TASK FORCE page 20
public schools. However, few ser-
vices are available within Jewish
education.
P'TACH offers learning to Or-
thodox special-needs students
through Darchei Torah and
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. Akiva
Hebrew Day School and Hillel
Day School work independently
to try and address the demands
of special-needs students. Ac-
cording to Ms. Locke, all schools
requested additional assistance
from the AJE.
The limited services offered are
slowed down because most day
schools do not have the funding
to do their own battery of testing.
Testing is offered free to public
and private-school students in the
public schools but waiting lists
can cause up to a year delay.
To help remedy these situa-
tions, the task force suggested the
following:
* A full-time special education
consultant to coordinate AJE pro-
grams and services for day
schools, congregational schools
and preschools. Ms. Landsman
now fills the quarter-time posi-
tion which the AJE hopes to ex-
pand.
* A support services consulta-
tion team to help plan strategies
and run psychological, educa-
tional and language evaluations.
* A partnership program to
provide grants to pay a portion of
special education teachers'
salaries. To be eligible for dollars,
a school's educators would have
to participate in teacher-training
programming.
* A reverse inclusion and visi-
tation program between regular
and special-needs classes.
Long-term strategies for day
About 12 percent of
the population is
estimated to have
special needs.
schools include certified staff for
instruction and therapy.
"We need to act as a central
agency, involving partners in the
process, or it doesn't work. We're
trying to build a collaborative
model," Ms. Locke said. "Teacher
training is merely a first step.
What the funding will not change
is the number of children getting
special education services. It can
help us improve upon the services
already being offered but we re-
ally want to expand our numbers
in the future."
❑
Breaking Down
The Barriers
a ceiIti
JOSHUA TOBIAS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
e was a hearing-impaired
child attending the Detroit
Day School for the Deaf.
Libby Sherbin, a speech
pathologist, sent him to a camp
for communicative disorders
where he turned himself around.
The camp, Shady Trails, and
Ms. Sherbin helped to bring out
his social skills and mold him into
a leader. He attended Shady
Trails for many years. He went
on to graduate from the day
school, attend the Michigan
School for the Deaf, and was
asked back to Shady Trails to
work as a counselor for other
hearing-impaired children.
Shady Trails, a camp in Ann
Arbor, is run by the University of
Michigan's Communicative Dis-
orders Clinic.
Ms. Sherbin has been a speech
pathologist with Detroit schools
for 20 years. For the past 13
years, she has worked with hear-
ing-impaired children at the De-
troit Day School for the Deaf.
When asked to work at the school
for the deaf she jumped at the
chance.
Ms. Sherbin took on-site class-
es in sign language and now as-
sists hearing-impaired children
between the ages of 3 and 16 with
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their oral communication devel-
opment. About 85 students are
at the school.
"She is very patient with the
students and is genuine with both
the students and the parents,"
said Principal Gretchen Coleman.
"She also has a high comfort lev-
el with the parents, which is very
important."
"She is wonderful," said
Joanne Pierson, on-site director
at Shady Trails Camp.
Ms. Sherbin became involved
with Shady Trails before she
joined the Day School for the
Deaf At the time, the camp had
no programs set up for deaf chil-
dren.
"I had sent several kids from
my previous schools to Shady
Trails. I made contact with them
from the day school and sent one
child at the time. The child was
fairly oral, which was the easiest
case to start with," Ms. Sherbin
said.
The camp is like any other fa-
cility with sports, water activities
and arts and crafts, plus social
activities such as dances, skit pre-
sentations and field trips.
Campers also benefit from ther-
apy provided by clinicians with
master's degrees in speech-lan-