Is the Upper Freehold Regional School District (UFRSD) Shangri-La? Your recent article about the district seemed to state this as a fact.

I had always enjoyed reading articles in the Examiner, but even this article stretches the last vestiges of journalistic integrity beyond credulity. During the Bush years, the Fox News Channel was referred to by some as the "White House Channel." Your paper has clearly become the propaganda arm of the UFRSD. Could you be trying to protect the revenue generated by the full-page ads taken out by the district for its "Wings and Roots" campaign?

You take quotes of Ms. [Judith] Chevalier as fact. There was no objective reporting at all. Your reporting on "Inclusive Schools Week" didn't include any quotes from parents. You and I have spoken on the phone and I've told you of the problems we have encountered with the district, which has been documented in my husband's blog at www.shortbuslongbusnobus. org. Yet your reporting portrays UFRSD as a utopian paradise. We know parents that live in fear of their special need children's issues becoming public. One parent felt "socially burned" when her daughter's issues became known. Is this successful inclusion?

The state average for out-ofdistrict placements is approximately 9 percent, yet UFRSD's rate is approximately 4 percent. Just looking at these statistics would lead one to believe that the district is doing a great job at inclusion. Is this because of some altruistic goal? No, it's because of budgets. It's cheaper to keep a child in-district than sending a child out-of-district to an appropriate placement. We won a lawsuit against the district on this very issue. The district is warehousing special needs children because it's cheaper to do so than to provide them with the free and appropriate public education required by law.

At a recent meeting of the PTA and RISE (Raising Issues in Special Education), the president of RISE stated that the district is not doing a great job of teaching acceptance for special needs students that look typical, but do not act typical. Did you think about interviewing anyone other than Ms. Chevalier or her staff?

While participating in Inclusive Schools Week is a nice thing to do, did you think to ask what the district does for the rest of the year to promote inclusion? Do you know if there is any researchbased peer training going on for typical learners to actually learn to accept differences of special needs children? Well, there aren't any. So much for stars in constellations.

Mary Woehr

Allentown