Letter to the Editor: Get Over It.Comments (0)

Get Over It

Many thanks for your informative July 17 article about Shemesh (“Shemesh Agency Hires First Director”). My son has been in the inclusion/support program for students with special needs at TA for the past two years and has made tremendous progress in his education.

One of the things that I have found perplexing is that there are so few Orthodox children in the program. Our family is part of the secular Jewish community, and yet we have our son in an Orthodox special needs program. One reasons for this lack of student enrollment, as I have come to understand, is the highly sensitive issue in the Orthodox community regarding children with disabilities.

My husband has a cousin, a rabbi, who helps run a special needs yeshiva program in another city. His city has far less of an Orthodox population than Baltimore and three times as many students in their inclusion program. Why? Because when the parents discuss the various ways they attempt to deny the problems that arise with a child’s learning disability, my husband’s cousin literally tells them, “Get over it.”

We need more rabbis, teachers, and community leaders in this area to implement the “get over it” strategy. Our children should be taught and raised to be productive members of our society. I hope more parents will feel the sense of freedom to enroll their child in a special needs education program in the future.

Diane Bark
Baltimore