Success With Special Education in Simi Valley, California

All parents feel the burden of making the right choices about their children's education. For some parents, this means making the choice between public or private school. For others, this means making the choice about the right school. Some families even choose to relocate to put their children in a better school district. These decisions can be tough for any family, but it can be even more difficult for a parent whose child has a disability.

It has just been within the last few decades that public education in America has become truly aware of the impact of learning disabilities. Even within just the last ten years, huge advancements have been made in helping these students achieve success in their education. Because some states and some districts are further advanced than others, parents of special needs students sometimes have difficult choices to make.

Recently, I had a chance to speak with a local college student, Kristin Ward, a special education student who grew up in the Simi Valley Unified School District. California has historically been ahead of the trend in special education. Simi Valley also has a reputation for being one of the top school districts in the state. For Kristin, this equation meant success.

Kristin Ward has been part of a special education program throughout all of her school years. Born hearing impaired, Kristin was also identified to have a learning disability. This double shot of difficulties made Kristin's schooling somewhat challenging. Although she was identified by the school district as being a special education student, she was fortunate to remain in mainstream classes for the majority of her education.

In elementary school, Kristin was always part of a mainstream classroom, but she would be pulled out of this classroom on a regular basis to go to a resource class, where she was provided assistance with any class work she had difficulties with. In junior high, Kristin was in all regular classes, except for math, as she had always struggled in math. This remained a problem through high school. As a result, she stayed in special education math classes (which she preferred to call "resource" math classes) until 11^th grade. In 12^th grade, she moved on to a regular math class and was quite proud of this achievement. While in high school, she took a study skills class in grades 9, 10, and 11, which helped her with time management, as well as other skills to help her overcome her learning disability.

Because of her hearing impairment, Kristin required special accommodations in classes, which teachers were always extremely cooperative with. She always sat in the front row in class, and in some classes (particularly math) was provided a note taker. In elementary school, her audiologist provided her an extremely helpful tool- an audio trainer. This technology helped Kristin to catch more of what was going on in class. It was a walkman-like device that served an educational purpose. The teacher would wear a special microphone, and then Kristin would hear her directly through earphones. For group work in classes, she would be able to place the device on the table and press a button that activated a microphone right on the device, so that she could, by using the earphones, more clearly hear what the members of her group were saying.

As a child, Kristin was always embarrassed of her learning disability, and even of her hearing impairment. As would be expected of any young child, she just wanted to be "like everyone else." It wasn't until about her senior year of high school that she started to let her peers know about her hearing impairment. As the years went by, she realized that this is "just how she is," and there is nothing wrong with that. In retrospect, Kristin realizes that it probably would have been better if she had made more people aware that she was hard of hearing. As an adult, she has found it beneficial to her when people know that she has some trouble hearing everything. She sees that people do not look down on her because of it; instead, they just want to do what they can to be helpful and supportive.

Luckily for Kristin, her family was always very involved in her education. Her mother went to every IEP meeting and tried to take notice of anything that Kristin was struggling with. Her teachers were also very supportive. She never encountered any problems with teachers or staff, general or special education. It seemed that everyone always just wanted to help. Even the mainstream classroom teachers, while it seemed that they could not really sympathize with Kristin like the special education department could, always seemed understanding nonetheless.

If the goal of a special education program is to prepare students to survive and thrive in life beyond high school, then, judging from Kristin's story, the Simi Valley Unified School District was quite successful. Upon graduation, Kristin continued her education at a local community college, where she has done quite well. At this point, she is working on transferring to California State University Northridge, where she would like to major in audiology.