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ITEWISE "EWS
8/6
1999
12 Detroit Jewish News
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(248)35405959
third of the student body" receives
building. It's a small program —
special-needs services. The school's
director Robyn Glickman estimates
definition of special needs includes
only 15-18 students for this year, 13
academic enrichment for gifted stu-
returning from last year. The program
dents as well as tutoring and counsel-
offers a 2 - 1 or 1-1 pupil-teacher ratio.
ing for students with learning disabil-
Efshar, Hebrew for "it is possible,"
ities, the headmaster said.
serves children with conditions such
The plan goes on to state: "No
as severe autism or attention deficit
school can meet the needs of all stu-
disorder, or those with severe behav-
dents, and, the fewer the resources,
ior problems.
the greater the need to define the
Also serving more severely dis-
population the school best can serve...
abled children and teens is Temple
The
planning process itself made clear
Beth El. Beth El's program, in exis-
the
community's
desire to provide the
tence since 1975, includes Sunday
financial
support
required for any
morning classes for younger chil-
Jewish family to come; there is less
dren, with older children meeting
Monday nights for dinner
and class. This year, it will
serve about 21 students.
Director Rose Werney
began the program to pro-
vide a Jewish learning experi-
ence for her mentally
impaired son, Robbie, now
35, who still keeps in contact
with other class members.
Werney said it has always
been Beth El's policy to take
any special-needs child. "If
we don't have a teacher who's
an expert in that area, we'll
find one," she said.
No organized Jewish
Anita Nafi-aly of the Agency for Jewish Education.
learning experiences exist
specifically to serve the
severely disabled Detroit-area
support for meeting all levels of acad-
Orthodox population, although both
emic need, and little conviction that
Werney and Glickman said they
•
the school can or should handle all
would gladly include any child in
levels
of
behavior."
their once-a-week programs.
The plan is a call "for reflection
P'TACH coordinator Josephs said
and
review," rather than a directive for
she has had to turn away more par-
specific
program changes, Smiley said.
ents than she'd like from her day-
He
renewed
the commitment of
school program, because the program
Hillel's
previous
long-range plan to
does not have the funding to expand
work
to
raise
the
endowment for spe-
to serve children with more severe
cial-needs students. He said he is
special needs.
hopeful that the $25-million Jewish
"Those who need a self-contained
Life Fund now being raised through
program we cannot handle," Josephs
the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
said. Our students only come to the
Detroit and the United Jewish
resource room for an hour, then they
Foundation would provide some of
go back. There's a very great need,
that endowment.
but we can't take on any more. As it
"Helping families of children with
is, we haven't been able to pay our
special needs is not only the responsi-
teachers.
bility of Hillel parents, but of the
Hillel Day School has participated
entire community," Smiley said.
in Opening the Doors since the pro-
gram's inception. However, the
school's annual program grant of
Who Should Pay?
approximately $10,000 is only a frac-
In Washington, Sara Simon, co-founder
tion of the hundreds of thousands of
of the Consortium of Special Educators
dollars invested by Hillel into pro-
in Central Agencies for Jewish
gramming for special-needs students,
Education, said she had grappled with
said headmaster Mark Smiley.
this for her entire 25-year tenure.
Hillel's newly adopted long-range
"The Jewish community should
plan states that, at one time or anoth-
certainly do what they can," she said,
er during the school year, "about a
"but, and it's very painful to say this,
what resources does the Jewish com-
munity have?
"If the community has the resources,
how do you allocate them? For a frail
elderly person? For a newcomer from
Russia or Bosnia? For a residential treat-
ment facility for a disabled person
whose parents are deceased?
"It is painfully difficult to make
these kind of decisions,"she said.
Yeshiva's Rabbi Meyerfeld said
that, ideally, no child should be
denied an education in a Jewish envi-
ronment, but the commitment of
time, effort and money, both from
the family and the school,
was often enormous.
"It's a case-by-case basis of
everybody working hard," he
said. "Because each case is
different.
The Jewish schools, like
other religious schools,
have been helped in the last
four years by court deci-
sions requiring public
school districts to provide
auxiliary services to private
schools in their geographic
boundaries. The services e,
must be made available at
the private school.
At the Yeshiva, these ser-
vices include physical, occu-
pational and speech therapy,
Rabbi Meyerfeld said. But they reflect
a relatively small part of the cost.
While specialized nor-Jewish
schools charge about $15,000 per
child, Rabbi Meyerfeld quoted a cost ~
of $5,000, plus an additional $2,000
for P'TACH services, at Yeshiva.
Parents frequently pay for shadows or
tutors for their special-needs child.
Sometimes, day school parents
decide to transfer their children to a
special school for learning-disabled
children, he said, either for a few
--\
years, to gain necessary skills, or for c --/
the remainder of their school career.
One of Yeshiva Beth Yehudah's
youngest students is Rena Cohen,
almost 5, who has Down syndrome.
The family, which includes eight
other children, pays for an aide to
assist Rena in the classroom.
"I'm very happy with the Yeshiva
for allowing my daughter into the
school," said her mother, Golda
Cohen of Southfield. "They are
delightful to work with. It was won-
derful to see her playing with other
Jewish kids in a normal setting."
"It's all uncharted ground," &Ida
Cohen added, "because every special
needs child is different." II