Studying while on the mend

As Jennifer Adams filled in the answer to a question about dominant tongue-rollers, her teacher leaned over and asked if she wanted her to write it.

“Are you writing left-handed again?” Margaret Mattson said. Mattson is no ordinary teacher. She is one of two working for Spokane Public Schools who go to the houses and hospital rooms of students with temporary physical disabilities or illnesses – like Jennifer, a sophomore at Shadle Park High School who had surgery on her right shoulder in late January.

While the home/hospital instruction program is not meant to be a total substitute for time missed in school, it helps students with short-term medical problems keep up, said Kathe Reed-McKay, coordinator of health services for Spokane Public Schools.

The home/hospital teacher coordinates with the student’s regular teachers to get assignments and tests, explains lessons and homework, and sets up work for the student to do independently, Reed-McKay added.

On a recent Wednesday, Mattson went down the list of Jennifer’s classes and assignments: English, accounting, early childhood education, science.

“Let’s go to math, which is the real problem,” Mattson said. The assignment is a worksheet on angles in a circle. “OK, I got the rule here,” Mattson added, as she thumbed through a geometry textbook, looking for the theorem of inscribed angles.

For the next half-hour, the pair tackled problem after problem, with Mattson intermittently reminding Jennifer to put brackets around her equations.

Each student enrolled in the program receives four hours of teaching per week, which includes the teacher’s driving time and time at the student’s school.

The coordination that the program provides was a plus for Mary Bagley, whose son Aaron broke his right arm and leg during a church youth group activity.

“I didn’t have to leave him and deal directly with the teachers,” Bagley said. “That was a load taken off me.”

Aaron, a freshman at North Central High School, was nervous about doing as well as his classmates during finals, but it turns out his worry was unwarranted. Thanks partly to Mattson’s motivation, he maintained a 3.0 grade-point average, which was better than some of his peers, and which his mom says is “pretty darn good for being in pain and healing.”

Strict guidelines to follow

The program has helped 31 students since the beginning of the school year, and 12 are currently in the program.

One student who is no longer in the program – but whose parents wish she still was – is Rachael Sheridan. Until a week ago, she was a junior at Lewis and Clark High School.

Rachael was diagnosed 18 months ago with lupus, an autoimmune disease accompanied by joint and stomach pain and headaches, said her father, Michael Sheridan.

“A big problem with the program is that if you can go to school at all, you can’t keep the tutor,” Sheridan said.

Rachael tried to attend some school, depending on how she was feeling that day. Some days, Rachael went for the first three, four or five periods. Some days she went in the afternoon. Sometimes she attended a whole day of school.

Rachael is on steroids and chemotherapy agents, drugs that will hopefully put her in remission but that take a toll on her mentally and physically.

But her parents didn’t want Rachael to stay cooped up at home. “We feel like it’s important for a 17-year-old girl to go to school and get some social interaction,” Sheridan said.

Rachael’s parents took her out of school last week and she has enrolled in a community college program that will allow her to take college classes and get her high school diploma. Lupus is triggered by stress, Sheridan explained, and always being behind in schoolwork was stressful for Rachael. In the college program, she will be able to set her schedule and attendance in classes isn’t as crucial at the college level as it is in high school.

Because the home/hospital program is partially funded by the state, which enacted it in 1984, the school district has to follow the delineated criteria by the letter, said Reed-McKay.

“It isn’t a program we can get funding for if they can attend part time,” Reed-McKay said.

The program can also no longer receive funding for students after 18 weeks, which is about the length of a semester. (A medical practitioner – doctor or dentist, for example – needs to verify that the student will be out of school for at least four weeks for them to be eligible for the program.) “The reason there’s a limit is that it’s geared to students who are temporarily ill,” Reed-McKay said. “There aren’t any programs to provide in-home tutoring for students with long-term medical disabilities. … Those children are evaluated on a case-by-case basis for 504 accommodation or special ed accommodation.”

The 504 accommodation – referring to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which addresses the needs of students with disabilities – can include, for example, modified curriculum, method of instruction or means of assessment.

Sheridan had not heard of 504 accommodations and Rachael’s counselor could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Helps keep kids motivated

Another caveat of the program is that pregnancy is not considered a medical condition, unless a student has a specific disability related to the pregnancy. Otherwise, a pregnant student can only receive teaching services after she has given birth.

Geneva Flesher, for example, was put on bed rest two months before her due date in February. The Rogers High School senior was having trouble staying awake and keeping vitamins down, and her doctor worried about her iron deficiency.

“I thought I wasn’t going to graduate for sure,” Geneva said, explaining that she would have been a quarter behind.

“Without a tutor, I don’t think I’d be going back because I’d have too much to catch up,” Geneva added. She would have had to take the GED, which she doesn’t consider equal to a high school diploma.

Geneva’s mother, Joanne Learned, praised the program and its teachers. “She (Mattson) just bends over backwards so she can get her what she needs to graduate,” Learned said. “She goes above and beyond.”

Other parents and students had similar praises of Mattson.

Jennifer, whose too-heavy backpack was to blame for pinching a nerve in her shoulder, said Mattson’s teaching was even better than school.

“You get to work one-on-one, and I’m not good at math and she explains everything,” Jennifer said.

During the time she was taking tutoring, Jennifer’s grade in math jumped from a C to an A.

“What’s happening here?” Mattson asked Jennifer, with a laugh.

“It’s the greatest job. I love it. The people are so appreciative of what you do,” Mattson said in an interview earlier. “The challenge is to keep the student involved so they can go back to school and pretty much be caught up.”

And while Mattson interacts with students for a limited time, she takes responsibility for seeing that they get an education.

“I pride myself on being able to promote the interest of the student and see that they can accomplish as much as they can,” she said. “It’s rewarding for them and it’s rewarding for me too.”