange garbage bags with paper shreds, hung ghosts from trees and arranged hay bales outside the windows of Chick’s office on Vanowen Street.

Joseph Hamby, a 17-year-old enrolled in the program who eventually hopes to get a job bagging groceries, said the project was a welcome change from the classroom.

“I don’t like staying in school all day,” Hamby said. “It’s nice to get out and get some air.”

For many of the students, the program marks their first time out in the community shopping for groceries, mailing a letter or riding the bus.

“Some of them didn’t even know how to take escalators,” said Rose Foglesong, one of the school’s teachers.

“They were so sheltered that they didn’t even know how to use a self-serve drink machine at a fast-food restaurant,” she added.

The program--which this year will include decorating outside Chick’s office every month with a different seasonal theme--builds the students’ self-esteem and teaches them to be more assertive, Foglesong said. At the same time, she said, it increases community awareness about disabilities.

Fred Love, community relations officer at the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division, has spent many hours working with the Leichman students during his off hours. He stood by as they hung their decorations.

“They’re so underrated,” he said. “People want to stick them in an institution and forget about them. But they can do so much more.”