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system to leave that disproportionate population and not try to reapportion it. Dr. Grumet said <br />that Wake County struggles with this daily. It is an interesting and difficult problem. <br />Commissioner Foushee thanked Dr. Grumet for taking the necessary amount of time to da <br />this report right. She referred to the table on page 54, regarding resources and the ratio of <br />adults to students. She asked if this is a function of the overcrowding situation in that district, <br />and if it is not, when the new school comes on line, if it would serve the students better to <br />lessen the studentlteacher ratio, or if it would be mare useful to add other support adults to this <br />mix. She was speaking about OCS specifically. <br />Dr. Grumet said that her impression from speaking with principals of the high schools was <br />that support for students who were having difficulty or not achieving at very high levels was not <br />readily available. There was definitely concern about the kinds of resources that the <br />administrators have to give to students who are having trouble. There is also concern about the <br />dropout rate, which is taa high. She said that neither system appears to her to have adequate <br />counselors. She said that there is great danger in the high schools of depersonalization. The <br />kind of guidance and support that they need could come from smaller classes and added <br />programs, but also from the kind of attention from counselors. <br />Chair Carey made reference to the Executive Summary and the ratio of counselors to <br />students and that administrative tasks take up time that might be spent with students. He asked <br />if this was true for bath systems. Dr. Grumet said that it may be true far both systems, but the <br />interviews were expressed for OCS only. <br />Chair Carey made reference to the difference in the higher proportion of exceptional <br />students in the OCS. He asked what this meant. Dr. Grumet said that there is a process that <br />the State has established for how to identify a child with special needs. It involves an evaluation <br />made by a student assistance team. The process requires at some stage, identifying the <br />student as needing these resources. It is a very subtle process and involves judgment. It has <br />been their sense that if students get the support that they need, particularly in the early grades, <br />so that the student's achievement does not require them to be so categorized, it is in the <br />student's best interest. Both school systems have been focusing on inclusion, which is bringing <br />children with special needs into heterogeneous classrooms instead of singling them out. <br />Dr. Grumet said that one of the questions is whether students are being classified as <br />having special needs, who might, if there were sufficient support in preschool and in early <br />grades, be able to sustain adequate academic achievement. The second part is whether there <br />are children who are classified in this way, but who with adequate support, might join the <br />heterogeneous populations as well as overcome those disabilities sufficiently. She said that <br />there is a correspondence between economic disadvantage and special needs. In that case, <br />there may be more children with special needs in OCS because there are more children with <br />economic disadvantages. <br />Dr. Grumet made reference to inclusion and heterogeneous classrooms and said that both <br />school systems are trying not to isolate these children, but it does put a strain on the teacher, <br />who now has a greater diversity of students than usual. There is a process called <br />differentiation, although complicated, where the teacher would have six or seven ways to go <br />through a lesson to teach all in a class. CHCCS has 42 Inclusion Specialists, who can go into <br />classrooms and be there for the special needs children. <br />Chair Carey thanked Dr. Grumet for her work and the work of her staff, because it <br />provides an unbiased foundation. He said that he did vote against this study, but he is glad that <br />his wiser colleagues supported it. He said that this study does support his bias, which is that <br />equitable opportunities are not provided for the children in OCS to reach their full educational <br />potential because of the resource issue. He said that it becomes incumbent upon the Board to <br />do something about it. <br />