Integration and DC Schools -- A high priority? Yay or nay?

[Anonymous]

It’s all a shell game. Accommodations for all or none.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Integration is very important to me and I am engaged in it, but it is generally overtaken by other priorities on this board.

I'd say mostly, this board wants differentiation and to not have children of board participants in the same schools as students with behavior problems. Those goals do not go well with generalized integration.

There are also more general segregation/race and class relations issues, with a major one being a distribution of income and educational attainment that is at the edges with nobody in the middle (we have a bunch of high income advanced degree holders and HS-or-worse educated low income parents, nothing in between in DC).

If you actually think this, it's a reflection of your own limited social circle. It's wrong. DC has plenty of families that are middle income. Lots of people just have college degrees and no advanced degree, plus plenty of fields offer steady income but not high income. We can afford to own homes (condos or houses in part so the city outside the most gentrified neighborhoods, and also if you bought before rates went up) and care about education, but also money is tight because this is an expensive city and it gets more expensive all the time. On the other hand, living in the city often gives us the ability to live without a car or with just one car, living in small homes keep us from accumulating so much stuff, and there are real cost savings to being close in to work and lots of free entertainment. So a lot of us are loathe to move out of the city where we might get cheaper housing and food but more expensive and longer commutes and a host of other expenses just by virtue of living far away from things.

I regularly feel completely invisible in discussions about education in the city because so many people think as you do. That there are only two kinds of people in the city: (1) rich, mostly white people with advanced degrees, and (2) poor black and hispanic people with a HS education or less. I'm sure your in group #1 and it's actually an embarrassment to your education that you are so ignorant of the many many families of every race in this city that are dual income, have college degrees, are not rich, can still pay our bills, and obviously send our kids to public schools because where the hell else are we going to send them?

What's funny is that we send our kids to school with rich people and poor people, and people just lack the observational skills or common sense to understand that we are middle class. Some of the rich people at our school just assume we are also rich, because we wear professional clothes and have read books, and they seem confused when we don't have opinions on whether Colorado or Vermont is better for New Year's skiing. Other rich people at our school just group us in with the poor people. The poor people all think we are rich, which is fair, because compared to them we are. Literally no one cares if our family's needs are being met by the school system.

Eh--while there are definite divides between income/wealth amongst the college educated and above class--fundamentally everyone in this group is well-educated and want their kids to be well-educated. How are they not aligned on educational priorities? They both want better public schools. Isn't that the common ground. What does it matter that some can afford luxury hobbies/travel and some can't.

IME, rich people often have different educational priorities than me, a well-educated middle class person. They don't have the same worries about their kids being left behind or failing to acquire necessary skills for HS, college, or the job market, because they have enough money not to have to worry about it. There are lots of culture clashes between the rich parents at our school and those who are middle class, even when the middle class parents are actually better educated. If anything, college-educated middle class people have the most anxiety about education because they (we) have the least stable class status and have the most to lose in the AI revolution and the K-shaped economy.

Can you provide some examples? We are talking about public schools here, the ultra rich are all in privates.

Examples:

- Getting hung up on a public school inconvenience that middle class parents just accept and move on from, and wanting to dedicate resources to it. For instance, throwing a fit over DCPS absence policies when they conflict with international travel, and hijacking PTA meetings to discuss it.
- Expecting the school to provide tutoring to help on-grade-level kids become above grade level, and not understanding why that's different from tutoring kids who are lagging behind grade level.
- Assuming families can always spend extra money to provide the kids with something. For instance advocating for programming that can't be subsidized by PTA funds and expecting all families to kick in $50 or $100 to supplement it. This is often accompanied by a promise to pay the fee for at risk or low-income kids, without understanding that middle class families don't fall in that bucket and that more families might struggle with a fee like that then they realize.
- Pushing for programming based on status markers or upper class ideals that they don't understand aren't important to middle class kids or get in the way of practicalities, like pushing for French or Mandarin over Spanish.

These are good examples. Add to it "required" PTO donations of hundreds of dollars and telling parents that it's cheaper than sending your kids to private school. And focusing effort on improving the playground or getting a new gym when existing facilities are adequate.


I disagree with the above grade level point though. Kids should be challenged and offering those opportunities to at risk and middle class kids is a better investment than offering it to upper middle class kids. But supporting below grade level students is so a priority (that's not a place you have to choose)

Yes all kids should be challenged but it is very common for the UMC parents to suck up all the air in the room demanding special attention to their above average kid (sometimes in the form of elaborate 504s or IEPs) as opposed to realistically understanding what is good for the majority. Sometimes the UMC parents have actually caused the issues by advocating against teaching methods that don’t conform to Dr Becky or whatever (like being against homework or drilling math facts).

The abuse of the IEP/504 system to secure advantages for kids who do not need them drives me nuts. It also impacts every level of the school. It changes how teachers and administrators interact with all parents, including those of us who are not trying to exploit the system. Having even a handful of parents in a school who are constantly angling for any advantage for their kids makes all parents suspect.

Yes. I’m not sure it’s knowing abuse but it’s definitely parents who believe in extracting every possible benefit. My kid actually has an IEP but I try to avoid the IEP team as much as possible lol. With some very small exceptions the bulk of support has come from people not on the IEP team. I find that if I ask for things my kid obviously needs it’s very easy. Everything else slides.

This strikes me as so odd. It’s such a horrible process to get an IEP, and every psychologist we saw immediately saw my kids as having xyz disability. I would not wish this on anyone. Yet I am sure the average uninformed person doesn’t understand why it is in place and thinks it’s something like the abuse described above. But the reality is that you’re not a psychologist and this type of thinking just make an it so much harder to get the services and accommodations some students need. My students 5th teacher made our life miserable and our report explained in detail why we needed what we needed.

This is not about kids who need IEPs, but schools and parents offering 504s to typical kids in order to max out test scores. Different thing.

Is it really that surprising? If you say on DCUM "sometimes my kid is bored in class," you will get 10 responses about how the kid needs to be immediately seen by a specialist because they surely have ADHD and dozen other things they heard about Tik Tok.

“ADHD inattentive with low processing speed but doing Algebra in 7th but needs extra test time.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows there's a ton of faking. If you're not one of the fakers, this doesn't apply to you and you can move along.

Wrong. People like you assume someone’s faking. That affects those who legitimately and legally have a right to accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows there's a ton of faking. If you're not one of the fakers, this doesn't apply to you and you can move along.

Wrong. People like you assume someone’s faking. That affects those who legitimately and legally have a right to accommodations.

Wrong. My awareness of what is clearly happening has zero bearing on those who legitimately and legally have a right to accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to get in the weeds with this let me suggest the special needs forum. But trust me this attitude that most people are just gaming the system just hurts disabled kids.

The obvious and admitted gaming (i.e., on the scale of the Stanford article) is what hurts disabled kids. Parents shouldn’t be shamed for getting what their children need and are entitled to under law, but the abusers of the system — and the incentive structure that encourages its —are real problem.

Colleges know this is happening and wouldn't let in such high percentages unless they too assume it is mostly BS. When two groups aren't competitive in sports you don't let in the weaker performing group with modified rules--you create a new category to let them compete--that is why we have age groups, weight classes, women's sports and wheelchair basketball. If these kids actually could not compete and get into college without the accommodation that means they wouldn't be successful long term and would be a drag on the school reputation. The college must have hope they will outgrow the accommodation and eventually mature into adults that can thrive in the working world without it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to get in the weeds with this let me suggest the special needs forum. But trust me this attitude that most people are just gaming the system just hurts disabled kids.

The obvious and admitted gaming (i.e., on the scale of the Stanford article) is what hurts disabled kids. Parents shouldn’t be shamed for getting what their children need and are entitled to under law, but the abusers of the system — and the incentive structure that encourages its —are real problem.

Colleges know this is happening and wouldn't let in such high percentages unless they too assume it is mostly BS. When two groups aren't competitive in sports you don't let in the weaker performing group with modified rules--you create a new category to let them compete--that is why we have age groups, weight classes, women's sports and wheelchair basketball. If these kids actually could not compete and get into college without the accommodation that means they wouldn't be successful long term and would be a drag on the school reputation. The college must have hope they will outgrow the accommodation and eventually mature into adults that can thrive in the working world without it.

Not really teaching resilience to children when we tell them they need special accommodations in order to do something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to get in the weeds with this let me suggest the special needs forum. But trust me this attitude that most people are just gaming the system just hurts disabled kids.

The obvious and admitted gaming (i.e., on the scale of the Stanford article) is what hurts disabled kids. Parents shouldn’t be shamed for getting what their children need and are entitled to under law, but the abusers of the system — and the incentive structure that encourages its —are real problem.

Colleges know this is happening and wouldn't let in such high percentages unless they too assume it is mostly BS. When two groups aren't competitive in sports you don't let in the weaker performing group with modified rules--you create a new category to let them compete--that is why we have age groups, weight classes, women's sports and wheelchair basketball. If these kids actually could not compete and get into college without the accommodation that means they wouldn't be successful long term and would be a drag on the school reputation. The college must have hope they will outgrow the accommodation and eventually mature into adults that can thrive in the working world without it.

Colleges actually do not know if the child has an IEP or 504 or got extra time on the SAT

[Anonymous]

The first school the end this charade will be lauded. Let someone sue so that criteria for obtaining accommodations can be appropriately narrowed and clarified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Integration is very important to me and I am engaged in it, but it is generally overtaken by other priorities on this board.

I'd say mostly, this board wants differentiation and to not have children of board participants in the same schools as students with behavior problems. Those goals do not go well with generalized integration.

There are also more general segregation/race and class relations issues, with a major one being a distribution of income and educational attainment that is at the edges with nobody in the middle (we have a bunch of high income advanced degree holders and HS-or-worse educated low income parents, nothing in between in DC).

If you actually think this, it's a reflection of your own limited social circle. It's wrong. DC has plenty of families that are middle income. Lots of people just have college degrees and no advanced degree, plus plenty of fields offer steady income but not high income. We can afford to own homes (condos or houses in part so the city outside the most gentrified neighborhoods, and also if you bought before rates went up) and care about education, but also money is tight because this is an expensive city and it gets more expensive all the time. On the other hand, living in the city often gives us the ability to live without a car or with just one car, living in small homes keep us from accumulating so much stuff, and there are real cost savings to being close in to work and lots of free entertainment. So a lot of us are loathe to move out of the city where we might get cheaper housing and food but more expensive and longer commutes and a host of other expenses just by virtue of living far away from things.

I regularly feel completely invisible in discussions about education in the city because so many people think as you do. That there are only two kinds of people in the city: (1) rich, mostly white people with advanced degrees, and (2) poor black and hispanic people with a HS education or less. I'm sure your in group #1 and it's actually an embarrassment to your education that you are so ignorant of the many many families of every race in this city that are dual income, have college degrees, are not rich, can still pay our bills, and obviously send our kids to public schools because where the hell else are we going to send them?

What's funny is that we send our kids to school with rich people and poor people, and people just lack the observational skills or common sense to understand that we are middle class. Some of the rich people at our school just assume we are also rich, because we wear professional clothes and have read books, and they seem confused when we don't have opinions on whether Colorado or Vermont is better for New Year's skiing. Other rich people at our school just group us in with the poor people. The poor people all think we are rich, which is fair, because compared to them we are. Literally no one cares if our family's needs are being met by the school system.

Eh--while there are definite divides between income/wealth amongst the college educated and above class--fundamentally everyone in this group is well-educated and want their kids to be well-educated. How are they not aligned on educational priorities? They both want better public schools. Isn't that the common ground. What does it matter that some can afford luxury hobbies/travel and some can't.

IME, rich people often have different educational priorities than me, a well-educated middle class person. They don't have the same worries about their kids being left behind or failing to acquire necessary skills for HS, college, or the job market, because they have enough money not to have to worry about it. There are lots of culture clashes between the rich parents at our school and those who are middle class, even when the middle class parents are actually better educated. If anything, college-educated middle class people have the most anxiety about education because they (we) have the least stable class status and have the most to lose in the AI revolution and the K-shaped economy.

Can you provide some examples? We are talking about public schools here, the ultra rich are all in privates.

Examples:

- Getting hung up on a public school inconvenience that middle class parents just accept and move on from, and wanting to dedicate resources to it. For instance, throwing a fit over DCPS absence policies when they conflict with international travel, and hijacking PTA meetings to discuss it.
- Expecting the school to provide tutoring to help on-grade-level kids become above grade level, and not understanding why that's different from tutoring kids who are lagging behind grade level.
- Assuming families can always spend extra money to provide the kids with something. For instance advocating for programming that can't be subsidized by PTA funds and expecting all families to kick in $50 or $100 to supplement it. This is often accompanied by a promise to pay the fee for at risk or low-income kids, without understanding that middle class families don't fall in that bucket and that more families might struggle with a fee like that then they realize.
- Pushing for programming based on status markers or upper class ideals that they don't understand aren't important to middle class kids or get in the way of practicalities, like pushing for French or Mandarin over Spanish.

These are good examples. Add to it "required" PTO donations of hundreds of dollars and telling parents that it's cheaper than sending your kids to private school. And focusing effort on improving the playground or getting a new gym when existing facilities are adequate.


I disagree with the above grade level point though. Kids should be challenged and offering those opportunities to at risk and middle class kids is a better investment than offering it to upper middle class kids. But supporting below grade level students is so a priority (that's not a place you have to choose)

Yes all kids should be challenged but it is very common for the UMC parents to suck up all the air in the room demanding special attention to their above average kid (sometimes in the form of elaborate 504s or IEPs) as opposed to realistically understanding what is good for the majority. Sometimes the UMC parents have actually caused the issues by advocating against teaching methods that don’t conform to Dr Becky or whatever (like being against homework or drilling math facts).

The abuse of the IEP/504 system to secure advantages for kids who do not need them drives me nuts. It also impacts every level of the school. It changes how teachers and administrators interact with all parents, including those of us who are not trying to exploit the system. Having even a handful of parents in a school who are constantly angling for any advantage for their kids makes all parents suspect.

Yes. I’m not sure it’s knowing abuse but it’s definitely parents who believe in extracting every possible benefit. My kid actually has an IEP but I try to avoid the IEP team as much as possible lol. With some very small exceptions the bulk of support has come from people not on the IEP team. I find that if I ask for things my kid obviously needs it’s very easy. Everything else slides.

PP here and you are right, I think often people are oblivious to what they are doing. I know multiple families where it starts in PK with someone overzealous concern over something developmental where the kid is on the tail end of normal, but still within normal range. The parents are well resourced and used to spending money and consulting experts to solve problems, so they get an IEP to get their kid speech therapy or OT during the school day. Ok. But then this becomes the lens through which they view the school system, they start to see themselves as parents of a "special needs kids" -- these kids are often developmentally normal, usually above grade level, socially well adjusted. But then it's an ADHD diagnosis, and then it's "my kid is 2e and needs more challenge in the classroom" and on and on. Their kids are totally fine. There are often kids in the same classroom who are NOT fine, do not have IEPs, and whose needs are not being met, and every other kid in the room including the kid of these overzealous parents would benefit more from the school focusing on figuring out what is going on with that kid.

We're at a well regarded DCPS elementary and I really think it's only a handful of parents doing this but it drives me up the wall. They are also often the most involved parents, they know all the admin and all the teachers by name, they are officers in the PTO, etc. It makes me tired. Literally typing this out makes me want to go lay down. That's how these parents make me feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Integration is very important to me and I am engaged in it, but it is generally overtaken by other priorities on this board.

I'd say mostly, this board wants differentiation and to not have children of board participants in the same schools as students with behavior problems. Those goals do not go well with generalized integration.

There are also more general segregation/race and class relations issues, with a major one being a distribution of income and educational attainment that is at the edges with nobody in the middle (we have a bunch of high income advanced degree holders and HS-or-worse educated low income parents, nothing in between in DC).

If you actually think this, it's a reflection of your own limited social circle. It's wrong. DC has plenty of families that are middle income. Lots of people just have college degrees and no advanced degree, plus plenty of fields offer steady income but not high income. We can afford to own homes (condos or houses in part so the city outside the most gentrified neighborhoods, and also if you bought before rates went up) and care about education, but also money is tight because this is an expensive city and it gets more expensive all the time. On the other hand, living in the city often gives us the ability to live without a car or with just one car, living in small homes keep us from accumulating so much stuff, and there are real cost savings to being close in to work and lots of free entertainment. So a lot of us are loathe to move out of the city where we might get cheaper housing and food but more expensive and longer commutes and a host of other expenses just by virtue of living far away from things.

I regularly feel completely invisible in discussions about education in the city because so many people think as you do. That there are only two kinds of people in the city: (1) rich, mostly white people with advanced degrees, and (2) poor black and hispanic people with a HS education or less. I'm sure your in group #1 and it's actually an embarrassment to your education that you are so ignorant of the many many families of every race in this city that are dual income, have college degrees, are not rich, can still pay our bills, and obviously send our kids to public schools because where the hell else are we going to send them?

What's funny is that we send our kids to school with rich people and poor people, and people just lack the observational skills or common sense to understand that we are middle class. Some of the rich people at our school just assume we are also rich, because we wear professional clothes and have read books, and they seem confused when we don't have opinions on whether Colorado or Vermont is better for New Year's skiing. Other rich people at our school just group us in with the poor people. The poor people all think we are rich, which is fair, because compared to them we are. Literally no one cares if our family's needs are being met by the school system.

Eh--while there are definite divides between income/wealth amongst the college educated and above class--fundamentally everyone in this group is well-educated and want their kids to be well-educated. How are they not aligned on educational priorities? They both want better public schools. Isn't that the common ground. What does it matter that some can afford luxury hobbies/travel and some can't.

IME, rich people often have different educational priorities than me, a well-educated middle class person. They don't have the same worries about their kids being left behind or failing to acquire necessary skills for HS, college, or the job market, because they have enough money not to have to worry about it. There are lots of culture clashes between the rich parents at our school and those who are middle class, even when the middle class parents are actually better educated. If anything, college-educated middle class people have the most anxiety about education because they (we) have the least stable class status and have the most to lose in the AI revolution and the K-shaped economy.

Can you provide some examples? We are talking about public schools here, the ultra rich are all in privates.

Examples:

- Getting hung up on a public school inconvenience that middle class parents just accept and move on from, and wanting to dedicate resources to it. For instance, throwing a fit over DCPS absence policies when they conflict with international travel, and hijacking PTA meetings to discuss it.
- Expecting the school to provide tutoring to help on-grade-level kids become above grade level, and not understanding why that's different from tutoring kids who are lagging behind grade level.
- Assuming families can always spend extra money to provide the kids with something. For instance advocating for programming that can't be subsidized by PTA funds and expecting all families to kick in $50 or $100 to supplement it. This is often accompanied by a promise to pay the fee for at risk or low-income kids, without understanding that middle class families don't fall in that bucket and that more families might struggle with a fee like that then they realize.
- Pushing for programming based on status markers or upper class ideals that they don't understand aren't important to middle class kids or get in the way of practicalities, like pushing for French or Mandarin over Spanish.

These are good examples. Add to it "required" PTO donations of hundreds of dollars and telling parents that it's cheaper than sending your kids to private school. And focusing effort on improving the playground or getting a new gym when existing facilities are adequate.


I disagree with the above grade level point though. Kids should be challenged and offering those opportunities to at risk and middle class kids is a better investment than offering it to upper middle class kids. But supporting below grade level students is so a priority (that's not a place you have to choose)

Yes all kids should be challenged but it is very common for the UMC parents to suck up all the air in the room demanding special attention to their above average kid (sometimes in the form of elaborate 504s or IEPs) as opposed to realistically understanding what is good for the majority. Sometimes the UMC parents have actually caused the issues by advocating against teaching methods that don’t conform to Dr Becky or whatever (like being against homework or drilling math facts).

The abuse of the IEP/504 system to secure advantages for kids who do not need them drives me nuts. It also impacts every level of the school. It changes how teachers and administrators interact with all parents, including those of us who are not trying to exploit the system. Having even a handful of parents in a school who are constantly angling for any advantage for their kids makes all parents suspect.

Yes. I’m not sure it’s knowing abuse but it’s definitely parents who believe in extracting every possible benefit. My kid actually has an IEP but I try to avoid the IEP team as much as possible lol. With some very small exceptions the bulk of support has come from people not on the IEP team. I find that if I ask for things my kid obviously needs it’s very easy. Everything else slides.

PP here and you are right, I think often people are oblivious to what they are doing. I know multiple families where it starts in PK with someone overzealous concern over something developmental where the kid is on the tail end of normal, but still within normal range. The parents are well resourced and used to spending money and consulting experts to solve problems, so they get an IEP to get their kid speech therapy or OT during the school day. Ok. But then this becomes the lens through which they view the school system, they start to see themselves as parents of a "special needs kids" -- these kids are often developmentally normal, usually above grade level, socially well adjusted. But then it's an ADHD diagnosis, and then it's "my kid is 2e and needs more challenge in the classroom" and on and on. Their kids are totally fine. There are often kids in the same classroom who are NOT fine, do not have IEPs, and whose needs are not being met, and every other kid in the room including the kid of these overzealous parents would benefit more from the school focusing on figuring out what is going on with that kid.

We're at a well regarded DCPS elementary and I really think it's only a handful of parents doing this but it drives me up the wall. They are also often the most involved parents, they know all the admin and all the teachers by name, they are officers in the PTO, etc. It makes me tired. Literally typing this out makes me want to go lay down. That's how these parents make me feel.

helicopter parenting in 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to get in the weeds with this let me suggest the special needs forum. But trust me this attitude that most people are just gaming the system just hurts disabled kids.

The obvious and admitted gaming (i.e., on the scale of the Stanford article) is what hurts disabled kids. Parents shouldn’t be shamed for getting what their children need and are entitled to under law, but the abusers of the system — and the incentive structure that encourages its —are real problem.

Colleges know this is happening and wouldn't let in such high percentages unless they too assume it is mostly BS. When two groups aren't competitive in sports you don't let in the weaker performing group with modified rules--you create a new category to let them compete--that is why we have age groups, weight classes, women's sports and wheelchair basketball. If these kids actually could not compete and get into college without the accommodation that means they wouldn't be successful long term and would be a drag on the school reputation. The college must have hope they will outgrow the accommodation and eventually mature into adults that can thrive in the working world without it.

Colleges actually do not know if the child has an IEP or 504 or got extra time on the SAT

Accommodations should plainly be disclosed with the scores.

[Anonymous]

I can’t stand the rank gamesmanship but also can’t control it, so I do my best to put it out of mind and just focus on my own kid.

[Anonymous]

God some of you are so grossly insufferable. No, kids aren’t ’faking it’ if they have a legal diagnosis. No, they do not have to cite they have had accommodations.
No, it does not teach students ‘grit’ to have no accommodations.

I am a teacher at a top high school and graduated from great universities, I also happen to have ADHD.

I won’t go into detail but I wish I had gotten an early diagnosis and accommodations. Yes, I made it but I have what is considered ‘low support’ needs. Maybe my late teens and very early 20’s wouldn’t have been full of suicidal ideation.

These are children. They aren’t cheating and if somehow they do not actually have a disability I would absolutely blame the doctor and the parent(s).

The takeaway is sit your grown ass down and stop talking about children and young adults in such a nasty way.

[Anonymous]

This whole line of conversation is ridiculous. One person after another saying,

"Those entitled people advocating for their spoiled kids to get an education even though the kids are already on grade level! So selfish! They should settle for whatever is right for my kid and people just like my kid. It's a public school, so how dare they expect it to meet all kids needs when it should just meet my kids' needs."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God some of you are so grossly insufferable. No, kids aren’t ’faking it’ if they have a legal diagnosis. No, they do not have to cite they have had accommodations.
No, it does not teach students ‘grit’ to have no accommodations.

I am a teacher at a top high school and graduated from great universities, I also happen to have ADHD.

I won’t go into detail but I wish I had gotten an early diagnosis and accommodations. Yes, I made it but I have what is considered ‘low support’ needs. Maybe my late teens and very early 20’s wouldn’t have been full of suicidal ideation.

These are children. They aren’t cheating and if somehow they do not actually have a disability I would absolutely blame the doctor and the parent(s).

The takeaway is sit your grown ass down and stop talking about children and young adults in such a nasty way.

If there's a large and rapidly growing number of students demanding accommodations, then there's obviously something going wrong. Either people are lying and trying to game the system, or they've convinced themselves they have non-existent ailments. It's not the case however that suddenly a huge percentage of humans have disabilities.