When inclusion isn't "inclusive"...

A recent article has brought to light a new way of claiming inclusion but still segregating children with disabilities. Schools are starting to lump a certain number of Special Education students into one classroom and call it a regular education classroom.

Taken from: http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin340.shtml

Up the road at Doctors Inlet Elementary School in Middleburg, Florida, the most efficient way to handle ESE students is to put them all in a single class at each grade level. In that way, "we are able to assign 2 teachers -- a regular classroom teacher and a special education teacher -- to each class," said principal Larry Davis. "In the typical inclusion classroom, a teacher will conduct a content lesson, and then the students will go to an assigned group for follow-up instruction focusing on that group's special needs or learning strengths."

As is the case in many other schools, grouping together inclusion students is the most efficient use of personnel at Southdown. "That often translates into some classrooms having a larger numbers of inclusion students than others," Peltier said. For example, the third grade has 12 special-needs students. The most efficient approach was to group them in a single classroom, even though that created a class in which 12 of 18 students have special needs.

Obviously, this tactic is a sly way to cut costs and remain in "compliance" with the least restrictive environment clause in IDEA 2004. However, it is not "inclusion" if all or most of the special education children are in one classroom.

Parent beware...be sure to ask how many special education students will be in your child's "regular education classroom". Because this model described above is not the Least Restrictive Environment.