Upfront EDUCATION
MEDIA
Special education: numbers down, ‘inclusion’ up
Palo Alto Online launches new design
As K-12 students mark ‘Unity Day,’ special ed director reports on trends
Expanded features, new bloggers highlight new look of PaloAltoOnline.com
by Chris Kenrick
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by Palo Alto Weekly staff
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alo Alto Online launched an updated version of its website Oct. 8. The changes are designed to make the site more readable and its content more accessible. The re-launch introduces new section pages for news, arts and entertainment and bloggers. The sports and real-estate sections continue to have their own pages. The site has an improved presentation of the Town Square reader forum, which is intended to encourage greater community discussion on important local issues. A new community calendar format makes event information easier to access. “We’ve sought to organize the presentation of vast amounts of content in a way that is clean and simple,” said Bill Johnson, publisher of the Palo Alto Weekly, which operates Palo Alto Online. “Like anything different, it will take time to get familiar with the new lay-
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arly and aggressive efforts by teachers to help young children with learning problems has led to a significant drop in the number of Palo Alto students who later need special education, officials said this week. In Palo Alto, about 9 percent — 1,115 students — officially qualify for special education — less than the national average of 10 percent. As schools across Palo Alto observed Unity Day with a range of anti-bullying and “inclusion” activities, Palo Alto’s Director of Special Education Holly Wade reported Tuesday to the Board of Education on trends in special ed. Special-education parents, who organized Unity Day activities Wednesday on nearly every one of Palo Alto’s 17 campuses, said they were encouraged by Wade’s report but noted that many problems remain, adding that the district needs to do a better job communicating its policies and plans to parents. Wade told the school board that the number of students identified as needing special education has dropped by 150 over the past three years. “We’ve been doing really, really targeted intervention starting in preschool and elementary school, and that intervention work has allowed us to serve students in ways
JLS Middle School students Divya Tadimetti, center, and Neha Tallapragada, right, staple anti-bullying messages written by fellow students into paper chains for hanging around school during Unity Day on Oct. 9. so they don’t need special education services,” she said. She also described aggressive “inclusion” efforts to educate many special-ed students — who in prior times might have been segregated — in regular classrooms. At Palo Alto High School, for example, 11 classes in subjects like math, English, social studies and science are co-taught by a regular teacher and a specialeducation teacher. “We’ve used the co-teaching,
inclusion model for three years now,” Paly Principal Kim Diorio told the board. “We have many sections now, as does Gunn. “It’s been a complete shift in our model of how we’re delivering education. Enthusiasm has really caught on as teachers talk with one another about how successful this model is.” Diorio said “higher expectations” in the co-taught classes (continued on page £È)
driveways and not yielding properly at intersections. In other Walk & Roll activities this week, elementary students made bike-themed sidewalk murals and competed for “golden sneaker” awards. “Palo Alto is one of the most bike-friendly and environmentally conscious communities in the country. I can think of no better way to start a morning than a healthy, zero-emissions trip to school or work,” said school district Superintendent Kevin Skelly, who bikes to work and around to school campuses daily in a helmet resembling a watermelon.
TRANSPORTATION
Third-graders are targeted for bicycle education After 20 years of ‘bike rodeos,’ cycling to school reaches historic highs
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bicycling rates to historic highs. Fifty-one percent of Palo Alto’s middle school students, 43 percent of high school students and 13 percent of elementary students typically ride their bikes to school, according to bike counts on campuses taken last month. “Third grade is the age where children are developmentally ready to be stable on a bicycle, and we have a good chance to affect their lifelong bicycle skills,” said Kathy Durham, a City of Palo Alto employee who has marshaled legions of parent volunteers to work on bicycle safety for two decades. At Hoover Elementary School Tuesday, lead parent volunteer Zainab Jamal kept time and blew her whistle as 70 third-graders rotated among six different biketraining stations, including one that offered a tutorial on helmet fitting. Blue tape was laid down on the
playground to simulate bike lanes, and parent volunteers holding signs pretended to be cars. Large sponges stood in for “broken glass.” Kids practiced their skills by biking around the circuits. At one station, a uniformed Palo Alto police officer used real cars to teach kids how to peer around parked vehicles to make a safe exit from their driveways. The bike rodeos focus on “targeted risk-reduction rather than scaring children or talking about how dangerous it is,” Durham said. “Yeah, it’s dangerous, but there are ways you can reduce the risk by being predictable, visible and aware of what’s going on around you.” The third-grade training is honed to address some of the top causes of bike accidents in Palo Alto, which, according to Durham, are cyclists not braking properly at stop signs; swerving out of bike lanes; coming out of
Across Palo Alto’s 17 K-12 campuses, 31 percent of all student trips are by bike, compared to a national figure of 17 percent. Free bike inspections, safety tips and route maps will be available Sunday, Oct. 13, at Bike Palo Alto!, a family-oriented event from 1 to 4 p.m. at El Carmelo Elementary School, 3024 Bryant St. (at Loma Verde Avenue). Families can depart from El Carmelo to explore three bike routes that highlight easy ways to get around the city to avoid traffic. N Staff Writer Chris Kenrick can be emailed at ckenrick@ paweekly.com.
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by Chris Kenrick ig enough to balance on a two-wheeler but little enough to still be impressionable, third-graders long have been the focus of intensive bicycle education in Palo Alto schools. This week, 8-year-olds across Palo Alto brought their bikes to school for “bike rodeos,” in which they took over the playgrounds to practice skills like how to steer around broken glass, what to do if a garbage bin is blocking the bike lane (look and scan over your left shoulder before steering around the obstacle) and how to navigate intersections. The rodeos were among many bike-related events to mark Palo Alto’s “Walk & Roll Week,” celebrating ways to get around town by means other than the family car. Organizers say the third-grade bike-safety program — a staple of Palo Alto’s elementary curriculum for 20 years — has nurtured a bike culture and helped propel school
out,” Johnson said. Additional tweaks and improvements will be made in the weeks ahead. Readers are encouraged to provide their feedback and suggestions, as well as report any bugs or problems. Comments can be emailed to editor@ paloaltoonline.com In addition to the new design, the website features a number of new blogs by residents, who will discuss local politics, parenthood and other topics. They join staff blogs on food, arts and the community. More blogs will be added in the future. N
Police officer Joshua Salkeld teaches third-grader Nerissa Lin how to look for oncoming traffic and safely exit from between parked cars during a bike safety fair at Fairmeadow Elementary School on Oct. 8. ÜÜÜ°*> Ì " i°V ÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii ÞÊUÊ"VÌ LiÀÊ££]ÊÓä£ÎÊU Page 7