From the Superintendent: In District 113, special education is part of the program

What we think of as “high school” comes from the early 20th century, when enrollments were surging in urban areas and it was widely believed that a high school's job was to prepare students to work in their given station in life.

As Woodrow Wilson described it, one class of persons should have college-preparatory education and another, much larger class of students need an education so they can “fit themselves to perform specific, difficult manual tasks."

The 19th century beginnings of high school as preparation for college persisted, but added to that purpose was the expectation of “fitting” students to work. The “comprehensive” high school that emerged remained college preparatory at its core, but with additional programs attached to it.

Education in the United States has been adding programs to that college preparatory core ever since, resulting in a multitude of instructional programs in the same high school.

One of those programs is special education. The legislation in 1975 that created special education is one of those moments we should all be proud of as a nation.

The intent was to identify students whose disabilities prevented them from accessing the core instructional program and provide the services they needed in order to learn as much as possible with students in the college preparatory core.

Each student that qualified for services would have an individualized plan created by a team of educators and parents or guardians to allow the school to include these students to the greatest extent possible.

In most schools, however, there is a core, general education program that now includes much more than college preparatory curriculum, while the special education program is a separate entity.

In District 113, we hold the view that there is one instructional program and special education is part of that instructional program, not separate from it.

We believe that fulfilling our mission in high school requires us to offer a high-quality education and provide students the support they need to be successful in what they choose to do. Students in special education receive services as determined by their plan, or IEP, but many students need support as they prepare to graduate and pursue their lives.

We work to allow students to fit themselves to what they want to do in life, not fit them to what someone has determined as their station.

This is why we believe so deeply in the changes we are making to the services we will be providing to our students in special education. Their individualized plan needs to be rigorous and ambitious, because we recognize that after four quick years of high school, they will graduate to pursue their next step.

We also realize that we need to foster as much independence as possible, knowing that special education services end after graduation. We are restructuring the special education department to align with these goals.

Because special education is part of the instructional program we call high school, we are also working on improving general education. That is a story for a future article.