Songbird76
Well-Known Member
I'm just curious how they do that, with the inclusive school? Some kids have such specific needs. Obviously I don't know anything about this school, but over here, they passed a law a couple of years ago, saying that parents should be able to send their kids to the school of their choice, and that schools have to modify to include all kids, even those with special needs. It's actually kind of messed things up, because schools just don't have the funding. Where before, you would have schools that catered to the blind, the deaf, Autism, dyslexia, etc so funding went to that school that helped all those kids....(and they still do have those) each school has to have the resources to help those specific things. But schools are funded by their enrollment....the more students you have, the more money the government gives your school. So schools are fighting to keep kids in their school instead of recommending they go to a specialized school, so they can keep the funding for that kid, even though they don't have the training and resources to give that kid a good learning environment. They still have the same funding, but it has to stretch further to offer the resources each kid needs. The law says they have to provide it, and if they can't, they are responsible for enrolling the child in a school that can offer what they can't. So what happens is they play musical chairs with the schools.Yea, cell phones were just comin’ into pretty common usage about the time our girls were comin’ of age and started to drive (DS will probably never drive, for obvious reasons, but his good friend Tyler, who is a paraplegic that he’s known since preschool does).
But, we still worried...and sometimes maybe more ‘cause sometimes they either didn’t answer, or we got sent directly to voicemail...!!!!!
Never invasive on our part, but, you are still minors and livin’ in our house, so yea... Fortunately, both DDs actually worked at the same place before the oldest left home.
They both worked at a place (now defunct) in the local mall 5 mins. away called “Inflatable Wonderland”(they also worked together at the school youngest DD still teaches at)...!!!!!
Megan (oldestDD) says she will go back to the school and teach again as soon as she can enroll Emy...both of our young ladies love children and have such beautiful hearts...!!!!!!!
It is an inclusive school, that includes children with sever disabilities and all in between...I couldn’t be more proud of the family DWifey and myself raised if I tried...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What’s even funnier, is I was workin’ at the Disney Store in the same mall during much of that time, and have now been back at the firm for 6 plus years...life’s a crazy, dicey thing, and if you can’t laugh at it, or yourself, you’re toast...!!!!!!!!!!!
For example, when we got DS's diagnosis and knew his school was not a safe place for him, we wanted to enroll him in the school he is currently in, but HIS school was responsible for enrolling him in the new school if they couldn't offer him what he needed. They didn't want to let him go, so instead of enrolling him in the special school, they contacted another school under the same management as they were and asked if they could take him. We had to meet with that school and listen to their whole spiel about what they could offer, bla bla bla, and if we didn't agree to send him there, the school where he was was no longer obligated to help him, because they had already "found him a place". That's what the schools do...they send kids to other schools within the same organization (there's not just one district for an area. Educational organizations open several schools in an area and there might be 5 different organizations in an area, with 5 schools each) to keep it in the family so to speak. So kids get passed around like a Thanksgiving Turkey, trying to find the right "fit" and then by the time they run out of schools in that organization to try, it's too late. DS's old school refused to let him go, so we ended up having to apply to get into the special school ourselves without the help of the people who should have been arranging it.
The teachers in his old school were not trained separately to help kids with Autism, Dyslexia, etc....they are just regular teachers with standard teacher credentials. Nothing wrong with that, until you tell them they also have to meet the needs of those kids, without having the training and resources to do so. They aren't trained for it, and they are given no extra funding to get what they need. So a lot of special needs kids end up falling through the cracks, because they are put into an environment that doesn't meet their needs and can't get to a school that will. We were really lucky...the one person at the school where they wanted to send DS said to us off the record when we had finished the official meeting, that they totally understood our position and told us that we didn't HAVE to go with what his school wanted...that it wasn't common, but we had the right to try to enroll him in the special school ourselves. No one else would tell us that, and they make it sound like you don't have that option. Because our situation was so urgent, this person just wanted to help our son, and that mattered more to them than the money, but they had to tell us that off-record, because the official line was "Sure, we can offer this and this and this and we are the right place for your son!" So they waited until everyone else was gone and then said "You didn't hear it from me, BUT you can totally enroll him yourselves without going through the school." So that's what we did.
So I was just curious how they can include everyone and still meet all the needs with specialized teachers, resources, etc. That's why they used to have the special schools....so they only had to outfit ONE school with a sound system and teachers who sign especially for deaf children, and ONE school with dim lights and sound reduction and teachers trained to help the Autistic, instead of having to pay for all those resources in every school where there was a child who needed them. Nothing against the school you're talking about because I know nothing about it...I am just curious because our experience with the "inclusive" mentality was not a good one. They accepted anyone, but didn't provide the necessary environment for them to get the education they deserved. I would think it would be extremely hard to do so when you're working with many different kinds of disabilities. How DO you meet the needs of EVERY student when each one has such different needs?
These trips always go by so quickly.
