Reply to is 'quiet lunch' over accommodation?

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Reply to "is 'quiet lunch' over accommodation?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What’s kind of amusing about the school’s refusal to accommodate with quiet spaces is that at our very large public high school, everyone eats lunch at the same time. The cafeteria is too small to fit everyone, so kids are allowed to eat wherever they want inside or outside of the building and several teachers are known for opening their doors at lunch time for extra help or anyone who wants to eat in peace or doesn’t feel like they have a friend group to eat with.

In fact, this - small lunch rooms also facilitated student friendships, fostered academic interests by chatting with teachers, etc. so, it’s about more than “learning a skill”.

I think teachers opening their rooms for lunches started in middle school, but definitely common by high school, so I wonder why exactly it’s a skill to eat in a noisy place.

It’s sad that your school looks at this as “accommodating a disability that must be remediated” instead of recognizing that some neurodivergent brains work differently, have different environmental needs, socialize and make friends differently.[/quote]

15 year olds don’t need the kind of supervision that 5 year olds need …[/quote]

Agreed, but then the problem is not that "your DC needs to learn the skill of being in a noisy room" but rather "we don't have the staff to supervise an elementary lunch quiet space.

Schools don't want to say the latter because it is illegal to deny a "reasonable accommodation" for reasons that have to do with staffing or funding.  And, the definition of "reasonable" does not involve a financial analysis of whether any extra resources must be spent to accommodate.

[/quote]

If they are just dumping kids into regular lunch, that's one thing.  But if they are really going to work to integrate kids into the main cafeteria, that is going to take staff time and not every kid is going to be successful.

This is such an interesting conversation because back when my middle child, who had an eating disorder, started school, he had a robust IEP with everything you could ask for except an eating related goal or accommodation.  The view point way back when was that unless you could show that not eating and/or not being in the cafeteria environment would prevent my kid from being able to engage in school in the afternoon, they were not obligated to provide any sort of services during lunch.  And, he never did get quiet lunch, lunch bunch or any other assistance.  As others have said, it becomes moot once you hit middle school because you can go spend lunch in a classroom.  [/quote]

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