{"id":8471,"date":"2012-11-29T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=8471"},"modified":"2015-06-16T09:59:46","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T13:59:46","slug":"inclusion-matters-to-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/inclusion-matters-to-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Inclusion Matters to Everyone!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Inclusion%20Matters%20to%20Everyone%21\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><strong>From Jim Comstock-Galagan &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/ISEA\/images\/2012\/jim.complaints.300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you want people to understand the matter of inclusion, you make them understand it for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>How would inclusion relate to them?<\/p>\n<p>Jim understood when his mother first <em>walked<\/em> him to elementary school.\u00a0 He was told he could not attend &#8211; he needed to go across town to the &#8220;crippled children&#8217;s school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jim&#8217;s mother said, &#8220;I&#8217;m telling you, he is NOT going to crippled children&#8217;s school.&#8221; <strong><em>Inclusion mattered<\/em><\/strong> to Jim&#8217;s family.<\/p>\n<p>Jim knew he was not going to the crippled children&#8217;s school &#8211; the only school he <em>knew<\/em> he would attend was college.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>His family adjusted so he could attend a Catholic school nearby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why can I not go to school with my brothers?&#8221; Jim wondered. He was sad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Dr. Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n<p>So Jim&#8217;s family adjusted again. They sacrificed and struggled in order to allow<em> all<\/em> the brothers to go to the same Catholic school.<\/p>\n<p>Jim says he is here today because &#8211; <strong>inclusion is really important<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Words to describe the feeling of being &#8220;included&#8221;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>belonging,<\/li>\n<li>value,<\/li>\n<li>acceptance,<\/li>\n<li>happy&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is what children feel when they are included.<\/p>\n<p>Words that might describe feeling excluded, segregated:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>rejected<\/li>\n<li>hurts in the pit of your stomach<\/li>\n<li>inadequate<\/li>\n<li>devastating<\/li>\n<li>abandoned<\/li>\n<li>unsupported<\/li>\n<li>resentment&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What does this feel like for kids who are excluded?<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do kids feel when they are stuck in the trailer, in the room down the hall, when they are segregated from others?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What do the other kids say about these kids? <em>&#8220;We never see them.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We need to be aware of how we are educating kids, kids with and those without disabilities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Inclusion Matters to Everyone!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doesn&#8217;t everyone have human limitations? We <strong>all<\/strong> need and have accommodations.<\/p>\n<p>Accommodations are the DNA of community life. We all need accommodations to be included.<\/p>\n<p>Things are only <em>perfectly good<\/em> for people with disabilities when they are <em>perfectly good<\/em> for everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Schools use 17-20 accommodations in classrooms so that teachers (like Jim&#8217;s wife) can teach.\u00a0 What happens when the school is asked to provide several accommodations for a child with disabilities?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Part of being a good advocate is to create the connection between a child, the principal, the school attorney, the IEP Team.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Make people see these issues in ways that would <em>&#8220;not be OK&#8221;<\/em> for them. Passion and emotion count!<\/p>\n<p><strong>No one should be comfortable when they propose to segregate a kid.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Inclusion matters to everyone!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jim Comstock-Galagan<\/strong> is the former Executive Director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sdlcenter.org\/\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Southern Disability Law Center (SDLC)<\/span><\/a>, New Orleans, LA and a faculty member at W&amp;M Law School <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/ISEA\/isea.2014.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Institute of Special Education Advocacy (ISEA)<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Jim shares his own story as he explains how his personal experience shapes who he is today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Jim Comstock-Galagan &#8211; 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 <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/inclusion-matters-to-everyone\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1373,1364],"tags":[53,1333,1003,1318],"class_list":["post-8471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lre-inclusion","category-school-administration-school-culture","tag-accommodations","tag-inclusion","tag-jim-comstock-galagan","tag-lre"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8471"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12921,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8471\/revisions\/12921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}