New School Puts Special Education in the Mainstream

At CHIME Charter Elementary School in Woodland Hills, the pledge of allegiance is done in two languages: English and sign.

A fifth of its students are in special education, but, unlike at most schools, the special education students spend the entire school day in standard classrooms with general education students. In addition, twice a week they learn American Sign Language, though only a handful of the students are deaf or hearing-impaired.

CHIME and the 49 other charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District are laboratories for a wide array of teaching methods. Charter schools use public funds but are allowed to manage their own hiring, curriculum and budget. Teachers in non-charter schools learn from the charter experiences, district officials say.

“We want to use charters to test interesting ideas,” said Grace Arnold, director of the district’s charter schools division, during a ceremony Wednesday to officially open CHIME. “They’re the research and development arm of the district.”

CHIME -- or Community Honoring Inclusive Model Education -- partnered with L.A. Unified to train educators on how to teach special education and general education students in the same classroom.

Officials say the arrangement between the charter school and regular public school teachers is a first in the district. Both share office space on the 12-acre site.

The district was mandated to include more disabled children in standard classrooms by the 1993 Chanda Smith consent decree, named after a special education student who successfully sued L.A. Unified for failing to meet federal education guidelines.

While many district schools now mainstream disabled children for several hours a day into a general education environment, few classrooms use CHIME’s full-inclusion method.

Nestled between million-dollar homes and an orange grove, CHIME opened Jan. 13 with 105 children, some who come from as far as Sylmar. The school had previously used space behind a Northridge church. Last year, 300 families applied for an enrollment lottery, Principal Julie Fabrocini said.

Every week, L.A. Unified sends an administrator, a special education teacher and a general education teacher to the school to observe classes.

Disabled students with conditions ranging from autism to cerebral palsy share the same classroom as typical students with learning abilities ranging from average to gifted.

Educators will pace their lessons and rely on aides to accommodate the variety of abilities. CHIME officials say all children benefit from the help of aides.

Teacher Tina Gruen said the general education students have “much more compassion” because they are exposed to classmates with special needs on a daily basis. “There’s no barriers here,” she said.

Originally Collier Street Elementary, the school closed in the 1980s because of low enrollment. In 1984 it was leased to Castlemont, a private school that went bankrupt last year and shut its doors.