The paper describes an inner city elementary program for mainstreaming seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) students. It is suggested that the program, despite sharing the building with nonhandicapped students, is really physically segregated, and that rigid use of the Distar curriculum does not prepare the student for later creative problem solving. Contradictions between labels of SED and the existence of severe learning deficits are noted, as are questions on the use of physical punishment. The basic question, whether students could ever be successfully integrated into a white middle class school with white middle class expectations, is said to remain unanswered. (CL)