Why are some school districts so anxious to get rid of special needs students by sending them to a special?

Question

school, while others try to mainstream students as much as possible?

Answer 1

The decision to send a child to a special school is influenced by several factors. The first would be the needs of the student..many students require teachers and programs designed to address thier specific needs. The next factor is what programs the school district has of thier own to offer. Many districts simply do not have programs in place to deal with kids with issues such as autism with behavioral issues, multiple physical and developmental disabilities in a single student or children with severe learning disabilities. Since they public schools are legally bound to provide a free and appropriate education to all children, they often have little choice by to send students to "special schools". Believe me when I say this is not a choice the make easily as they will have to pay the child's tuition from the special ed budget and educating a child in a special program almost always costs more than education in one of the public school programs.

Integration has become one way to handle some of these issues. Many kids do well integrated into a regular classroom, as long as the teacher is trained to handle it and the school has the resources to supply the assitance this child may require (adaptive technology, a dedicated aide, working with speech or learning specialists). In some schools however, integration has become the only way, the only option and has been impleneted across the board in an attempt to cut the special ed budget and get the money into the traditional classes. Mainstreaming has long been a preferred choice of many special ed families and is often a long term goal in any private educational placement. It is not, however, the perfect answer or the best solution for every student. Districts that use mainstreaming to the point of having few other options available will soon find themselves in a tight spot. It takes just as much money to successfully mainstream a child into a regular class, and too often now even the regular classes are facing problems with over crowding, increased educational goals to meet testing requirements and a high burn out rate among teachers.

There is no perfect balance. No school system has the funds to give every single child the exact, perfect educational placement. But using just one or just another is not working. The best most systems can do is the find the best options for the majority of the students...a tough path to walk when your child is slipping through the cracks.

Answer 2

I work at a (U.S) public school and we do not try to "get rid" of special needs kids and it costs us to send them to special schools, so that's not the reason. There are some small districts near my city which do not have the specially trained personal or resources which a student may need and so my district will accept them. (maybe their parents feel they are being shipped out?) I have also suggested sending students to the state school for the Deaf and Blind when the level of student need is beyond what we can provide in the mainstream. I have had kids who need to have everyone using Braile and others who needed to be in a total signing environment to learn sign language so being there was a happier place than public school. It just depends on the kid and the parents.Sometimes a student needs a lower ratio staff to student. This year I have a student who needs to begin more functional skills as he is in 8th grade and still not identifying letters of his name. We have worked one-on-one with him for three years and it just isn't clicking.How do you mainstream him? He needs to learn job skills since everything takes so long to learn- so we will probably suggest a class for kids like him at a nother school. Sometimes parents want a more restrictive environment!
I have been 28 years in Sp Ed and even the worst teachers I have worked with never said they wanted to "get rid" of a student...but sometimes we feel like we have done all we can and would like the parents to try another situation because we truly feel maybe someone else will have the knack of helping that particular student. Sometimes I feel like I have failed a kid if I have had them too long and their progress is slow. On the other hand, I have had kids who some other teacher felt wasn't learning and with the change of environment, they started learning!
If you are the parents here, and feel you child is being sent to a special school against your will and his needs get in touch
with your agencies that advocate for you and fight it!

Answer 3

Special Education students are on different levels. You have 3 levels of developement which the school system goes by. You have LD, EMD, TMX, students from LD and EMD classes can be mainstreamed out into other classes. Their more functional and can learn. LD is more a behavior as EMD is a slight learning problem. These students are sent to other places to help them learn the skills they need at their own pace so they will some day get a job in society and function well with out little assist.

Answer 4

School districts across the country are not special education friendly. Educator's do not care about ensuring that all children learn, they just want the ones who are easy to deal with to learn.

Answer 5

Federal law says that you must place special education students in the Least Restrictive Environment. Special ed. students should be included in the regular ed. currciulum as much as possible. Seperate schools are pretty much illegal. Im a special ed. teacher and in my county, we have a special ed school, the only one left in the state. The state has wanted to close it for some time, but the county has somehow gotten around it. And as for the guy that said that special ed. kids are more expensive and they are trying to cut their budget...uhhh, no, actually counties get money for special ed. kids... the more special ed. kids, the more money. However, with the NCLB stuff and the pressure to perform well on tests, counties with high numbers of special ed kids (usually poor counties) are getting hit hard with low test scores. They are now saying if you have less than 50 special kids in ur school, you do not have to count their test scores. So now the pressure is to try to cut back on ur special ed. numbers to save your test scores and make your annual yearly progress...its a vicious cycle...

Answer 6

special needs students are more expensive per student than average kid. They are trying to cut the school budget.

Answer 7

specific desires scholars might desire to be interior the final coaching putting each and every time attainable. I even have on no account heard of the mainstreaming/inclusion form you have written approximately the place the GenEd instructor can no longer talk to the specific Ed. scholars. i do no longer understand what state you're in...yet you may desire to call the dept of coaching on your state and seek for their suggestion.