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A Comparison: MBUSD Mission and
Vision Statements
(Does
“all” mean “all”, or just for some students?)
MBUSD
Mission and Vision Statement
"It takes a whole village to raise a
child" – African Proverb
The Vision
of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District is to prepare our students to
become good citizens, parents, workers and leaders in the complex, rapidly
changing world they will inherit. They will develop strong self-discipline,
interpersonal skills, personal values, social and civic responsibilities, and
respect for nature and for others. They will be able to move beyond us, each
prepared to earn a living, cultivate a dream and make a difference.
The Mission of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District is to
prepare all of our students to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing, highly
complex, technology-rich, global society. We will continually strive for
excellence in all aspects of the educational process. We will teach our students
to understand and appreciate human and cultural diversity. We will harness the
resources of the entire community, including students, parents, teachers, staff,
administrators, college and business leaders, and others. We will empower
students to be lifelong learners, to demonstrate high achievement and to develop
the skills and characteristics needed to enjoy happy and successful lives.
For
many parents who have children receiving special education services, these are
just “words”, and have no meaning in reality for their children. The
incongruity that exists in this district is the fact that many of the children
receiving special education services continue to be segregated from their peers.
If MBUSD truly believes in the above statements, then how can it justify sorting
out many students and sending them away to segregated programs, classrooms, and
schools, rather than educating and supporting the children in age-appropriate
classrooms in neighborhood schools?
MBUSD places many children on school
buses to transport our children to other schools within the district, preventing
these children from attending the same schools as their siblings and
neighborhood friends. Other children are placed into taxicabs or school buses
that take them long distances to far away places to attend school. Children
often feel embarrassed and humiliated by this practice, especially as they
approach adolescence. How can we “teach our children to understand and
appreciate human and cultural diversity,” and “respect for nature and for
others,” if we are following these practices of removal and segregation?
Do not these very practices have the potential to destroy a child’s
self-esteem and feeling of belonging? Where is our “village”?
MBUSD
states that it will “harness the resources of the entire community, including
students, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, college and business leaders
and others,” when in truth, this is not the practice. MBUSD
exists within a vacuum and often does not explore best
practices or most current research
or resources that do not come from within or fails to find ways to apply those
they do explore.
MBUSD states that it “will empower students to be
lifelong learners, to demonstrate high achievement and to develop the skills and
characteristics needed to enjoy happy and successful lives.” However, parents
attending IEP’s, who request these same high standards and achievement levels
for their children, are quoted case law, e.g. Rowley, (Hendrick Hudson Board
of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S.
176,198 (1982), and are told that the district is only obligated to provide
a “minimal education”.
MBUSD’s curriculum brochure states, “Special
Education”- A continuum of programs exists to ensure that all students receive
appropriate educational services that enable them to achieve their maximum
potential.” As well, in her
September 15, 2000 letter to parents, Assistant Superintendent Kate Nelson
clearly states, “Our District is justifiably proud of a long tradition of
academic success, a tradition that comes from the dedication of our
professionals and strong support from our parents.
That winning partnership ensures that every
child who enters our school system at any level not only has access to high
academic standards, but also has the means to meet or exceed them.”
What ever happened to “We will continually strive
for excellence in all aspects of the educational process”? Does this statement
not apply to all MBUSD students? It would appear that MBUSD is conflicted as
to what it truly believes regarding educating students with special needs. GATE
students are also considered a population of students with “special needs.”
Does MBUSD tell GATE parents that the district is only obligated to
provide a “minimal education” for these students? It would appear that
MBUSD believes that it has a moral and ethical obligation to meet the needs of
its gifted students, but that it does not have the same obligation to its
students who receive special education services.
(Courts faced with more recent “free appropriate
public education” or FAPE cases, have begun to rule that the law’s FAPE
requirement means that schools must provide more than simple access to an
education in order to confer benefit. In cases such as Board of Education v. Diamond
(1986) and Polk v. Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 16 (1988), courts
have ruled that a FAPE must confer meaningful
educational benefit on the student and that an education
that conferred only minimal or trivial progress
was insufficient. Osborne (1992) summarized the trend of recent court
decisions to interpret the FAPE mandate in a light more favorable to students
with disabilities. That is, when a school
district was challenged, it had to show that a student’s FAPE was individually
designed to provide educational advancement that was consistent with a
student’s overall ability, and that
there was a measurable gain in a
student’s progress).
The segregated classrooms and teacher-directed
instruction methods commonly used in special education classrooms encourages
student dependence on others rather than fostering the development of
self-directed, independent learning and higher-level reasoning and
problem-solving skills. This is in direct contradiction to “They will be able
to move beyond us, each prepared to earn a living, cultivate a dream and make a
difference.”
How will our children “develop
strong…interpersonal skills, personal values, social and civic
responsibilities” unless we teach them these things together, by putting them
into physical proximity with one another, so that they can develop these
attributes? How will we teach our students “to understand and
appreciate human and cultural diversity,” to learn understanding, tolerance
and acceptance, if we don’t teach them ALL together?
The time has come for MBUSD to examine its own
statements and philosophy and ask: do they really apply to all students? Having a
separate, segregating educational system instead of a restructured system that
will meet the needs of all
students, cannot deliver MBUSD’s existing mission and vision
statements for all
of its students.
So, what do we do? To make it reflective of reality,
do we change the statements and continue to underserve students with special
education needs or do we change the system so that we value and teach all
students together? Do we ignore the discrepancy between the values and
the actual practices or do we change the practices?
The choice is ours to make as a community. The
district was provided an extensive document last December, “Advocates for
Special Kids, Summary and Recommendations Improving Special Education in the
Manhattan Beach Unified School District through Compliance with IDEA and
Parent/School Collaboration”. The Board of Trustees and administrative staff
were also given a copy of the book, Restructuring
for Caring and Effective Education, by Richard A. Villa and Jacqueline
S. Thousand, which demonstrates how school districts and communities, working
together, can successfully achieve the restructuring necessary to make MBUSD’s
current mission and vision statements a reality for all students.
The time has come to step into the 21st
century and achieve social justice for all
of the children who live in our community. It is our responsibility to make sure
that all of our children feel
they are valued and truly belong. We ask you to embrace this opportunity to step
into the land of change and reform and make this “ Blue Ribbon” school
district truly a “Blue Ribbon” for all
of its students!
Respectfully submitted,
ADVOCATES FOR SPECIAL KIDS [ASK]
November 7, 2000
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