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.

Sounds to me like you had a bad teacher, not bad students.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:We have an elementary school with special ed kids and I love that my "gen ed" kids have had these children in their classrooms. Maybe we are lucky with great aides and teachers, but I have only found it to be a benefit to my kids to learn that not everyone looks the same or learns the same or sounds the same and that there is room for everyone. I am pretty appalled at the responses here.

And I will add that in kindergarten, one of my son's classmates wasn't fully diagnosed as autistic yet and there was a lot of chair throwing, hitting, etc. and the kids had to evacuate the classroom sometimes. So it hasn't been all sunshine and roses. But now that student is receiving proper services and has come such a long way. I love asking my son how this student is doing and hearing great things about how well he's doing now, 3 years later.

Some kids may not be bothered by that while it's highly distressing to others. I think parents of those children have a right to request a different placement. I currently have this situation in my classroom and luckily none of the other students seem to mind much. My own child is highly sensitive to it.

After my special ed. child (speech and language impaired plus dyslexia) was in the special ed cluster for two years, I had to fight to have his IEP dropped. He got no help and the room was so chaotic with all the behavior problems. The behavior problems were from some special ed. students but also some general ed. students who were put in the class because someone thought they would get more help since there was a full time aide in the class and the sped. teacher would pop in occasionally.

Meanwhile my child didn't get the services he needed. He was supposed to get small group instruction in reading in the back of the room with the special ed. teacher or aide but rarely ever did because they were dealing with so many behavior issues.

Once we exited him from special ed. he was in a non-special ed class with an amazing teacher. It was such a good year. He got better intervention from a reading teacher instead of a special ed. teacher/aide. His teacher actually cared if he made progress. I think once he qualified for sped it was like his 1st and 2nd grade teachers felt like he wasn't really their student and not accountable for him learning anything.

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?

Does that class have a teacher and special education teacher in there?

We have an elementary school with special ed kids and I love that my "gen ed" kids have had these children in their classrooms. Maybe we are lucky with great aides and teachers, but I have only found it to be a benefit to my kids to learn that not everyone looks the same or learns the same or sounds the same and that there is room for everyone. I am pretty appalled at the responses here.

And I will add that in kindergarten, one of my son's classmates wasn't fully diagnosed as autistic yet and there was a lot of chair throwing, hitting, etc. and the kids had to evacuate the classroom sometimes. So it hasn't been all sunshine and roses. But now that student is receiving proper services and has come such a long way. I love asking my son how this student is doing and hearing great things about how well he's doing now, 3 years later.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do it our school as well. Admission says it is “easier” for special Ed to teachers to plug in

This, we had to fight to get our kid out.

Happened to us too. It was not until our otherwise happy and easy going DS started to refuse to go to school. Then we started to learn about horrific discipline issues and teacher’s inability to control the classroom or provide sufficient attention to kids with no problems. It took us several months to pull him out. No problems in the new classroom. Principals, how do you decide which kids who have no problems are ok to just throw in the mix? I would have never agreed to have our DS placed in this classroom. This is unfair set-up all around.

Same thing happened to us but Covid ended the school year so I didn’t have to make any requests. I’m a SPED teacher in the same district and I wouldn’t hesitate to ask for a new teacher if there was something going on in my kid’s classroom, whatever the reason (though I don’t necessarily expect that it would be honored)

Funny, the only kids I have had to request my kid be separated from were nasty Gen Ed kids.

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.

+1

Anonymous wrote:FYI you are all coming off as both ignorant and rude, which may not be your intention so I will try and answer in as neutral of a way as possible.

Clustering, which is different than TRACKING (an outdated practice), is done so that the students that work with a Special Ed teacher are all in the same place. This is for logistical reasons. If class A and B from the same grade are running at the same time, and one SPED teacher is assigned to that grade, they can’t be in two places as once.

As for how principals decide, I have no answer to you. There’s no principals order on which gen Ed students typically go into the clustered class. At my school, we try to identify the students we know may need extra support but are not identified and put them in that same classroom, since the pace is typically slower and two teachers make for a more reasonable teacher : student ratio.

+1

We ended up putting a sped Ed group with a lot of pull out in one class and one sped group with no pull out in another. This is best for the teacher and IA. We then placed gen Ed kids and kept in mind other behaviors, who shouldn’t be with who and kids who will do great with any special Ed kids.

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.

FYI you are all coming off as both ignorant and rude, which may not be your intention so I will try and answer in as neutral of a way as possible.

Clustering, which is different than TRACKING (an outdated practice), is done so that the students that work with a Special Ed teacher are all in the same place. This is for logistical reasons. If class A and B from the same grade are running at the same time, and one SPED teacher is assigned to that grade, they can’t be in two places as once.

As for how principals decide, I have no answer to you. There’s no principals order on which gen Ed students typically go into the clustered class. At my school, we try to identify the students we know may need extra support but are not identified and put them in that same classroom, since the pace is typically slower and two teachers make for a more reasonable teacher : student ratio.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do it our school as well. Admission says it is “easier” for special Ed to teachers to plug in

This, we had to fight to get our kid out.

Happened to us too. It was not until our otherwise happy and easy going DS started to refuse to go to school. Then we started to learn about horrific discipline issues and teacher’s inability to control the classroom or provide sufficient attention to kids with no problems. It took us several months to pull him out. No problems in the new classroom. Principals, how do you decide which kids who have no problems are ok to just throw in the mix? I would have never agreed to have our DS placed in this classroom. This is unfair set-up all around.

You should be happy that class helped bring your child's challenges to light or else you might not have known.

Not sure which challenges you are speaking of. Speaking up about mismanaged classroom and unacceptable learning environment? You are confusing inclusion and poorly managed class environment that teacher couldn’t handle. There needs to be more oversight. It doesn’t seem that all schools have the same level of success with clustering. Our school is not very good at this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They do it our school as well. Admission says it is “easier” for special Ed to teachers to plug in

This, we had to fight to get our kid out.

Happened to us too. It was not until our otherwise happy and easy going DS started to refuse to go to school. Then we started to learn about horrific discipline issues and teacher’s inability to control the classroom or provide sufficient attention to kids with no problems. It took us several months to pull him out. No problems in the new classroom. Principals, how do you decide which kids who have no problems are ok to just throw in the mix? I would have never agreed to have our DS placed in this classroom. This is unfair set-up all around.

You should be happy that class helped bring your child's challenges to light or else you might not have known.