I have realized that the board has not forgotten about its students. After interviewing the superintendent and the head of student services I have learned just how much is being done for ALL students.
According to the list that I have printed out of the number of students for every "disability" at every school in Lakewood, Ohio- there's 150 students at Lakewood High School that fall under at least one of those categories.
We have over 2,000 students at LHS. Yet we only notice not more than 10 of those students. That says something about the student body. The only students we see are the ones that are picking up students garbage and cleaning out the recycle bins in every classroom. There is a common image when someone says "special education" that I'm trying to prove wrong here. Like you said, it's not just jimmy in the wheelchair, it's the A+ student with a 10.8 GPA sitting next to you too. I want our students to learn more about the daily lives of these students, so that ignorance is watered down. I can't eliminate other peoples prejudices and ignorance to topics, but I can at least inform them with new information that might change their views for the better.
We at the Lakewood High School Times follow every journalistic ethic there is in the book. We win national awards yearly, and have been going strong for over 80 years. We wouldn't publish something that would break any laws, ethics, moral issues, etc. The Lakewood Times is a open forum newspaper/magazine, but we still have an advisor and a panel of 6 editors that are educated in journalism, from legal cases to ethics to how to write a good article and take a good photo. Everyone who has power in the Lakewood Times has had a year long course/class of writing and studying and test taking that makes this paper win the awards that it wins.
As you write a story, you begin with a simple outline and a few ideas. Those ideas change as you get interviews, collect data and quotes, and as you write your piece. In the 2000+ words that I already have written down, I have not said one bad thing about how the Board of Education treats any of its students. I have continuously praised the Board and will continue to do so because they deserve it. My outline has changed, and some things I talked about in my opening post, I don't even think about including in the article. Like the students being forgotten by the board. The student body yes, but not the board. Take it from a LHS senior that has seen this for the past four years, that has heard students talk in classrooms and cafeterias, and that has been in the loop.
When writing an article, you will always get people that disagree. That's why I take photos, you can't disagree with photos. I have done over six hours of in depth research for numbers, laws, and procedures in the special education departments here and around Cleveland. This is on my winter vacation. I have stayed up until 3AM almost every night, actually doing research and reading. I kid you not.
What I've seen is that no one is all right and no one is all wrong on this.
I will publish the article in the Lakewood Times. I might be all right, and I might be all wrong, but I have credible sources and journalistic ethics that will make this article informative. That's all I mean by "powerful piece", it has to be very informative.
I throw in facts like only 1.5% of the federal budget is used toward funding education, when voters who were asked in a poll thought 20% is being used and 37% should be used for funding education in this country. Students don't know that. And that affects the gifted, the general education and the special education classes. Special Education isn't a place in the building, its part of the building. It's just a service. Education is the place, we're all here to get the education we deserve under the same big roof.
The law doesn't allow it.
The same law that has only payed for 17% of the education programs when it promised 50%, leaving its tax payers to come up with over 50% of the 83% left to pay for every year?? the same law that says no matter what the individual case of the student is, (gifted, general education, i'm bad at writing but great at art, dyslexic, ADHD, SBH, Cognitive, Hearing, Vision, and so on) they all need to be at THIS exact point after every school year, and have to be proficient in reading, writing, and math in order to graduate? The same law that now is ordering high schools to increase the graduation requirements for all students? the same law that made congress promise $42 billion towards education this year, but they only gave education $23 billion in this years budget? the same law that costs the state of Ohio 1.447 BILLION dollars on top of what it already costs us to keep these programs running annually?
Are you SURE the law doesn't allow it?
This is where my outline of the article changed drastically. It's not the Board that forgot about its students... it's the government. And while only 1.5% of the budget goes towards K-12 education, they keep implementing new laws that cost the state and local districts more and more to have in place.
