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WSJ: Has the drive for 'mainstreaming' gone awry?



 
 
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Old May 12th 07, 06:20 AM posted to misc.kids
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Default WSJ: Has the drive for 'mainstreaming' gone awry?

The Wall Street Journal
PAGE ONE

Educating Eric
A troubled student was put into regular classes. Then he killed the
principal
Has the drive for 'mainstreaming' gone awry?

By ROBERT TOMSHO and DANIEL GOLDEN
May 12, 2007; Page A1
Cazenovia, Wis.

When Eric Hainstock didn't get his way in kindergarten, he told other
children his father would kill them. In fifth grade, he tried to spray
a homemade concoction he called blood into the mouths of classmates.
In sixth grade, he threatened others, fought, and talked "about
killing himself and others."

Worried about these and other incidents recounted in internal school
reports, teachers and a school psychologist recommended that Eric, who
was diagnosed in second grade with attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, get more one-on-one attention, or be placed in a special
private school. Instead, he was one of millions of special-education
students mainstreamed in regular classes.


Dan Golden travels to Wisconsin, where a special-needs student is
accused of killing his principal, for a closer look at the debate over
whether special-needs students should be placed in the general school
population.
After Eric transferred to Weston Public School here in 2002, his
grades plummeted and he was suspended frequently. His only regular
help with controlling his outbursts was a weekly, half-hour social-
skills class.

On the morning of Sept. 29, 2006, Eric, then 15 years old, walked into
Weston Public with two guns and shot dead the school's principal, John
Klang, police reports indicate. He told investigators he was tired of
taunting by other students and aimed to "confront" Mr. Klang, teachers
and students. He has been charged with first-degree murder.

"Could anybody anticipate this?" asks Eric's attorney, Rhoda
Ricciardi. "I think everybody could have."

Educating Eric involved a nightmarish tangle of issues. He was
disruptive in class, was bullied by his schoolmates, and faced serious
problems at home. His father initially opposed special-education
services for him.

Years ago, children like Eric were routinely institutionalized in
residential facilities, and many received no education at all. The
milestone 1975 law now known as the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act brought more of them into public schools and, wherever
possible, regular classrooms. By mixing with nondisabled children, the
theory went, special-needs students would learn more, behave better
and gain social acceptance. By 2005, about 54% of special-education
students were educated in "fully inclusive" settings -- spending 80%
or more of the school day in a mainstream classroom -- up from 33% in
1990. A special-education student costs nearly twice as much to
educate as a regular student, according to the Center for Special
Education Finance, a Palo Alto, Calif., research firm.

But, like the 1970s push to deinstitutionalize mentally ill adults,
educational mainstreaming has produced troubling side effects. While
many benefit, some special-needs students flounder in regular
programs. Lacking adequate federal funding, public schools often are
reluctant to pay for the services such students need. In many
districts, mainstreaming has contributed to high teacher turnover and
classroom commotion.

Perhaps most alarming, evidence is mounting that special-education
students account for a disproportionate share of school violence and
disciplinary problems.

In January, John Odgren, a sophomore with Asperger syndrome, a form of
autism, was charged with stabbing a freshman to death at Lincoln-
Sudbury High outside Boston, where he had been mainstreamed. That same
month, Douglas Chanthabouly, an 18-year-old with a history of mental
illness, allegedly shot and killed a classmate at Foss High School in
Tacoma, Wash., where he mostly attended regular classes.

In Texas, Missouri and Minnesota, special-education students are
suspended at roughly twice the rate of regular students, state reports
indicate. In large school districts in Dade County, Fla., and Fairfax
County, Va., they are suspended four times as often as other students,
according to state data.

In Massachusetts, special-education students account for 17% of
enrollment, but were responsible for more than half of all incidents
involving weapons, assaults or physical threats in the 2005-06 school
year, state data indicate. In Pennsylvania, 883 special-education
students were removed to alternative settings for weapon or drug
violations in the 2004-05 year, more than twice the total five years
earlier, according to that state.

When the matter was studied by the federal government in 2001, the
General Accounting Office found 50 incidents of serious misconduct --
such as violent behavior or bringing weapons to school -- for every
1,000 special-education students in middle school and high school,
compared to 15 for every 1,000 general-education students.

Students suffering from learning disabilities or emotional, mental and
physical disorders make up 14% of the public-school population.
Specialists say most students with learning or physical disabilities
make progress, and pose little threat. But difficulties can arise when
students with severe emotional or behavioral problems are mainstreamed
without specially trained teachers and aides, or precautions to avoid
overstimulation, they say.

"There is nobody more pro-inclusion than myself," says Gary Mayerson,
a New York attorney whose firm has litigated cases on behalf of
special-education students in 30 states. "But many school districts
are using it as a pretext to avoid having to pay for appropriate
special education."

Mainstreaming Eric Hainstock posed a major challenge to Weston Public,
located in rural southern Wisconsin, and to two public schools he
attended previously, according to school records reviewed by The Wall
Street Journal and interviews with teachers, friends and family
members. Tests showed his IQ was average. He showed talent for art and
auto mechanics, and had some academic success when he received
individual attention. But when he didn't get that attention, school
often became an ordeal for him and everyone around him.

"I didn't do so well in bigger groups," Eric recalled in a recent
interview, conducted via video monitor at the Baraboo, Wis., jail
where he is being held pending trial. Eric, now 5 feet 6 inches tall
and about 125 pounds, with brown hair that hangs over his glasses,
said teachers punished him frequently with an "in-school suspension"
in a band practice room. On other occasions, he was sent home. "I kept
coming back to school and they kept kicking me out," he said.

Photo: http://tinyurl.com/yv2wo2
Caption: Mourners gather at the burial of Principal John Klang

Eric's parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother moved to
northern Wisconsin. He lived with his father. Relatives and friends
say he relished hunting and fishing with his father, but missed his
mother and was disappointed when promised birthday gifts didn't
arrive. Eric's mother couldn't be reached for comment.

Eric's father, Shawn Hainstock, 37, earns his living chauffeuring
local Amish who don't drive. Mr. Hainstock says that, before dropping
out, he was also a special-education student at Weston Public.

Eric's behavioral problems surfaced early, school records indicate. In
May 1997, a review by educators in Reedsburg, Wis., deemed the
kindergartner "a great concern" to school officials. When he didn't
get his way, the report said, he would "threaten others by indicating
that 'his father will hurt or kill them.' " In another report, special-
education teacher Bruce Borchardt said Eric's classroom misbehavior
included making "pig noises" while rolling on the floor.

Mr. Borchardt, who now teaches in another district, says Reedsburg
educators sought to place Eric in the school's special-education
program, where he might have gotten extra help, either in his regular
classroom or in a separate group.

To qualify for services for an emotional or behavioral disability in
Wisconsin, a student must display related problems in school and "at
least one other setting." At a meeting with school officials, Eric's
father and his second wife, Priscilla, said Eric was fine both at home
and in the community, Mr. Borchardt says.

Some school officials suggested that Eric needed Ritalin, commonly
used to treat attention-deficit disorders. According to school
records, his father disagreed, asserting that Eric didn't have an
attention problem and behaved himself at home.

Mr. Hainstock says in an interview that he initially resisted school
efforts to designate Eric as a special-needs student because he was
convinced special programs had done little for him. "They just like to
push kids through," he says. "They want to get them out of their
hair."

In February 1998, first-grade teacher Rebecca Colwell told school-
district evaluators that Eric "gets frustrated and he wants one-on-one
attention, but in a classroom of 17 or more students, that is not very
possible." In second grade, he was temporarily barred from riding the
bus for name-calling, hair-pulling, spitting and kicking. By March
1999, he'd been the subject of 17 discipline reports that academic
year, primarily for hitting other students or being disrespectful to
teachers.

That spring, Mr. Hainstock agreed to let his son take part in the
district's special-education program. Although Eric continued spending
most of his time in regular classes, several times a week he got extra
help with behavioral and educational issues in other settings. He also
began taking Ritalin.

For a time, teachers reported Eric to be more attentive, but his
school work lagged. When he transferred to the nearby Wonewoc-Center
School District in 2000, he was assigned to regular fourth-grade
classes, despite writing at a second-grade level, school records show.

Photo: http://tinyurl.com/27qvdd
Caption: Eric Hainstock at his initial court appearance in Baraboo,
Wis.

In a Jan. 24, 2001 report, the school noted that he had recently
stopped taking his medication, adding "that he is more likely to be
off task, talking, and in some cases getting into trouble." He never
resumed Ritalin treatment. Mr. Hainstock says he decided his son was
better off without the drug, which he says made Eric "like a zombie."

There was also turmoil at home. According to a 2001 criminal complaint
filed in state court in Baraboo charging Mr. Hainstock with
intentional physical abuse of a child, Eric told Sauk County
investigators that his father had kicked him in the hip several times
after he forgot to give water to some pets. Eric also said his father
sometimes spanked him with a wooden paddle marked "board of education"
and put hot sauce or hot peppers in his mouth when he lied. Mr.
Hainstock told investigators he had delivered a "soccer style kick" to
his son's back side, according to the complaint.

Although the complaint was later dismissed, the court temporarily sent
Eric to live with his grandparents, and restricted contact with his
father to supervised visits. Mr. Hainstock declined to discuss the
incident. "There's no perfect parent," he says.

Eric's problems at school escalated. In a letter written as
punishment, he admitted to mocking special-education teacher Joan
Gavin. He said he called her a witch and got "out of control,"
smashing her fingers into the blackboard and jabbing her with a
pencil. "I started kicking and screaming. I started pushing Mrs.
Gavin," he wrote. "I yelled. I fake cried. I spit."

Mrs. Gavin, now retired, says Eric was "totally frustrated" in school.
"The kids were picking on him. He didn't realize he was picking on the
kids. He was constantly bothering people. Saying nasty little things
under his breath about their parents or their buddies or their
behavior. Part of it was his defense mechanism: if I pick on them,
they won't pick on me." She compares Eric, who once ran away five
miles from school, to "a little trapped animal. It's either fight or
run."

In 2002, 11-year-old Eric transferred to Weston Public, which sits
alone on a windswept hill dotted by haystacks. The only school in its
district, it has 356 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade,
including 58 with individualized special-education plans.
Superintendent Tom Andres says the district tries to "adjust and
monitor so as many students as possible remain mainstreamed."

Special-education students placed in mainstream classrooms are
supposed to receive extra support when needed, ranging from one-on-one
aides to behavioral counseling. The cost has largely fallen to local
school districts. Weston has cut back on music, shop and other
programs, sparking some resentment against special education. But the
district also has trimmed special-education aides from five in the
1998-99 school year to the current two, plus one part-timer.

In the 2003-04 year, 23% of Weston's special-education students
received suspensions. Eric, who spent most of his time in regular
classrooms, was either removed from class or suspended numerous times.
He failed sixth grade, then nearly failed it again.

"He is unable to attend to tasks for more than three minutes," school
officials wrote in one assessment in 2003-04. The report said he
"doodles, scribbles and eats parts of his paper," clothing, erasers,
pen parts, and "pencil chunks."

Eric was the target of bullying, and he baited students. Classmates
and teachers say he often came to school disheveled and smelling of
smoke from the wood stove that heats his home. In his jail interview,
he recalled that when he was in sixth grade, a high schooler "picked
me up and threw me in the bushes." Around the same time, he said,
bullies "stuck" him in a school locker for half an hour, and on
another occasion forced his head into a toilet and flushed.

In 2004, the teachers and administrators involved in Eric's
educational plan reported that he "needs constant monitoring and re-
direction as well as one to one help. This cannot be accomplished in
the large general curriculum....An entire day at Weston appears to be
too much for Eric to cope with and therefore a threat to his safety."

Late in his second year of sixth grade, school officials cut his
schedule to a half day. A school report said his behavior "drastically
improved" for a couple of weeks, but then slipped back.

When he entered seventh grade in September 2004, he resumed a full-
time schedule because the shorter day was having little effect and
school officials were concerned he wasn't earning enough credits. He
received one-on-one instruction in social studies, but failed math and
science. He was sometimes so alienated from the classes that he chose
to sit in a wastebasket, according to school records.

Edna Kiemele-Rhodes, the school psychologist, says she began urging
school officials and the Hainstock family to send Eric to the Family &
Children's Center in Viroqua, a private school about an hour away that
offers individualized education in the morning and mental-health
counseling in the afternoon.

Nationally, public-school districts that cannot provide an appropriate
education pay for about 70,000 students with disabilities to attend
separate private facilities.

A private school can cost $50,000 a year or more, but Viroqua was a
relative bargain. School districts usually pay Viroqua $27 for the
half day of education, while parents or their health insurers pay $132
for the afternoon counseling.

But parental consent is required, and Mr. Hainstock opposed the idea,
says Ms. Kiemele-Rhodes. Mr. Hainstock says he does not recall
discussing Viroqua with her at that time. Nationally, disputes between
parents and school officials over services for special-education
students often lead to administrative hearings or mediation.

In 2005, Mr. Klang, a Weston graduate and father of three, became
school principal. A dairy farmer for much of his life, he returned to
teaching because of a bad back in 2001. He was known as a generous
sort with a calm demeanor.

Mr. Klang took an interest in Eric. He encouraged him to take showers
at school and, with other teachers, bought the boy shoes and clothes
to change into when his own were tattered or dirty, school officials
say. "I started talking to him about my problems," Eric recalled in
the jail interview. "I don't think he understood."

By eighth grade, Weston educators had made a raft of accommodations
for Eric. When he misbehaved, he was sometimes sent to a special-
education classroom to calm down. He was allowed to use a calculator
in math class, to turn in assignments late, and to complete essay
exams orally. Even so, he received Ds and Fs in virtually every
academic course. Although some teachers wanted Eric held back, he was
promoted to ninth grade, according to a person with knowledge of the
matter.

He began giving himself homemade tattoos and rubbing his skin raw with
erasers, then cutting himself with a razor. "It got to the point I was
cutting my arms every day," he said. "I was bored and stressed out."
He said he was "getting suicidal."

Eric often hid the wounds with long-sleeved shirts. When his class
visited a local prison on a class trip, inmates noticed cuts on Eric's
arms. They alerted a prison social worker, who called the school to
urge intervention, according to a person familiar with the matter.
School officials said they were uncertain if there had been any follow-
up.

Eric's problems escalated last fall. When special-education teacher
James Nowak ordered him to the detention room for arguing with another
student, Eric "held a stapler in a cocked position and told me to back
the f*** up," Mr. Nowak wrote in a school discipline report. "I went
to get Mr. Klang and he threw the stapler at me and just missed me.
The stapler broke when it hit the wall." Eric was suspended for two
and a half days and charged with second-degree reckless endangerment,
criminal damage and disorderly conduct.

That night, Eric had a fight at home with his stepmother over how long
he could visit a friend. Eric's lawyers say she bit him in the chest
and arms. Priscilla Hainstock declined to discuss the matter.

The incidents shook Ms. Kiemele-Rhodes, the school psychologist. She
says she renewed her efforts to get Eric transferred to Viroqua. This
time, his father agreed. But some teachers at the school thought she
was overreacting. Mr. Klang seemed undecided but told her to look into
it, Ms. Kiemele-Rhodes says. Placing a student in the school can take
a month. "Neither of us thought it was something we had to do that
week," she says.

On Sept. 21, Eric was given detention for hitting a classmate. On
Sept. 28, he received a disciplinary notice after Mr. Klang found
smokeless tobacco in his backpack. That night, Eric went out with
friends to toss toilet paper into trees as part of the school's
homecoming celebration.

The following morning, Weston Public's main hallway was festooned with
pale blue balloons. At 8 o'clock, custodian David Thompson was
chatting near the main entrance with Charles Keller, Eric's social-
studies teacher, when Eric came through the glass doors carrying a
shotgun. Mr. Keller heard the student say something like, "I've got a
gun. I'm not kidding and this is for real," according to a police
report.

The custodian grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and wrenched it out of
the boy's hands. Mr. Klang arrived. The public-address system informed
teachers the school was under a "code blue" alert, meaning that they
should lock their classrooms, turn off the lights and move students
away from doors and windows.

Eric was also carrying a pistol. As math teacher Corey Brunett looked
into the hallway from his classroom, he saw Mr. Klang standing behind
Eric trying to hold the boy's right arm, Mr. Brunett told
investigators. Shots rang out. Mr. Brunett saw Eric down on his
stomach, with Mr. Klang on top of him. The principal made a sweeping
motion with his hand, and the handgun slid down the hallway, Mr.
Burnett said.

Mr. Klang was airlifted to a hospital in Madison with pistol wounds to
the head, abdomen and left leg. He died several hours later. Hearing
about Mr. Klang's shooting on television, Mrs. Gavin, Eric's former
teacher, told her husband, "I hope it wasn't Eric."

Eric told investigators that students had been harassing him, and that
the principal and teachers wouldn't do anything about it. He said he
pried open a locked gun cabinet at home to get the shotgun, took the
pistol from his parents' bedroom, and drove his father's truck to
school. Investigators told the court that Eric "decided to confront
the students and teachers and principal with guns to make them listen
to him."

Eric has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and his lawyers say
he didn't intend to kill anyone. (They didn't allow Eric to discuss
the incident in his interview.)

In the wake of the killing, teachers began taking workshops on dealing
with difficult children. Superintendent Andres says his staff is still
wrestling with stresses related to the murder, and some teachers "feel
guilty that they didn't do enough" to prevent the shooting.

Under Wisconsin law, anyone charged with first-degree murder who is at
least 15 years old is automatically tried as an adult. Portraying Eric
as a victim of his father's abuse and schoolmates' bullying, his
lawyers sought a waiver to have him tried as a juvenile, but a judge
rejected their motion last month.

Eric recently celebrated his 16th birthday in jail, where a teacher
visits him twice a week for one-on-one instruction. In a Feb. 27
report, his teacher, Patricia Kelly, wrote that he "has made progress
in all areas of his school studies." He had mastered multiplication
and division and earned an A in one health class and a B in another.

"Eric has maintained a good attitude regarding school and continues to
look forward to his sessions," Ms. Kelly wrote. "He is cooperative and
stays focused during our meetings."

Chart: http://tinyurl.com/26gslj
Caption: Mainstreaming's Rise3

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117890885164700178.html

 




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