Robert Abbott`s career, which began in a basement, played out its days in the top-floor suite once occupied by a reverend mother.
When the noted educator retired in June, he occupied an office in the Waukegan School District`s Lincoln Center, a former convent. When he started his career in special education in 1958 in Springfield, he explained, he was given a basement room and only paper and pencils with which to work.
From that relative obscurity he rose to the position of associate superintendent for special services in Waukegan, managing a budget last year of $6 million. He has achieved national renown. ”Throughout the state, he`s known as Mr. Special Education,” said Sister Marie Grant, dean of the graduate school of education at Rosary College in River Forest, who has known Abbott since his undergraduate days. ”He is known nationally as a great resource person, always able to supply any information you need. But more important is his remarkable relationship with the children he has taught.”
For the man from Kenney, Ill., near Bloomington, who started life with a verbal deficiency that required years of therapy, it was always the handicapped children and their families who made the work important. ”Without someone who has the expertise or training to advocate, assist and teach, handicapped children are not going to have equated opportunities in society,” Abbott said.
Nancy Musich, whose son Michael ranked 38th in his sophomore class of 385 at Waukegan High School a year ago, was at a loss when he was diagnosed with learning disabilities in 2nd grade. Abbott, a stranger at the time, allowed her to audit without charge a college class on disabilities, which he was teaching.
”I attribute my son`s successes to things I learned in that class,” she said. ”Through the years, I found out Mr. Abbott knew everybody in special education in Waukegan. It was a very personal experience for him. He was not a figurehead.”
Abbott was a quick learner, and, after earning a degree in special education from Illinois State University at Normal and being invited to start a program in Springfield for behaviorally and mentally handicapped teenage boys, he soon found out that the things he had learned in college did not apply to the real world. ”I learned that special education gets what is left over,” he said. ”Also that commercial materials don`t meet the kids` needs, and it`s better to create materials. And that kids who always fail need someone to make them feel they have something to offer.”
Not one to hide his talents, Abbott soon had his kids organized into a precision drill team that performed all over Springfield. ”I never had a behavior problem with them because they felt good about themselves,” he said. ”Pretty soon the principal started sending classroom teachers down to the basement to see what I was doing.”
When McLean County decided to start a special education district for 13 small schools in 1961, Abbott was asked to run it. In fact, he was it, a one- man show. There were about 18 students ranging in age from 5 to 18. In addition to reading and writing, he taught them functional cooking, shopping, woodworking, all with the help of his parents, Ernestine and Eugene Abbott, who often invited the whole class into their home to work on a project.
”I looked forward to going to work every day,” Abbott said. ”Those kids were from wonderfully supportive families, and I still get letters from some of them.” He reminisced about one boy with whom he worked before school, teaching him to read, using an experimental method. The youngster was transitioned out of special education into a regular classroom and now has a degree in engineering from the University of Illinois.
Abbott`s work attracted attention, and his class became a demonstration lab for universities. He was also invited to be the educator on the newly formed Training Team in Learning Disabilities created by the National Institues of Health. That`s where, in 1967, he first encountered William Vickers, who at that time was Waukegan`s new director of special education. Vickers, who retired in 1988 after 21 years service, hounded Abbott until he agreed to go to work for Waukegan in 1967.
”I went to Bloomington to observe Bob,” Vickers said. ”He is one of the best teachers I have ever seen. He can have a whole classroom of kids doing exactly what he wants them to do.”
Abbott was reluctant at first due to the distance from Bloomington, where his family lived, and the urban traffic congestation, but he soon fell in love with Waukegan and says he will continue to make his retirement home in the city. ”The people are fantastic,” he said. ”I love the diversity of the community and the availability of cultural opportunities in the area.”
Abbott started in Waukegan with eight preschoolers in a tiny room that could scarcely accommodate those in wheelchairs. Yet he called that first year ”everything I had hoped for.
”Every one of those children impacted my life. I am still close to six of the families and socialize with them. One of the children who could not verbalize at that time just let me know she will be getting married soon.”
Michael Banick, 28, said he has known Abbott since Banick was 5. ”I could not talk. I could not do anything when I went to West School,” he said. ”He wasn`t my teacher, but he checked on (teachers) all the time to see they were doing it right. He is a very nice man, and he is my friend.” Banick lives in his own apartment and works at Welton`s County Market in Gurnee.
Attitudes toward special education were just beginning to change in the mid-`60s, Abbott said. Although state law did not mandate education for children with disabilities until 1969, he credits Vickers` forward thinking with putting Waukegan ahead of the game. In addition to his classroom duties, Abbott was asked to teach kindergarten teachers how to accommodate handicapped children and was given a budget with which to set up a resource center in one of the schools. On his own time he started a weekly recreation program for handicapped children.
”I did it so the parents of those children could have some free time,”
he said. Soon he had about 80 children coming and attracted the attention of the Waukegan Park District, which asked him to work with the district to develop a park-sponsored program for the handicapped.
Abbott said he made a mistake at the end of his first year in Waukegan when he agreed to assume administrative duties.
”The rewards of teaching are interaction between the kids and the teacher,” he said. ”You don`t get the same rewards when you are structuring as when you are implementing. Moments like hearing a child say her first word can only be experienced with the heart.
”In the first years after I stopped teaching, however, I still knew every one of the special education kids in the district by name and they knew me. I interacted more with policy and paper and budget,” he added sadly.
”But the severely handicapped children are taught here at Lincoln Center, and I see them regularly. I could not function without seeing the kids.”
”Bob never really left the kids,” Vickers said. ”But special education was just getting started at the time we took him out of the classroom, and it was necessary to train teachers.”
Vickers was Waukegan`s first full-time director, and he had four or five elementary teachers in his department. Last year (Waukegan is now a unit district) Abbott supervised a staff of 262 people who were responsible for 1,770 students, or 12 percent of the school population.
The focus has changed, he said. ”Today we are dealing with every one of the social problems such as cocaine babies, kids on drugs, child abuse, families that are not intact.” Also under his jurisdiction were the Waukegan school district`s educational program at the Hulse Juvenile Complex, the Lake County detention center for juveniles.
Suicide or attempted suicide is a common occurrence in the schools today, Abbott said. He initiated formation of a support team that goes into a school in a crisis situation such as that.
He also put pupil personnel teams in place in every building in the district to assess children with learning problems, test them and place them in appropriate classes.
Since 1968 he had been chairman of the Waukegan Early Entry program, designed to test 3-year-olds who are thought to have disabilities. ”This kind of screening did not become mandatory in Illinois until 1972,” Abbott said. He served on a task force appointed by the Illinois State Legislature and the Illinois Board of Education, which worked for passage of the bill.
Also, working in cooperation with Vickers and several other people, Abbott developed a bilingual special education model program, which has garnered national attention.
During his last year with the district he served as chairman of a committee to look at non-special education youngsters who are at risk academically. The result is Waukegan Career Academy, which in the fall started offering a job-experience-related curriculum to high school freshmen and sophomores. Abbott is excited about it, sure it will decrease dropouts.
Since he brought those first handicapped students out of the basement 34 years ago, Abbott has served as president of almost every national or state organization involved with children with disabilities, he said, including the International Council for Exceptional Children, which in 1991 named him the outstanding contributor in special education in the United States and Canada; Illinois Citizens for Learning Disabilities, which gave him their outstanding administrator award, and the Illinois Council for Exceptional Children, which named him Mr. ICEC.
”These organizations are important,” he said, ”because they propose changes, serve as watchdogs and offer technical assistance.”
Since retiring, he has picked up two more awards: a U.S. congressional certificate of recognition and an Illinois Legislature resolution honoring his career.
Abbott never marryied or created a family of his own, but he had more than enough children to keep him busy. ”Truthfully, I have not missed having children of my own,” he said. ”In my early years of teaching, a special education teacher would have the same students for several years, and I became very close to those children and their families.
”Also, I have two sisters and two brothers and am very involved with them and their families. (There are 10 nieces and nephews, including a niece who is deaf.)”
In Waukegan, although Abbott worked for the school district most days from 6:15 a.m. to 5 p.m., he said he often didn`t get home from the office until 1 a.m. He speaks at most major conventions and workshops and writes professionally. He has taught evenings and summers at 15 colleges and universities around the country, including Bradley University, Rosary College and National College of Education.
He is currently a member of the Illinois Barrier Sounding Board, which investigates things standing in the way of children being educated. ”For example,” he said, ”if a youngster is determined to have incorrigible behavior, a number of agencies, including the courts, will be involved. Between all of their separate rules and regulations, the youngster gets the short end of the straw and does not get immediate attention. We are attempting to remedy that through greater interagency collaboration.
”Attitudes toward special education tend to reflect the socioeconomic trends. When times are bad financially, people want to take away from special education. We in special education think how wonderful and how right it is to have these programs, while on the part of some educators there is still that subtle resentment that they are mandated to do it.
”There is more awareness of handicaps today, but unfortunately I can`t say there is more acceptance. Acceptance comes from people`s understanding and interaction with handicapped persons.”
There are still many areas in special education that need attention, although Abbott acknowledged it will never be possible to meet all the social needs. ”Illinois has never had a category for brain-injured or attention-deficit kids who need attention,” he said. ”There is no appropriate category for working with autistic children. Also, traumatic brain-injured children used to be in hospitals and are now in schools, and we must learn to deal with them.”
With so much yet to do, why did Abbott retire?
”I am 55 years old,” he said, ”and this is my 36th year teaching in Illinois. I will now have an opportunity to do things I have not had time to do: family, travel, geneology. I believe one should stop what they have done when they feel good about past accomplishments. I have had several offers from universities to teach and will probably accept one of them part time. However, my focus will not be paper work. There is too much of that and too much bureaucracy. Someone used to be able to come and say, `I want help with my kid,` and you could do it. Now there has to be 50 pieces of paper and a waiting period.”
One bit of business that was taken care of fairly quickly by the Waukegan School Board last spring was the renaming of West Elementary School, in which for many years Abbott had his headquarters. By unanimous vote of the board, it was renamed Robert E. Abbott Middle School.
”I was speechless. I never ever thought that would happen, and it was an overwhelming feeling. It makes you feel very humble,” he said.
”Considering the tests he devised for vision, hearing, reading readiness and the tools he put into place to help children,” said Patricia Foley, school board president, ”almost every child who has gone through the system in the last 25 years has probably been touched by Bob Abbott.”
