This is a tricky topic. This is a topic that educators and parents have strong feelings about, and this is not a subject I take lightly. I also must preface this post with the statement that while I am employed by Jackson Public Schools, the thoughts, opinions and ideas reflected in this blog do not represent JPS, but are merely just the thoughts, opinions and ideas of a lowly educator trying to do good work with good people for good people.
As an educator I have worked with very diverse groups of students from my days as a general education classroom teacher, to a full inclusion preschool coordinator, principal, and even a director of special services in a district of 5000 students. I am also a parent of five very diverse children, all of whom have different academic needs, including one who qualified for services under IDEA. It is in this regard that I can safely say I understand this topic from many vantage points.
As an educator and as a parent, I value diversity, including the diversity that comes with students with a disability. From these students, teachers and students alike learn patience, empathy, and kindness. As a teacher I learned more about humanity working with my students with a disability than from many other experiences. I am not the only person who feels this way, and in the last decades we have seen the delivery of services for students with special needs change from a self contained setting to full inclusion settings. We have also seen an increase in the diagnosis of ADD, ADHD, Autism, and many other disabilities that impact a student’s functioning in a general education setting. As educators, we have learned about accommodations and supports to keep students with disabilities in the general education settings as much as possible. We have learned how to collaborate with special education teachers to co-teach classes , and to work with teacher assistants in the classroom to provide additional supports to students with disabilities. These are all good things that benefit all students, general education and special education alike. Unfortunately we have also had to learn nonviolent crisis intervention practices, and emergency seclusion and restraint practices, and sadly this also impacts our general education and special education kiddos.
As educators (and parents) we know that our children that have disabilities are entitled to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in their Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), and that we provide accommodation to support their learning that allow them to spend as much time as possible in the general education setting. We also know that if we don’t provide them with accommodations and modifications that we could be in violation of their civil rights.
In my mind though this is a fine line, because our non disabled students also have the right to FAPE. They also have a right to an environment that is conducive to their learning. So the question becomes: where do the civil rights of a general education student end and the disabled student begin? Or is it vice versa? Let me be clear when I say, I will always do everything in my power to insure that disabled and non disabled students have everything they need to thrive, however, there are limitations to the resources I can provide (the level to which I can accommodate and modify) that may be able to be provided in other settings. Some schools have multiple teacher assistants, specialized programming including sensory rooms, reset/refocus rooms, and even full time staff with specialized training that I do not have available in my setting.
This is an important distinction to make: the availability of resources needed to support students with disabilities is a critical factor in the determination of the least restrictive environment for a student. When a students success level, both academically and socially/emotionally is high, it is an indication that the accommodations and modifications in place are meeting the needs of the student, and we have altered the general education setting enough to be their Least Restrictive Environment. Conversely, when the success level of a student with a disability is low, either academically or on a social emotional basis (or both), we need to determine if they are in their LRE.
This is where the tricky comes in: When a student with a disability is unsuccessful socially/emotionally and therefore behaviorally, despite accommodation and modification, are they in their LRE? When their behaviors are impacting the learning of not only themselves, but also of non-disabled peers is this an example of a student in their LRE? What rights does a non-disabled student have to a learning environment free from distraction of the non compliant child running the room and refusing to follow the directions of the TA because this student is in need of a sensory break? How long should a general education teacher struggle to control the behaviors of one student, focus their energies on one student, when there are 24 others who are waiting?
Here is where this gets trickier: We are seeing an increase in dysregulated behavior that may or may not be disability related, but that also impacts learning. With our youngest students, even in kindergarten and first grade, we are seeing a level of dysregulation that could be trauma, or could be an emotional impairment, or could be a student who has not learned limit setting and boundaries. Now, we as educators, must collect data, provide behavioral intervention supports, collaborate with counselors and social workers, develop behavior plans, monitor behavior plans, decrease the interval for incentives…while our typical general education student waits for instruction, waits for the kid running around the room to stop so the teacher can teach. We are asking our general education teachers to provide all these tier two services for students while also providing accommodations and modifications for their students who receive services under IDEA, and still make sure that our general education students are not left behind…and we are asking them to do these tasks with a three unit mainstreaming class from their undergraduate degree.
So, the question remains: when a student is not in their least restrictive environment, who is left behind?
