The Wrightslaw Way

Inclusive Schools Week, December 3-7, 2012. Theme: building authentic friendships for students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers. From Jim Comstock-Galagan – If you want people to understand the matter of inclusion, you make them understand it for themselves. How would inclusion relate to them? Jim understood when his mother first walked him to elementary […]

My principal is requiring that I have meetings to change students’ IEPs to correct the location of services under the direct service hours part of their IEPs.  All of their current IEPs state the location as “Special Education Setting.” Presently, a non-certified assistant is fulfilling direct service hours in an inclusive setting in the morning. […]

I see the social aspect of inclusion as the priority over the educational aspect.  I have concerns about the inclusion “movement” disallowing for appropriate services, i.e. cognitively delayed students who would not be receiving remediation if placed in a regular classroom setting. I am concerned that we are no longer addressing the student’s unique needs […]

I am a general education teacher. One of my students, who has an IEP, interrupts class several times a day.  It is not uncommon for him to blurt out on-  and off-topic comments, or start singing, or get up and leave the room. I have been told that there is nothing the school can do […]

We requested that our son be put in an inclusion classroom at his home school. The school denied our request. We don’t have an attorney. What can we do? Should we threaten litigation? Never tell a school, or anyone else, that you plan to sue them. There are other ways to resolve parent-school disputes. Depending […]

Does my daughter, who has an IEP, have to be served by resource classes or can she be totally in mainstream classrooms? “Special education” under IDEA is not a place or placement or a pre-packaged program. Special education is a “service for children rather than a place where such children are sent.” Special education is […]

I am a special education teacher. I have some concerns and questions about how students are receiving the mandated special ed services. 1. Is there a legal definition of self-contained classroom setting? 2. What constitutes a change of LRE when there has been no official meeting to place a student in a particular setting? There […]