Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

a room you force a child into is not a “calm down room” or “sensory room.” I can believe it may be necessary for some situations and better than restraint, but let’s not use euphemisms.

It's truly not a force situation at my school. It's a choice. If they don't want to go in they don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

DP and +1. I am a special education teacher and am no longer willing to work in classrooms where PCM or Ukeru training is required.

How do you physically get them into the rooms?

We don’t use those rooms. They’re no longer allowed. We were expected to be able to deescalate which is fine and dandy except that some of the behaviors were caused by issues way beyond the scope of a public school- such as early onset schizophrenia or conduct disorders that weren’t medicated. In a hospital or clinical setting, there’d be an 2:1 ratio and frequent chemical restraints if it gets bad, whereas in a classroom it’s the teacher and maybe one IA if they didn’t get pulled to sub. We were supposed to clear the room or use physical restraint or blocking if a student was being aggressive. I’m pretty athletic and could usually use careful positioning or get out of the way but I got bitten hard, punched, spit on, scratched and kicked many times. I’m lucky by comparison. I know people who had bones broken and severe concussions from being head butted.

What school system are you in that doesn’t use seclusion and restraint. I don’t know of one around here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

a room you force a child into is not a “calm down room” or “sensory room.” I can believe it may be necessary for some situations and better than restraint, but let’s not use euphemisms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So Illinois is not using the rooms as intended and that definitely should be corrected. But at that doesn’t mean they are abused everywhere. SN kids can’t hurt people, even their teachers. I can’t believe some parents are okay with that.

Who said it was ok?

We are talking about whether it's okay to hurt the child. Pushing the kid into a seclusion room is causing psychological danger and often also physical danger. Clearing a room is not intended to leave teachers to get injured. They should absolutely not be in danger's way and able to move around the room out of harm's way which will be safer than trying to force an out of control flailing child into a room/closet.

Again, the teacher and other students shouldn’t have to move “out of harms way” AT SCHOOL.

Plus 1.

The parents should be called to pick up their child when he/she is out of control.

Are parents of children with behavioral disabilities not allowed to have a job? Should they just wait around to pick up their child because their child is not receiving an appropriate education? Or should we just make a decision that these disabled children should just not get any education?

Stop pawning your problem child of the school system. Find the right place for them to be educated and stop blaming they system that is ill equipped to deal with them to begin with that you are forcing them into because it’s close to your house.

Idiot. The right place for these kids to be educated is the public school system. Every kid is this country has a right to a public education. You are dumb.

You should be embarrassed by your ignorance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a gen ed teacher 100% against seclusion rooms for any child, ever. If a child is that seriously dangerous, then hospitalization is in order.
At the same time, I'm a gen ed teacher often expected to "handle" kids with extreme behavioral and emotional needs. There is a huge gap in what the law requires and what funding actually provides in terms of support for such students and their teachers. I propose doubling taxes to pay for appropriate help for all students in schools. The safety of staff and the safety of all kids, gen ed and sped kids, is on the line.

What??? All of the NT kids parents would revolt, and there are a lot more of us. There is already a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money and classroom teacher effort devoted to the SN kids. I would seriously move to another county if my county voted to do this.

Bye Felicia

The PP is exactly right. There is too much money spent on American public school education for such mediocre results. The last thing SN departments need is more money. They already take up so much while the gifted kids who will actually benefit our future society are neglected.

I support higher salaries for teachers. If the general public knew how much $$ in public education is wasted on admin and frivolous contracts resulting from special interest lobbying, they would be horrified.

As the parent of 2 “gifted” kids (I really hate that term), I agree that they are often neglected in public schools. I agree that too much money is spent for mediocre results. I DISAGREE that too much is spent on kids with special needs or that that money is wasted.

I would support a tax interest if I thought the money was necessary for and would be used on behalf of improving education for children (be they gifted, on-level, or special meeds). However, my experience in a county whose schools are comparatively well-funded is that regardless of how much money we give them, the educational benefits will be minimal. MCPS spends an enormous amount on every high-tech/glitzy extra they can think of. They devote a significant effort to PR. They have a reputation for preferring litigation to defend lawsuits from special needs families for services, rather than providing appropriate services to begin with. The money that does actually go to education, too often goes towards resources of questionable value. For years they churned out a lousy curriculum, using our kids as guinea pigs. I’m hoping that the critical report from the curriculum audit will lead to improvements, but if the personnel in the curriculum department have any input in selecting and implementing a new curriculum, I very much fear we’ll get another ineffective curriculum that aligns with their preferences. (I desperately hope I’m wrong and we can get some established curriculum that are content rich and have already been proven effective elsewhere.)

I think education is the very best investment society can make. I’m willing to pay more to improve education. I am NOT willing to pay more so that a school district that is more concerned with its own prestige than in the actual process of education can have more money to waste.

My school system Pays 30k a year to send
My Neighbors kid to a boarding school that better addresses his special needs. My taxes already pay for that. Don’t dare come at me to say I need to be taxed more when My kids are at regular public schools.[b]

This is truly the ugliest post I have ever seen. Right here is the downfall of America: the winner take all attitude and where is mine. There is zero long term logic in your post and only selfishness is ruling your brain. The idea that you as a civilian tax payer should get to decide how money that is pooled together from everyone without understanding any of the factors involved is ridiculously short sighted.
I really hope you are smarter than to fall for that.

I don't think it is particularly ugly to say you would resent having your taxes doubled when there is no demonstrable benefit to the majority, especially when talking about a system as broken as public special education. We have already thrown considerable money at this issue with no indication that more would improve the situation. Effective use of existing funds seems more reasonable.

You show you know absolutely nothing about special education. Your comment re having thrown considerable money at special Ed to no avail is an absolute falsehood. Thank God the people who created IDEA knew there would be people like you who would immediately shortchange people with disabilities because in your mind they are always less than.

You are vile and your arguments are false and based on discriminatory biases.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

DP and +1. I am a special education teacher and am no longer willing to work in classrooms where PCM or Ukeru training is required.

How do you physically get them into the rooms?

We don’t use those rooms. They’re no longer allowed. We were expected to be able to deescalate which is fine and dandy except that some of the behaviors were caused by issues way beyond the scope of a public school- such as early onset schizophrenia or conduct disorders that weren’t medicated. In a hospital or clinical setting, there’d be an 2:1 ratio and frequent chemical restraints if it gets bad, whereas in a classroom it’s the teacher and maybe one IA if they didn’t get pulled to sub. We were supposed to clear the room or use physical restraint or blocking if a student was being aggressive. I’m pretty athletic and could usually use careful positioning or get out of the way but I got bitten hard, punched, spit on, scratched and kicked many times. I’m lucky by comparison. I know people who had bones broken and severe concussions from being head butted.

This...and even if you don't get injured it's extremely draining and takes up huge chunks of your day with one child. Guess who loses out.... all of the other kids we are evacuating or the kids the SPED teacher can't see that day because they are "deescalating a situation" for the millionth time that week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

DP and +1. I am a special education teacher and am no longer willing to work in classrooms where PCM or Ukeru training is required.

How do you physically get them into the rooms?

We don’t use those rooms. They’re no longer allowed. We were expected to be able to deescalate which is fine and dandy except that some of the behaviors were caused by issues way beyond the scope of a public school- such as early onset schizophrenia or conduct disorders that weren’t medicated. In a hospital or clinical setting, there’d be an 2:1 ratio and frequent chemical restraints if it gets bad, whereas in a classroom it’s the teacher and maybe one IA if they didn’t get pulled to sub. We were supposed to clear the room or use physical restraint or blocking if a student was being aggressive. I’m pretty athletic and could usually use careful positioning or get out of the way but I got bitten hard, punched, spit on, scratched and kicked many times. I’m lucky by comparison. I know people who had bones broken and severe concussions from being head butted.

This is why I pulled my special needs kid out of public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

DP and +1. I am a special education teacher and am no longer willing to work in classrooms where PCM or Ukeru training is required.

How do you physically get them into the rooms?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wtf? One of the examples is a kid who wet his pants in the seclusion room and then pooped and was then left naked for almost an hour to run around swearing poop all over while the aide watched from outside and took notes.

This happened to a female student in my friend’s school. At one point, she was naked and covered in poop without so much as a blanket in the AC. My friend quit the next day.

But what is the alternative? If you had gone to school for the purpose of educating children and were making maybe 60k/year, would YOU physically restrain a child who is running around smearing poop?

If you had gone to a good school that teaches you that there are more than cookie cutter kids out in this world you would not get to the point of having a child smeared with feces. Teaching is not something you decide to do because your spouse got a good job on the hill and your degree in marketing is not marketable.

Special ed teachers are trained to handle some of these issues but not all, especially now that violent kids are allowed to be mainstreamed. Regular teachers are not trained for this. You’re going to have to pony up more money if you expect all teachers to deal with this in addition to teaching every day. Give me a break. Why don’t you home school your violent kid since
You know all the right things to do and stop expecting strangers to manage them.

Exactly....I have another question as a SPED teacher....While my team is dealing with a mainstreamed child's extreme disruptive and at times dangerous behaviors/melt downs who is servicing all the other main streamed children on my caseload. No one....FCPS is constantly in this position and if parents knew there would be many more lawsuits. Schools are not medical facilities there is a difference between school and hospital. Maybe we need to go back to all day self contained rooms so everyone gets what they need. Teachers(SPED and GEN) can't do it all it's just not possible. I'm so tried of parents who think their child is the only child at school. THEY ARE NOT! All staff and students deserve to go to school every day and be safe....all kids with IEPs deserve their hours and time. This is not happening with all of the extreme behaviors we are seeing.

This is an ethical dilemma for sure. There are some kids who have problems that are so significant or intractable that the cost of addressing those problems will always outweigh the benefits, sometimes very significantly. Those expenditures could yield far more benefits if directed at other children.

But what to do with those kids with the severe problems? Just lock them away as a lost cause?

I don't think there are any very good answers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

DP and +1. I am a special education teacher and am no longer willing to work in classrooms where PCM or Ukeru training is required.

Anonymous wrote:I worked with ED kids for years. There are kids with extreme mental health needs in our schools. Parents are not required to get therapy for their kids, or medications. When a child is attacking others, it is much safer for everyone to put them in a closely monitored seclusion room than it is to physically restrain the child. No, they should not be pooping and naked and so forth, but that speaks to mismanaged situations and staff not following procedures. It does not happen everywhere.

At our school, as soon as the child could calm enough to sit against the back wall for two minutes, the door was opened, and after five minutes of sitting again the back wall, with a teacher in their sight to comfort them, they were asked to come out and sit in a chair with some silly putty for ten minutes, and then, if they were ready, they discussed the situation with staff and made a plan to return to class. Parents and admin were kept apprised the whole time, and notes kept and forwarded to teachers, admin, and central office.

This was a last resort to manage behavior. It’s fine to say there is a reason for misbehavior, but these reasons are not under the school’s control. A child with severe mental health needs is not going to be cured by the special education teacher. It’s a long process. Some of my kids just needed this intervention once in a while, and did not need a more restrictive school setting.

Unless you have been in the school setting with ED kids, you can’t understand.

This mirrors my experience with calm down or sensory rooms, though we didn’t necessarily have them sit on the back wall for a set time. I was always in the room or sitting outside with the door open if they requested me to. I am no longer willing to retrain or put my hands on kids. It’s not worth the risk to my physical safety

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a gen ed teacher 100% against seclusion rooms for any child, ever. If a child is that seriously dangerous, then hospitalization is in order.
At the same time, I'm a gen ed teacher often expected to "handle" kids with extreme behavioral and emotional needs. There is a huge gap in what the law requires and what funding actually provides in terms of support for such students and their teachers. I propose doubling taxes to pay for appropriate help for all students in schools. The safety of staff and the safety of all kids, gen ed and sped kids, is on the line.

What??? All of the NT kids parents would revolt, and there are a lot more of us. There is already a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money and classroom teacher effort devoted to the SN kids. I would seriously move to another county if my county voted to do this.

Bye Felicia

The PP is exactly right. There is too much money spent on American public school education for such mediocre results. The last thing SN departments need is more money. They already take up so much while the gifted kids who will actually benefit our future society are neglected.

I support higher salaries for teachers. If the general public knew how much $$ in public education is wasted on admin and frivolous contracts resulting from special interest lobbying, they would be horrified.

As the parent of 2 “gifted” kids (I really hate that term), I agree that they are often neglected in public schools. I agree that too much money is spent for mediocre results. I DISAGREE that too much is spent on kids with special needs or that that money is wasted.

I would support a tax interest if I thought the money was necessary for and would be used on behalf of improving education for children (be they gifted, on-level, or special meeds). However, my experience in a county whose schools are comparatively well-funded is that regardless of how much money we give them, the educational benefits will be minimal. MCPS spends an enormous amount on every high-tech/glitzy extra they can think of. They devote a significant effort to PR. They have a reputation for preferring litigation to defend lawsuits from special needs families for services, rather than providing appropriate services to begin with. The money that does actually go to education, too often goes towards resources of questionable value. For years they churned out a lousy curriculum, using our kids as guinea pigs. I’m hoping that the critical report from the curriculum audit will lead to improvements, but if the personnel in the curriculum department have any input in selecting and implementing a new curriculum, I very much fear we’ll get another ineffective curriculum that aligns with their preferences. (I desperately hope I’m wrong and we can get some established curriculum that are content rich and have already been proven effective elsewhere.)

I think education is the very best investment society can make. I’m willing to pay more to improve education. I am NOT willing to pay more so that a school district that is more concerned with its own prestige than in the actual process of education can have more money to waste.

My school system Pays 30k a year to send
My Neighbors kid to a boarding school that better addresses his special needs. My taxes already pay for that. Don’t dare come at me to say I need to be taxed more when My kids are at regular public schools.[b]

This is truly the ugliest post I have ever seen. Right here is the downfall of America: the winner take all attitude and where is mine. There is zero long term logic in your post and only selfishness is ruling your brain. The idea that you as a civilian tax payer should get to decide how money that is pooled together from everyone without understanding any of the factors involved is ridiculously short sighted.
I really hope you are smarter than to fall for that.

I don't think it is particularly ugly to say you would resent having your taxes doubled when there is no demonstrable benefit to the majority, especially when talking about a system as broken as public special education. We have already thrown considerable money at this issue with no indication that more would improve the situation. Effective use of existing funds seems more reasonable.

I’m the poster the “ugly post” was responding to. As I said earlier, I feel our school system (MCPS) currently wastes large portions of their budget and am reluctant to give them more to waste.

That being said, educational costs have to be weighed against the cost of not investing in education. If a child is violent and lacks self-control, what will their future be as an adult, and how much will society have to pay to deal with them and whatever problems they haven’t learned to control? Will they be able to hold a job and support themselves? Will they turn to substances to try to relieve their emotional suffering? Are they more likely to require institutionalization or incarceration at some point? Hopefully, they’ll outgrow their problems at some point, or find help somewhere along the way, even if we’re not providing it.

Moreover, in addition to the potential expense of dealing with their problems as an adult, we miss cultivating the potential contributions they could make if we helped them overcome their emotional problems so that they could actively learn in school, building themselves a future.

Then there’s the potential loss caused by the disruption of their classmates’ education. Maybe one of the children could be a potential physicist and discover a clean, affordable energy source, but their math is shaky because they kept having to evacuate and he had trouble mastering a fundamental concept. Maybe a potential great artist was traumatized in art class and avoids art as much as possible. Maybe the president/ambassador that would have led us to world peace missed the inspirational story in social studies that would have started them on their path. Or maybe, the class is composed (as most are) of wonderful, average kids, who will grow up to be wonderful, average adults that we interact with on a daily basis. We’re interconnected and count on each other to be capable of doing our jobs and forming a functioning society. If we knowingly allow a generation’s education to be disrupted, then we have little room to complain later when we find it lacking.

The PP has a legitimate concern about the steep cost of addressing these problems. Ideally, we could find more effective and economical methods than sending individuals to boarding school. Any method that actively works to help, is bound to be more expensive to the school than just allowing the problem to continue unaddressed. I wonder, though, if we can afford not to try to find a solution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a gen ed teacher 100% against seclusion rooms for any child, ever. If a child is that seriously dangerous, then hospitalization is in order.
At the same time, I'm a gen ed teacher often expected to "handle" kids with extreme behavioral and emotional needs. There is a huge gap in what the law requires and what funding actually provides in terms of support for such students and their teachers. I propose doubling taxes to pay for appropriate help for all students in schools. The safety of staff and the safety of all kids, gen ed and sped kids, is on the line.

What??? All of the NT kids parents would revolt, and there are a lot more of us. There is already a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money and classroom teacher effort devoted to the SN kids. I would seriously move to another county if my county voted to do this.

Bye Felicia

The PP is exactly right. There is too much money spent on American public school education for such mediocre results. The last thing SN departments need is more money. They already take up so much while the gifted kids who will actually benefit our future society are neglected.

I support higher salaries for teachers. If the general public knew how much $$ in public education is wasted on admin and frivolous contracts resulting from special interest lobbying, they would be horrified.

As the parent of 2 “gifted” kids (I really hate that term), I agree that they are often neglected in public schools. I agree that too much money is spent for mediocre results. I DISAGREE that too much is spent on kids with special needs or that that money is wasted.

I would support a tax interest if I thought the money was necessary for and would be used on behalf of improving education for children (be they gifted, on-level, or special meeds). However, my experience in a county whose schools are comparatively well-funded is that regardless of how much money we give them, the educational benefits will be minimal. MCPS spends an enormous amount on every high-tech/glitzy extra they can think of. They devote a significant effort to PR. They have a reputation for preferring litigation to defend lawsuits from special needs families for services, rather than providing appropriate services to begin with. The money that does actually go to education, too often goes towards resources of questionable value. For years they churned out a lousy curriculum, using our kids as guinea pigs. I’m hoping that the critical report from the curriculum audit will lead to improvements, but if the personnel in the curriculum department have any input in selecting and implementing a new curriculum, I very much fear we’ll get another ineffective curriculum that aligns with their preferences. (I desperately hope I’m wrong and we can get some established curriculum that are content rich and have already been proven effective elsewhere.)

I think education is the very best investment society can make. I’m willing to pay more to improve education. I am NOT willing to pay more so that a school district that is more concerned with its own prestige than in the actual process of education can have more money to waste.

My school system Pays 30k a year to send
My Neighbors kid to a boarding school that better addresses his special needs. My taxes already pay for that. Don’t dare come at me to say I need to be taxed more when My kids are at regular public schools.[b]

This is truly the ugliest post I have ever seen. Right here is the downfall of America: the winner take all attitude and where is mine. There is zero long term logic in your post and only selfishness is ruling your brain. The idea that you as a civilian tax payer should get to decide how money that is pooled together from everyone without understanding any of the factors involved is ridiculously short sighted.
I really hope you are smarter than to fall for that.

I don't think it is particularly ugly to say you would resent having your taxes doubled when there is no demonstrable benefit to the majority, especially when talking about a system as broken as public special education. We have already thrown considerable money at this issue with no indication that more would improve the situation. Effective use of existing funds seems more reasonable.