A recent national survey found most parents of special education students are satisfied with their schools. But the factors that drive that satisfaction are also what make mandated special education requirements costly. Educators must follow detailed plans to meet the unique needs of every student. Most of the plans require additional staff to get the job done. The result is a complex and expensive school day.

	Sam Graves is a fourth grader at Lake Harriet Community School in Minneapolis. You can view photographs from a typical school day.See more images.

Fourth grader Sam Graves lives just a few blocks from Lake Harriet Community School in southwest Minneapolis. It would be a short walk for most kids in the neighborhood, but Sam has cerebral palsy and needs a ride.

A small school bus pulls up to the curb outside Sam's house every morning and afternoon. The driver uses a lift to get Sam and his electric wheelchair in and out of the bus. Transportation is a critical need and often a big worry for the parents of disabled students. Kathy Graves says her son is fortunate to have a great bus driver.

"When you've got kids with special needs riding buses, especially if they're not verbal, and if they can't talk, and you have a bus driver who's not particularly sensitive," Graves said. "But he is unbelievable. I mean he's just right there with the kids."

Sam contracted viral meningitis when he was a week old, resulting in some brain damage. Sam's motor skills, muscles and speech are impaired, but his cognitive abilities are sound. He generally gets A's and B's and spends two hours a week in a rigorous gifted and talented program. Sam says his favorite subjects are reading and math. Like many kids his age, he gets more talkative when the discussion turns to sports or his favorite computer games.

"Need For Speed is a car racing game," Sam said. "And Madden '99 is a real football game, like real football."

The first person Sam sees every day at Lake Harriet Community School is his educational assistant. April Glander meets Sam at the bus, helps him on the elevator, opens his locker and remains close by his desk throughout the school day. She also assists two other students in the same class. Glander says her job is to assist Sam deal with mechanical and logistical challenges.

"Helping him get into spots where he can't get into, or taking out his pencil if he can't get it out of his box." Glander said. "He's very smart, so the academic part he can all do himself. But sometimes he'll tell me what to write if there's a lot of writing involved so that I can write it for him."

Sam's case is not unique. Since the enactment in 1975 of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA, most disabled students are in classrooms with nondisabled students. A survey earlier this year by the nonprofit research organization Public Agenda found 73 percent of the parents of special education students reported their child spends most of the school day in a regular classroom.

Lake Harriet fourth grade teacher Calvin Boone says he views Sam as fully integrated into his classroom.

"I try to incorporate him in everything that we do," Boone said. "And I try to treat him just like I would any other student. So there's no major challenges that I can see, other than he does have some handicaps. It doesn't seem to get in the way of doing what he has to do in the classroom."

Sam spends most of his time in Boone's classroom, getting help from his educational assistant. But he also requires help from other specialists. Sam has regular sessions with the school's physical therapist and speech pathologist.

When Mr. Boone's class goes to the gym, Sam gets individual attention from a Developmental Adapted Physical Education teacher. Pat Mosbacher travels among five Minneapolis schools with a caseload of 45 students. She says including Sam in today's soccer instruction took some improvisation.

	Kathy Graves knows her son's life would have been significantly different in the time before the special education mandates. (MPR Photo/Tim Pugmire)

"Sam needs assistance to use his feet, Mosbacher said. "So what I've done is I've bought a wire shelf from Home Depot, put it in front of his feet and now he can keep the ball rolling or turn right or left with it."

Parents play a key role in their disabled child's education. They meet annually with teachers, administrators and specialists to formulate the child's Individualized Education Program, or IEP. Kathy Graves says everything her son needs is spelled out in his IEP.

"We really look at it as a way of looking at his day and breaking it down into pieces and what it's going to take in literally every setting," Graves said. "If he's in the classroom working on a worksheet, or if he has to do an art project, or what it will take, what kind of accomodations."

Graves says she's been pleased with the responsiveness of the Minneapolis school district in meeting the needs of her son. But parents and school officials don't always agree on the IEP or its implementation. Statewide, more than 100 complaints are filed each year.

Five years ago, state education officials found widespread problems with Minneapolis schools not complying with keeping up with student IEP requirements. Tom Lombard of the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning has been closely monitoring the district. He says most Minneapolis schools have made big improvements, but 28 schools are still having compliance trouble.

"If parents see their kids are not improving as they should, there are procedures in place for them to re-examine this plan," Lombard said. "But if the plans are way behind, or they're not getting done, then parents are left kind of out in left field as to how to measure their kids' progress."

Lombard says the problems in Minneapolis were related to the district giving more decision-making authority to individual schools. The oversight of special education is now back in the hands of the district's central office. The district developed new support systems and put limits on the caseloads for teachers.

"What we're finding with the complaints, is that we maybe have about 12 a year," according to Colleen Baumtrog, the special education director for Minneapolis schools. "It's been pretty constant number over the last three years. But that the district is found to have violations less and less."

The Public Agenda survey found nationwide that one in six parents of disabled students have considered legal action over their child's education program. But 67 percent thought their school is doing a good or excellent job.

Kathy Graves reflects that majority view. She also knows her son's life would have been significantly different in the time before the special education mandates.

"Kids in my generation were not mainstreamed particularly," Grvaes said. "And a kid like Sam, just because he used a wheelchair, would have been put into a classroom with all kids with disabilities. It would have made absolutely no sense. It would have been a waste of his time, and a lot of kids were kind of warehoused that way."

Graves says the federal requirements of the IDEA are more than legal protections, but the basis for her son to have a successful and independent future. And according to Sam, that future might include a career as a pilot or a baseball player.