Going to School (Ir a la Escuela)

Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the nation, has over 760,000 students--more than the entire populations of either North or South Dakota. Around 12% of these students qualify for special education, which is simply defined as a student having “special needs.” With Going to School, filmmaker Richard Cohen hopes to inform parents of their advocacy rights, and cut through the bureaucratic tangle that keeps students with special needs from receiving the education that is best for them. We follow the progress of three students: Richard, an eighth grader with cerebral palsy; Ana, a paraplegic seventh grader; and Aaron, an autistic third grader. Interviews with parents, the students themselves, and their teachers, are intercut with scenes at school. Although it runs a bit long, this is still a good resource for informing schools, educators, and parents about a subject that is often put on the back burner. However, it should be noted that this isn't an objective documentary: commissioned by the volunteer committee overseeing LAUSD's special education services, the film is strongly pro-inclusion, which means that mainstreaming (putting a special needs child into a regular peer classroom, rather than a special education class) is presented as a wonderful one-size-fits-all solution. Unfortunately, the category of “special needs” is very broad: while putting a student like Ana (whose disability is simply physical) into a special education class is absurd, forcing a school to mainstream a child who is deaf, retarded, or needs a feeding tube is equally questionable. Going to School could have emphasized that while parents do have the right to demand inclusion, it should be considered on a case-by-case basis, since special education teachers are specifically trained to help special needs students--especially those who were originally failing in their mainstream classes. Although it probably was not intended, the message here seems to be that the learning of academic skills should be made secondary to a student's peer socialization. Optional. Aud: C, P. (E. Gieschen)