Public K-12 schools in the United States educate about 7.3 million students with disabilities – a number that has grown over the last few decades. Disabled students ages 3 to 21 are served under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees them the right to free public education and appropriate special education services.
The only problem is that in public schools mainly high school they completely ignore the IEP, 504, or any health plan I know this by my experience and others. even teachers know.
people with visible disabilities such as broken legs get keys to the elevator without any “proof” they need it and no I’m not blaming people with visible disabilities. Meanwhile there’s students such as me who have invisible disabilities and we need a doctor’s note to use any sort of mobility aid or elevator. When I pass out (I have POTS and they know it) they will call 911 even if I tell them because “you could be having a seizure and without the documentation of your condition” Which I find odd because they can put notes in manually… The campus is huge and all different subjects are in different sections math is upstairs English is downstairs ECT which poses the question if they are trying to make their campus accessible why only have 1 elevator?
I’m kind of with the school with this. Student passes out, 911 called, not really needed=moderate inconvenience. Student passes out, non-medical school employees decide it is no big deal, student dies=large inconvenience. I think caution is the more prudent choice.
they give ieps to students like me, for that alone they can ask.. I’m currently in a school with only 504 students and ieps so if they can have a detailed meeting with each student why cant they add that to the process
instead of leaving everything the student, the research the burnout they could ask specific questions, there is time and the budget they pretty much have the money but only use the money to get vending machines for staff and improve staff area the time is there I know this because there’s a little break between terms and question of “what accomodations do you need” then they also listen for 50 minutes while the student figures out what they need they could ask specific questions such as “do loud noises distract you” I have a IEP for my ADHD and they left me to do all the research one day before the only meeting.
The law sorta requires the schools to make room in their budgets for IEP students. Not to ignore them. Schools are strapped enough that many districts, especially red ones simply take the POV that the IDEA act and all it entails are simply one more unrealistic Washington unfunded mandate they’ll ignore. After all, the football team needs new uniforms.
Any student with a medical condition should be well-known to all the workers there, and should have some sort of ID badge with details, such as “gets faint from exertion” or “passes out into a diabetic coma easily” so staff can react appropriately.
Bottom line, our schools are failing the normies for lack of resources. They sure as heck can’t also take adequate care of IEP students needing an extra 10% or extra 300% of cost per student.
I’m really confused by this post. There’s a few things to tease out:
The budget for vending machines for staff is really different from the budget for accommodations. In general, staff vending machines are supplied by a third party vendor who services and stocks them. The vendor either offers them free of charge, or actually pays for the privilege of having them in the break room, because they turn such a profit.
“Improving staff area” has never been a financial priority at any school I’m at. If you get a thousand bucks of improvement over a year, that’s a windfall. That’s pennies compared to the cost of building a single accommodation or of a single staff position that meets accommodation needs.
There’s a break between terms, and that means that “the time is there”? Huh? What do you believe happens during that break? What’s your evidence to support that belief?
Of course we need to serve disabled students better. We also need to serve typically-abled students better. But I’m not sure your specific complaints here are backed by evidence.
My autistic son has been in the public school system for three years (he just started kindergarten after two years of ECSE.) We got lucky, I think. It’s a good system. He has an IEP.
He’s been having some challenges, though, so I think we may find the limits of an IEP. He started eloping during recess and art class because he finds the number of students and messy hands overwhelming. We’re trying to figure out how we can best support him and it’s going to require some accommodations, like his own eating place at lunchtime. I’m not really sure what to expect.
Twenty-five years ago, I was classified as disabled at my university due to PTSD and severe depression so that I could receive full time funding for part-time coursework, which enabled me to keep my scholarship. (I also had undiagnosed ADHD which explains a lot why that accommodation was so helpful.) It took a fair amount of work to get accomodations in place but overall I had a positive experience with the disability department.
My overall observation is that services for students with disabilities vary dramatically depending on where you live. It’s an exacerbation of already-existing educational inequality.
As far as what money is spent on, as a grants manager, I think it’s important for you to be to be aware that schools can’t spend their money on whatever they want to. It’s entirely possible that upgrading staff areas was the only way they were allowed to spend that money. This is a common misunderstanding we run into where I work - they may say, well why did you get a grant for this program instead of mine, when my program has the greater need? The answer is because that was the only option for how to spend those funds, and there simply aren’t a comparable number of opportunities for the higher-need program. It has nothing to do with what the agency prioritizes more. We are just taking every opportunity we can.