Aspies For Freedom

Hmm, I think its more of a problem with children being forced to be included to save money.

My version:

Man gets to heaven, the gates are closed and he asks how he can get in. An angel comes and says 'we are closed to new people, cutbacks, you will do just fine in hell, we know they aren't like you, but you will manage I'm sure, and you don't want to be different from all your friends do you'?

The man gets shoved down to hell, hes confused and unhappy, can't understand the other people's behaviour and is desperately sad, but has no way of leaving, ever!

I think things might be different between the US and England. It's more expensive to put a kid in general ed here. My daughter has to have her own aide(she wanders). The teacher and aide have to get additional training. An autism support team employed by the district has to come by at least once a week and check on things. Sticking a kid in a self-contained classroom is much cheaper. There all in one place- out of sight, out of mind. A homogenous classroom is much easier and cheaper to teach but does not represent the real world.

I think special ed only gets really expensive when the parents start requesting all kinds of exotic therapies or specialized boarding schools be paid for by the district.

Right now my daughter is happy in general ed even if she sometimes is a handful for staff. I plan on re-evaluating placement with her input when she reaches junior high.

Over here they closed a lot of the special schools so they could push special needs students into normal classes and save money. They actually sold the land that my son's old school was on to a supermarket.

They promised they would use the money to build a great new school with a swimming pool, they did nothing, and the kids got pushed into normal schools and classes that had little experience and didn't know how to cope.

Exclusions of special needs children shot up, and my son was one of them (after suffering very badly at the school, including being locked alone in a classroom on numerous occassions).
:cry:

Some parents make ridiculous demands.  One parent was demanding that the school install an elevator at a cost of $60,000 so his daughter could take her wheelchair to the second floor.  Her teacher had already moved the classroom to the lower floor but the library was on the second floor.  

Strange how all the buildings have to have ramps installed, automatic door openers, wheelchair accessible washrooms, lower switches and sinks etc for people in wheelchairs but as for someone to explain something better to me that does not even cost anything, except for someone's time and you can not get it.  People with LD's and autism are usually getting ripped off.

In that sense its the visibility of the difference that people will accomodate.

Also there was a lot of campaigning for wheelchairs ramps, etc in the past. It didnt happen overnight.

It seems like people wont make any extra effort for other people unless there is a law that says they have it.

This is not a ridiculous demand (any more than the cheaper needs of people with different disabilities) and it is not for just that one student.  Is she the only wheelchair user that will attend that school ever?  What if they got a new librarian who uses a wheelchair?  Or would they deny her/him employment over this issue?
PUBLIC buildings should be accessible.
This is the 21st century.
Get real.

M -
I think I was too harsh in that last post.  I do mean what I said, so I am not erasing or editing it.  But I don't mean to attack you personally, just I want to strongly disagree with the idea that an elevator is a "ridiculous demand".

I would imagine that is true.

I'd like to know where these people get the idea that you can lock anyone in a room alone, let alone someone with special needs?

As far as I know that would be against the law, but then the law doesn't apply in public schools, right?

I'm still afraid of being trapped, because I was kept after school once in 3rd grade and they wouldn't let me go home. So I was crying and they were laughing, they thought it was funny to torture a child? I don't understand what kind of people think that is funny? Now I feel if I was trapped anywhere I'd bang on the doors and yell until I passed out, and then just get up and do it again. There's no need to inflict a scenario from a horror film on a student.

It would serve them right if a child shut in a classroom peed on the carpet.
I thought kids had to be properly supervised anyway.

There has been a concerted push in Australia to shut down "special schools" and integrate special needs children into regular classes. Too bad there hasn't been a commensurate increase in funding for teacher aides or training for dealing with special needs children.

That is terrible.

Did you know why you were kept after?