Clustering of special Ed kids in gen Ed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:They don’t have enough aides

+1

They use the well behaved kids to try to outweigh the not so much. The well behaved kids become the aides.

In my training on gifted students, it is an absolute no-no to use them as TA’s, yet I see it happen at my school more often than not. That’s how bad the teacher shortage is.

+1 my kid is in APS where the SPED cluster and the gifted cluster are often the same class

[Anonymous]

A significant number of these posts are extremely ableist. I would encourage the posters to reevaluate wrongly held prejudices.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My daughter had a horrible third grade experience because there were a few kids who were very badly behaved with special needs. The teacher was experienced but she could not handle it and she would yell at all the kids or just disappear into the copy room. She quit the next year. It was very unfair that my well-behaved and academic daughter was sacrificed as were the many other kids in the class who behaved and didn’t have issues. The school clearly put all the easy kids with the challenging kids in that class.

Your daughter is not that “academic” if she can’t handle a few special needs kids in her classroom. Fact.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

I think the point PP is trying to make is this is your daughter's issue and that she can't be that academic if she's bothered by something that's really normal and that is part of real life.

Sorry, no. These kinds of ongoing disruptive behaviors keeping other students from being able to access their own education are not "normal" and "part of real life," no matter how many words you use to try to normalize them. No.

+1

[Anonymous]

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At our ES, one SN child was asking that my son be in his class. A compliment I know, but that meant my son was with her son and the other SN students year after year. It wasn't random. The SN's parents were allowed "a say". I was not and didn't know this was happening until years later.


Parents like you are horrible for sns parents to deal with. Assuming that the class with a sns kid is somehow undesirable is vile.

I'm in favor of inclusion but should it affect my son's placement EVERY year? The other Mother determines his placement every year? Without me knowing about it

Exactly. I have a type-A rule follower and he was routinely sat next to the most disruptive kids to be a “peer model” until I asked for it to stop. Non-identified kids have needs too

I have one of these kids too and I only heard a slight grumble once early on about Larlo being difficult to work with. I quickly put a stop to that saying that it's part of school and learning for DC to work with all kinds of kids including those who don't do as well in cooperation or who may struggle with certain tasks. Sometimes kids with some types of SN think more creatively or out of the box than others and if have a partner who can pull those ideas out of that child you may one day have a cure for cancer or AIDS or global warming.

I would never ask a teacher to "stop" this grouping because it's just part of normal school and teacher's job trying to create groups that will be productive.

As a teacher, I would say you are paying a huge disservice to the kid who is supposed to serve as a peer model. I try different kinds of groupings, myself, but I like to put the motivated ones who challenge each other, together. I also place all the ones who don’t do any work together.

Glad to hear I’m not the only one who does that. 😊

Oh, gosh. That is a terrible approach. You've pretty much given up and guaranteed failure for those kids.

How? I’m differentiating for each table group versus differentiating 3 ways at the same table group (then doing it 5 more times). It’s more efficient. Plus when I mix the skills at the table, the low kids just copy of the high learners.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:At our school they seem to put all the special Ed kids in one Gen Ed class. It’s not fair to the other regular kids who get placed in with that group. The class is usually poorly behaved and the teacher is overwhelmed. This is called clustering and I thought this practice was outdated and frowned upon. Why are elementary schools clustering special Ed kids now in one class instead of spreading them out among 3 different Gen Ed classes? Can parents request for their child not to be put in the special Ed class?

This is my first year working in a school (fcps elementary school). If it makes you feel better, behaviors are an effing nightmare across the board, not just the “iep” kids.

+1 … very true, but this thread is about sped clustering. I believe most parents here (including myself) have no problem whatsoever with sped students and their integration, but with the way clustering is done at some and maybe many FCPS schools. When adequate support is provided, everyone benefits. But this starts with FCPS funding, creativity and transparency of principals and quality of teachers (although honestly teachers seem to be the least of the issues in the entire mess). Parents of non-sped students are rightfully upset, because the way things are set up, if placed in sped classroom, their kids don’t get the same quality of learning environment and instruction. This is not the fault of sped students, but FCPS issue.

Until they hire significantly more SPED teachers (beyond what is already posted online), clustering will continue to happen.

We are losing very experienced Sped teachers at my LCPS school. Clustering will continue.

This will be the norm until they resolve staffing issues - so it’ll continue for a long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A significant number of these posts are extremely ableist. I would encourage the posters to reevaluate wrongly held prejudices.

Ableist is a meaningless word that is just used to attack other people.

[Anonymous]

It is so hard to schedule special ed services if the kids are scattered across rooms. It’s just a fact. I completely agree that some of those kids need different placements, but that is so hard to do. It should be the most able teacher with the least able kids, in terms of academics and behavior. It’s so hard to provide services. Please volunteer in your child’s school if you can. An extra pair of hands would be a godsend.

[Anonymous]

My child's school tried to mainstream a kid with special needs in my child's class. For eight months the kid was a constant disruption -- even with his aide present. He threw desks and musical instruments, shouted in classmates' faces, shoved and kicked classmates with no warning, and caused several lessons to be missed. Parents complained. The administration did nothing.

The only thing this push for inclusion did was cause everyone in the class to lose out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

At our ES, one SN child was asking that my son be in his class. A compliment I know, but that meant my son was with her son and the other SN students year after year. It wasn't random. The SN's parents were allowed "a say". I was not and didn't know this was happening until years later.


Parents like you are horrible for sns parents to deal with. Assuming that the class with a sns kid is somehow undesirable is vile.

I'm in favor of inclusion but should it affect my son's placement EVERY year? The other Mother determines his placement every year? Without me knowing about it

Exactly. I have a type-A rule follower and he was routinely sat next to the most disruptive kids to be a “peer model” until I asked for it to stop. Non-identified kids have needs too

I have one of these kids too and I only heard a slight grumble once early on about Larlo being difficult to work with. I quickly put a stop to that saying that it's part of school and learning for DC to work with all kinds of kids including those who don't do as well in cooperation or who may struggle with certain tasks. Sometimes kids with some types of SN think more creatively or out of the box than others and if have a partner who can pull those ideas out of that child you may one day have a cure for cancer or AIDS or global warming.

I would never ask a teacher to "stop" this grouping because it's just part of normal school and teacher's job trying to create groups that will be productive.

As a teacher, I would say you are paying a huge disservice to the kid who is supposed to serve as a peer model. I try different kinds of groupings, myself, but I like to put the motivated ones who challenge each other, together. I also place all the ones who don’t do any work together.

Glad to hear I’m not the only one who does that. 😊

Oh, gosh. That is a terrible approach. You've pretty much given up and guaranteed failure for those kids.

Why? If a motivated kid is paired with an unmotivated kid, the motivated kid is the one who loses out. It's not the motivated kid's job to change his/her peer. It's the job of the unmotivated kid's parents and the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is so hard to schedule special ed services if the kids are scattered across rooms. It’s just a fact. I completely agree that some of those kids need different placements, but that is so hard to do. It should be the most able teacher with the least able kids, in terms of academics and behavior. It’s so hard to provide services. Please volunteer in your child’s school if you can. An extra pair of hands would be a godsend.

That’s so teacher-dependent. Before I moved my kids to private, it was readily apparent that the teachers did not welcome parental involvement. The concern stemmed from privacy issues.

[Anonymous]

I'm confused by one kind of trivial thing. Where I live principals are never involved in IEP meetings ever. They usually don't know the laws and cause problems. So many of you mention them being part of the meetings that it is confusing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There should be sped schools, the way they have AAP centers.

Least Restrictive Environment be like: do I mean nothing to you?

But what about the rights of the other students to learn?

They are still learning… it may not be at the pace you want but that isn’t specified by law. Admin and teachers have to follow the law before the needs of the the other kids. Sorry, it is what it is. You should lobby for more flexibility for students to be transferred to other programs/schools; because now, it is virtually impossible to do that without SPED parents suing the district.

+1 Hey, more opportunity to tell people about the law!!

Schools only must provide a “serviceable Chevrolet,” not a Cadillac, to afford a student a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The analogy is often associated with the seminal U.S. Supreme Court case known as Rowley, which said that public education requires only a “basic floor of opportunity,” not that schools “maximize” a child’s educational potential. The “Chevy vs. Cadillac” analogy was coined and used by lower courts after Rowley, and suggests that schools need only provide a bare minimum of services to afford a student FAPE.

I know about the law, but I do think that schools should maximize a child's educational potential. If that isn't the goal, then what is the goal? The dumbing down of society to the lowest common denominator? I truly want SPED kids to succeed, but I think for society we also need the gifted and advanced kids to suceed as well. One shouldn't be at the expense of the other. Currently the parents have to put in the extra work to get their normal kids to succeed.

My SPED kid has been highly successful in a gifted program during their entire schooling. Please stop equating special needs with not being very smart.

He/she is a unicorn then.

Not really. I teach at an AAP Center and have had about 15-18 SPED kids in the past 5 years. They were all successful, got 4s and almost all went into Algebra in 7th.

I have two and they are brilliant. The youngest tenured math professor at Stanford has autism and was in my applied math program at Brown. He's a genius.

I don't think people are talking about all special needs. In my kids' classrooms, it's the ODD + ADHD kids who really struggle and are often very violent. One kid in particular, even when he's not being violent, will say very nasty and mean things to my DD (like "I hope you die").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My son has an IEP, and there definitely was clustering in his Gen-Ed class. My estimate is 1/3 of his class. I still remember how shocked one parent was when he found out his kid was in a class with several kids with IEPs. My son may have inattentive ADHD, but he is also a top student, and many parents don’t know that my son has special needs. There is a whole range in his class of the IEPs, and honestly, I am trying to find a way to get my son out of Special Ed because some of the kids have severe behavioral issues and should not be in a Gen Ed classroom. It affects the entire class.

Getting out is SPED is easy. Call a meeting and end the IEP. They may disagree with you and he will lose support, but that’s how you get out of SPED.

We had to stop the IEP but we were forced to finish out the year in the room. Kids should not have to go without help to not be physically assaulted or be in a class with lesser academics because they have an IEP.

Lesser academics. What an ass you are. My kid is one of those kids but he doesn't have behavior problems. Lots of kids with ieps are like my kid but it doesn't matter all kids deserve education and if you don't like it go pay for private school. I had one mom whose daughter was a friend of my kid. The knew my kid has disabilities I don't hide it. I don't know why but mom was a tin plated b@tch and constantly made insutling remarks about other kids with disabilities to me. She put down my kid regularly even though our kids were friends. I loved it when their second grade teacher pointed out how my kid was so helpful to her kid in learning math. Her kid struggled terribly with math. My kid was very good at explaining it to other kids and she used my kid to help other kids particularly this girl. You are so much like her pp.

Sadly, some classes with sped clustering do have much worse academics. My non-sped kid who was randomly assigned to a mostly sped classroom was “successfully” brought to grade-level after consistently being above-grade level prior to joining this classroom. Teacher was overwhelmed and unable to provide meaningful differentiation and instruction for above-grade students. For all we know, this could have happened to an advanced sped student as well, as many sped kids are twice exceptional. Clustering all sped students together is a bad idea. All kids deserve good education and that includes above grade students (sped or not).

I agree with your last statement entirely. I think when they cluster the sped students in a class together it helps build resentment against sped students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

At our ES, one SN child was asking that my son be in his class. A compliment I know, but that meant my son was with her son and the other SN students year after year. It wasn't random. The SN's parents were allowed "a say". I was not and didn't know this was happening until years later.


Parents like you are horrible for sns parents to deal with. Assuming that the class with a sns kid is somehow undesirable is vile.

I'm in favor of inclusion but should it affect my son's placement EVERY year? The other Mother determines his placement every year? Without me knowing about it

Exactly. I have a type-A rule follower and he was routinely sat next to the most disruptive kids to be a “peer model” until I asked for it to stop. Non-identified kids have needs too

I have one of these kids too and I only heard a slight grumble once early on about Larlo being difficult to work with. I quickly put a stop to that saying that it's part of school and learning for DC to work with all kinds of kids including those who don't do as well in cooperation or who may struggle with certain tasks. Sometimes kids with some types of SN think more creatively or out of the box than others and if have a partner who can pull those ideas out of that child you may one day have a cure for cancer or AIDS or global warming.

I would never ask a teacher to "stop" this grouping because it's just part of normal school and teacher's job trying to create groups that will be productive.

As a teacher, I would say you are paying a huge disservice to the kid who is supposed to serve as a peer model. I try different kinds of groupings, myself, but I like to put the motivated ones who challenge each other, together. I also place all the ones who don’t do any work together.

Bravo!!! I especially hate that this burden of "helping others" falls mostly onto little girls and they're told to "deal with it!" I wouldn't stand for it at work and it's also unfair in school. Helping each other is great, but making someone do 90% of the work on a team project is wrong. I like the idea of putting together those who do no work. Then they don't have a kid to hide behind and make them do the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids with IEPs with near perfect behavior and some of the kindest kids you will ever meet. They have dyslexia. They were grouped together this year in a class with other kids with dyslexia/reading difficulties amongst stronger academic kids. I’m friends with their teacher and she said she had the best class with zero behavioral problems. Not all kids with IEPs have behavioral problems.

I have begun to resent some of the parents of the kids with dyslexia. They came in and took over our sns parent group and made it clear they were against inclusion and regularly made insulting comments insinuating their kids were less disabled. They have been some of the most entitled parents I've had to deal with since beginning this journey.