AZ DYSLEXIA CORRECTION CENTER NEWS

January 2005 - Tucson Citizen Article Praises John Mertz

Guest Opinion: TUSD could save $40K just by talking to parents

by JILL BLONDIN, Tucson Citizen

Copyright © 2006 Tucson Citizen
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Public school officials can't seem to figure out why parents have yanked 8,300 kids out of the Tucson Unified School District, opting instead for quasi-public charter schools. So they plan to spend $40,000 on a study to get answers parent could provide for free.

Waste is one thing, but the goal of luring students back for financial reasons gets to the root of the district's problem: TUSD has grown into a huge, inflexible bureaucracy that seems more concerned with preserving itself than educating children.

Sure, the majority of kids who fit the mold will graduate from public schools. But countless others don't get what they need at TUSD. My daughter is one of them. She started the new year at a new private school, but she is a perfect example of why more and more parents are opting for charter schools.

The story of how TUSD failed my daughter began six years ago, when I enrolled Kylie in a West Side elementary school. She was one of the youngest kids in her class, so I fully expected she might need to repeat kindergarten.

As the year wore on, the teacher told me she suspected Kylie was dyslexic. Most kids write some of their letters backwards and jumble the order of things as they're learning to read and write. But those possible signs of dyslexia were extreme in Kylie's work.

I was told she was too young to be reliably tested, but the school still evaluated her and recommended she be advanced to first-grade in special education. I declined, after being told another year of development might correct the anomalies.

I'm sure I'm not the first parent to question the wisdom of putting a child of otherwise normal intelligence in special ed, along with kids experiencing a wide range of sometimes severe problems.

Dyslexics are visual thinkers who have trouble reading because the words on a page essentially appear to be dancing around in three-dimensional fashion. It has nothing to do with their level of intelligence, which can range from genius to double digits. Albert Einstein was dyslexic, which makes one wonder what might have become of his brain if placed in the care of TUSD.

I don't mean to pick on TUSD. Most of its educators are caring and competent but hamstrung by adverse bureaucratic, financial and political realities. And most of the nation's public schools did pretty much the same back then: Dump kids with severe dyslexia in special ed, and leave the rest struggling in regular classrooms.

That situation changed about five years ago with new legislation. Now most special education students stay in regular classrooms but are pulled out periodically to work with special education teachers. Unfortunately, the stigma remains. These kids are still ridiculed, which is why so many parents resist the special-ed label. Even worse, many kids with mild dyslexia and other learning disabilities get no help at all when it's desperately needed.

After I enrolled Kylie for another year of kindergarten at a Catholic school, I alerted the teacher to her history and asked if she saw any signs Kylie might be dyslexic. I was told her only problem was being lazy, a trait commonly ascribed to dyslexics by people who are ignorant about the condition.

Kylie's first- and second-grade teachers told me she was progressing normally. I don't fault them. I thank them for keeping her up to speed as well as they did for as long as they did.

It wasn't until Kylie entered fourth grade this year that her average grades began to plummet. Without knowing Kylie's history at TUSD, her teacher summoned me a week after school started to tell me she suspected Kylie was dyslexic

I've since learned it's not uncommon for dyslexia to become more obvious in third or fourth grade, when the pace of reading picks up. Kylie, like many dyslexic kids, had managed to cope as best she could, until she simply couldn't keep up anymore.

At that point, it was clear Kylie needed more help if I wanted to see her off to college someday. Since kids in private schools remain eligible for public school services, I called TUSD to set up the formal testing that wasn't possible when Kylie was 5. I was told that her school had to conduct a 30-day evaluation, then pass it on to TUSD, which then would do its own evaluation within 60 days. Five months later, I'm still waiting to hear from TUSD. Last time I checked, I was told they were running behind.

My original plan was to explore Kylie's options, which included leaving her in the Catholic school for half days, then spending the other half in special education at a nearby public school. But as the weeks of waiting turned into months, I gave up on that idea.

I'd already asked along the way if Kylie's case could be expedited, given her previous evaluation. TUSD's answer was no, that the old paperwork probably no longer existed because I had declined services. Meanwhile, my daughter was flunking most of her classes.

While TUSD was doing whatever bureaucracies do while their victims are mired in red tape, I explored another option: a private school set up two years ago for visual learners, gifted and dyslexic kids. I stumbled upon it after a friend referred me to John Mertz, who works in special education for the Marana schools. Mertz, who is dyslexic himself, is the only Pima County educator certified in the so-called Davis method of dyslexia correction. (More information can be found at www.azdyslexia.com)

I signed up for his tutoring course, where I learned how to help Kylie read better by modeling letters and words in clay. Mertz also told me about the school he co-founded with Elizabeth Bruce, the mother of a dyslexic who was so unhappy with the public schools, she set up her own. While it's too soon to parade any results, their Gateways School appears to be just what Kylie needs.

When I took her to check out the school, its students were learning about the Nile River by digging canals in the dirt. Kylie told me, "Mom, you've got to send me here. This place is school paradise." I was so impressed by all the school had to offer, I vowed to find a way to send my daughter there.

One more reason for TUSD to hang its head in shame is that most parents can't afford private school tuition. Charter schools, which get public money but operate like private schools, are starting to fill that gap. More parents are taking advantage of that because TUSD isn't meeting their children's needs.

I've often wondered why TUSD, or any other public school district, can't simply set up special classrooms for dyslexic kids. God knows there are enough of them. If TUSD offered such things, I suspect parents like me would come back in droves.

I'd much rather see my daughter get a good education in a public school. But I, like most parents, will do whatever I can within my means to see that she gets the best possible education I can find for her. Sad to say, it's not at TUSD.

Jill Blondin is a former Tucson Citizen reporter, editor and opinion writer.

Editor's note: TUSD called Jill Blondin on Jan. 20 to schedule an evaluation of her daughter, after she submitted this column.