Special ed students kept home in protest

Marisa O’Neil

Fourteen of 16 special education students in a Corona del Mar High

School class stayed home Monday as part of a walkout parents staged

to protest what one called the “controlled chaos” of too few teacher

aides and a classroom infested with rodents and cockroaches.

The parents told school and district officials that they would not

send their children to the seventh- and eighth-grade class until they

see improvements. They said they had notified the district of

problems but have not yet seen any action.

“I’m prepared to do this indefinitely,” parent Diane Marx said.

“Our requests are simple, but they don’t do anything until we go to

extremes.”

Besides rodent droppings, cockroaches and ants in the classroom,

Marx said she has also seen aides in the classroom not taking health

precautions to prevent the spread of illness in the classroom.

All teachers and aides are trained in universal health

precautions, district spokeswoman Jane Garland said.

“[The parents] have been discussing some issues with the district

and we are working to solve them,” Garland said. “They just want them

solved quicker than is feasibly possible.”

For the class of 16, parent Greta Anderson-Davis said that there

is one teacher and two part-time aides. Some students in the class

require one-on-one attention, and because of the high

student-to-teacher ratio, some students’ educational plans are not

being followed.

“Basically, it’s controlled chaos in there,” Anderson-Davis said.

“Nothing’s being done, and no learning is getting done.”

The district has started a search for another aide for the

classroom, and district officials agree with the parents that the

class needs one, Garland said. However, she warned, the process of

finding, interviewing and hiring one will likely take at least three

weeks.

“We’ve heard that every week for the past six weeks,” Marx said.

“There are things that were promised last year that haven’t happened

yet this year.”

Because the classroom teaches life skills such as food

preparation, Garland said, it is more prone to infestation by rodents

and insects. The janitors who clean the room before students come to

class need to take precautions against vermin, she said.

The carpets in the classroom will be cleaned on Friday, she said.

“To see rat droppings and an infestation of cockroaches -- this is

one of the richest schools in the district,” parent Mark Fernandez

said.

Fernandez and Anderson-Davis said they are also prepared to keep

their children out of the school until they see changes in the Corona

del Mar classroom. If he feels nothing is getting done, Fernandez

said he will make his views known at the next school board meeting.

“I don’t want my child to go back until I feel it’s safe and

healthy to be there,” Marx said. “That should be a parent’s bottom

line for everything.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education and may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.