A situation at Greencastle Elementary School has come to our attention that must be rectified immediately.
According to our source, Greencastle Elementary recently underwent a surge in enrollment. In order to accommodate the regular education students at the school, the principal decided to take away a dedicated classroom from the PEP program, and instead put two classes of PEP students in one classroom at the same time!
PEP - the Preschool Education Program - is a program for preschool aged students with disabilities. There are several different models of PEP programs, but the two models that have been combined into one classroom are the PEP "Classic" (for children with developmental delays) and PEP INC (intensive needs class, mostly serving students on the autism spectrum).
Initially, the principal's half-baked "solution" was to put a partition in the room, having the effect of keeping the noise level high while decreasing the amount of space. Upon staff protest, a special education supervisor reviewed the room, without the children present, and determined that the partitions should come down, and the classes would be "co taught."
The resulting classroom chaos will be unacceptable. Don't most of these preschoolers have "minimize distractions" in their IEPs? The PEP INC students were placed in that program precisely because they are unable to function in larger classroom environments due to their distractibility, behaviors, and intensive needs!
Dr. Josh Starr needs to make a visit out to Greencastle Elementary, when the children are there, and then visit another PEP location, say, Ashburton Elementary, and ask himself whether putting 16 preschoolers with disabilities into one overcrowded classroom is the right thing to do.
