Role of Parents, Judiciary in Peters’ Case

* The Learning Disabilities Assn. of California, Orange County chapter, is very concerned with the publicity about the Jimmy Peters case.

While the father’s civil rights may have been honored, the child’s right to a free and appropriate public education may have been lost. No one seems to be focusing on the child’s needs. Children are not bad without a reason. Find the reason and you can help the child.

The regular classroom can be the least appropriate, most restrictive environment for a child whose needs are not being accommodated. The most appropriate, least restrictive environment is the placement where the child is happy, safe, and learning at his/her rate and style. Only the needs of the child should determine the classroom placement.

In Jimmy Peters’ case, his actions in the classroom show how inappropriate this mainstream placement is for him. The school is a loser because some of its Average Daily Attendance funding is lost as frightened parents take classmates and siblings out of the school and away from possible harm. The teacher and classroom aide have both lost since they are both out on medical-stress leave. The general public is a loser because of all the taxpayer dollars being spent on litigation.

Jimmy’s dad is not a winner, either. His misconception of Jimmy’s needs has affected his thinking as to what he wants for his child. In my opinion, Jimmy will only be tolerated and not educated in his present classroom. The biggest loser is Jimmy because he is trying to communicate, and no one is listening.

LOUISE FUNDERBERG

President, Orange County chapter

Learning Disabilities Assn. of California

* I have been following the stories about Jimmy Peters, the young man who is labeled as with special needs and disruptive and violent in the classroom. My son is in a special-needs preschool program in the Capistrano Unified School District. He will be attending special-needs kindergarten in fall. At that time he will be gradually mainstreamed into a “regular” classroom to see if he can handle being with 30 children and only one teacher.

I resent people calling him “one of those kids.” He was born with problems by no fault of his own. I will put him in a “regular” classroom when I feel he is ready, not when the other parents make the judgment for my child.

My daughter is gifted and in a regular second-grade class. There are children in there who are classified as “regular” children who can give Jimmy Peters a real run for his money. These are children who have no concern for other children. They break equipment, they push and shove the other children, they are disruptive in class. There are no protesters against these children since they are not “different.” It is time for parents to grow up and learn to accept that some children have problems. There are parents out there who will protest the misbehavior of another child, but will ignore that their child has problems, or is a problem in the classroom.

DEBRA S. KULICK

Laguna Niguel

* I am appalled but not surprised by the recent court ruling of U.S. District Judge Matthew Byrne, who has a long history of anti-public school decisions.

As a retired schoolteacher (38 years), I have seen the gradual eroding of standards of scholarship, learning, and behavior in our public schools. The Byrne decision is simply another nail in the coffin of public school education.

Public schools are no longer run by local school boards, but by the judiciary who are without concern for the safety of students or the quality of teaching. Their only concern seems to be “politically correct” decisions.

One of the factors that the courts seem not to be aware of is that the attention span of children is different. Children with longer spans should be taught in a different way than children with short spans. When you try to mix the two you do not meet the needs of either group, and learning is reduced.

The “full-inclusion” parents do not understand or are unwilling to admit that their children are different in their behavior, learning styles, comprehension, and level of achievement. This difference in learning styles does not mean that their children are less valuable or important. What it does mean is that to meet their needs, they must have special situations with teachers who want to teach and are trained to do so. Ten years from now these parents will regret their decision when their children can’t read as well as they might have.

I hope that the Huntington Beach school board will vote to appeal a bad decision by an incompetent judge who should be removed.

ROBERT PURDY

Laguna Niguel

* Upon viewing the controversy surrounding Jimmy Peters’ return to his kindergarten classroom, I believe that those parents who were protesting the return of Jimmy were probably disrupting the educational process at Circle View Elementary School much more than a 6-year-old child possibly could.

By waving placards, encouraging supporters to honk their car horns and marching their children out of the classroom upon his arrival, they caused a disservice to those students who remained in the classroom and who likely couldn’t care less whether Jimmy was in attendance or not. I was particularly bothered to hear that some parents chose not to send their children to school, even though they weren’t classmates of Jimmy.

Rather than disrupting the education process by harassing a 6-year-old disabled child and his father, these self-serving parents should devote their spare time volunteering in the classroom in an effort to enhance, rather than trivialize, the educational process. Or better yet, they should devote their time toward improving the school district’s “full-inclusion” program so that the physical wounds from a child’s bite or kick will heal much quicker than the emotional wounds they’ve inflicted upon Jimmy. Besides, if this child is so terrible, why was he hugged by some of his fellow classmates upon his return?

J.E. BORREGO

Anaheim