12:00 AM CST on Monday, December 24, 2007
Second of three parts
For the woebegone Dallas school district, bad news seems to hit the headlines with clockwork predictability. Small wonder that a lot of parents don't want their kids in a DISD school.
But Jessie Kierbow's parents wish she never had to leave. Stonewall Jackson Elementary School is one of the district's profound successes, a place where all that sometimes-hollow happy talk about tolerance and achievement has real and palpable meaning.
It's common for children who, like Jessie, have Asperger's syndrome, to loathe school: Their characteristic quirks and social deficiencies make them ready-made targets for bullies. According to some studies, as many as 90 percent of Asperger's kids have reported being tormented at school, sometimes on a daily basis.
There's a social alchemy at Stonewall that somehow escapes that kind of routine cruelty. Perhaps it's because, for years, the school has housed deaf-education and other special-ed programs alongside the mainstream student population. Maybe it's because the close-knit neighborhood just east of Mockingbird Station attracts supportive, involved parents. A lot of parents, in turn, credit the school's warm and gifted staff.
Jessie likes the school she has attended since kindergarten just fine, although, she told me with brisk matter-of-factness while giving me a tour of the building, "Once you're in the fifth grade, there's no dillydallying!"
Academically, Jessie has nothing to worry about. She has exceptional language ability – at 10, she taught herself Japanese, and she frequently peruses the dictionary to pass the time.
But social adjustment for Asperger's kids is typically tough, said Freida Apodaca, who was Jessie's fourth-grade special-education teacher.
"Intellectually, she understands that we're in school to learn, and the teachers are here to help us," Ms. Apodaca said. "In an emotional sense, she knows she reacts to things differently. She started out with a lot of barriers, like not knowing how to make friends."
Ms. Apodaca likened Jessie's initial encounter with school to the experience I might have of parachuting into a foreign country whose language and customs I don't share: "You wouldn't know what's expected."
Teachers at Stonewall have tutored Jessie not just in academics but in relating to the people around her. It's pleasant work, Ms. Apodaca said. "Jessie's a great kid. She's fun. She's got a great sense of humor."
Jessie was all business the day I visited her language-arts class at Stonewall last month. The kids were starting a new book, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and she read part of the opening chapter aloud, her pitch and intonation perfect.
It's one thing for the grown-ups to like you, of course, and quite another for the kids to accept you on the playground. Jessie is an extraordinarily gifted child, but one of her most shining triumphs came last year when she advanced to the finals of the district spelling championship – and the student body was abuzz with excitement.
"In some schools, it's a stigma if you're a special-ed student," said principal Olivia Henderson. "Here, the children don't know the difference."
It's easy to love the school itself, a vintage art-deco building with a cozy interior reminiscent of an earlier era. The gymnasium, the hardwood polished to a matte sheen by generations of kid-sized tennis shoes, served as a dance studio on the day I visited.
The fifth-graders were studying ballroom dancing for physical education (why didn't they have this when I was a kid?), concentrating hard as they step-hopped, step-step-hopped. Jessie towered over her partner – fifth grade is an age of dramatic and sometimes comic physical disparities – but they worked their way earnestly through the steps.
"Jessie just doesn't see anything negative," language-arts teacher Margaret Sorrells told me later in the morning, while the kids were working in groups on poster illustrations. "She brings out the best in everybody. She's very innocent, and children respond to that."
But the school itself, she said, provides a safe harbor for kids who might not quite fit in elsewhere.
"Maybe it's because all the parents have bought into it, or because this is a real cross-section of Dallas," Ms. Sorrells said. "Everybody rises to the best level. The rules are just expected and everybody knows it – they don't have to be enforced."
She echoed a sentiment I heard from a lot of other Stonewall teachers and parents: "This is something that's right about the DISD."
Inevitably, of course, word has gotten out. Jessie's parents made significant sacrifices to get their daughter into Stonewall as a kindergartner. Her mom lives in one of the neighborhood's few apartment complexes, unable to afford a house in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, but unwilling to settle for a more affordable area elsewhere.
Stonewall is closed to incoming transfers from other schools; there's just no more room. Turnover is low, and Ms. Henderson herself, who has been there for 17 years, has declined offers to go elsewhere.
The neighborhood's changing economics are a topic that Ms. Henderson approaches carefully. When another apartment complex was torn down last year to make way for expensive new houses, 30 low-income kids had to transfer to other schools – a loss, in her estimation.
"Our children are exposed to many different kinds of kids at a very young age, and they learn acceptance," she said.
"When the Jessies of the world come along, they understand."
This is Jessie's final year in the school she has attended for so long. Next year, she starts middle school.
"She's such a sweet, sweet kid," Ms. Apodaca said. "She can socialize now and feel confident with it. She keeps her heart and mind open to what people are willing to offer her."
Jessie's family and school have provided her with a sturdy foundation that many Asperger's children – that many children in general – don't get.
She knows that being different can be hard, but that it can be managed. And she knows the people who really count wouldn't change a thing.
Source-http://www.dallasnews.com
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