Special Education, Special Consideration

When it comes to special education in America's schools, the process can be seen with a lot of stigma. A teacher I interviewed, when it came time to possibly go with special education consideration for a student, had the process stopped by the parents, who did not want to deal with the stigma of having a special education student.

This seems entirely unfair to the student, but, honestly, the most important element of special education is the family. Often times, they can be one of the people who refer the student for special education services, they are integral to the failure or success of most forms of special education the students would need (as the skills learned in the class must be reinforced at home)... but, above all, it is their child who all of this is happening to/for, and one must always respect the parent/guardian's wishes when it comes to the child. However, if we want to remove some of the stigma surrounding education, educating the parents on what it would entail would do wonders.

For starters, it's not a fast process, nor is it undertaken lightly. Six weeks of data are collected by the teachers, with different strategies and situations provided and applied to see if, perhaps, there is another solution that can solve the problem without special education. Even then, the referral could go to doctors or other professionals who decide that, while there is an educational issue, special education may not be the solution, and thus a simple change of the academic order will happen. For those students who are identified and qualified under IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), a team is immediately put in place with goals to support the teachers, the parents, and above all, the student in the road to the child's education.

All public schools must comply with FAPE (Free and Appropriate Public Education), but to what degree that is depends on the students' needs. They must provide help in the Least Restrictive Environment, but whether that is a Fully Self Contained classroom where the child (or children with similar needs) are separated entirely from the other students, a Resource room where the children are brought for extra care or attention apart from the general education, or simply additional SPED support for the student in the General Education classroom depends on the disruption it would cause the child and the children around them. However, before you worry that a child with a minor disability will be locked away in a completely separate room, know that school, like anyone else, want to spend the least amount of money on a problem, and thus will default to simple solutions if they will work before working on more complex or extreme ones.

The important thing when it comes to Special Education is that it is caught early. The earlier a disability is found and worked around, the less impact it will have on the child's education and opportunities in the world going forward. There are programs around the world that are working to ensure that every single child has the best chances going forward, whether it be Finland's focus on catching disabilities early and working incredibly hard with the parents and teachers for the good of the child, or the School of One in New York working to specialize education for all students based on their needs. On the day when the funding for these kinds of programs is widespread enough for all schools, it will be a new advent in education all across the globe. Until then, we must work with what we have to personalize special education to the needs of the student and give them just as many opportunities as the children around them.