A school district in Missouri is facing anger from parents. The school has been conducting Special Education classes in trailers and segregating students who have special needs away from their peers. Parents want their kids to have a classroom inside the building. The school district says they don’t have the funds to make any changes.
The current trend in Special Education emphasizes inclusion. Historically, the pendulum of public opinion swings from wanting all students who have special needs to be isolated from the general population to wanting all students to be together, regardless of special needs. As a former teacher, I have heard arguments for both sides of this situation.
In Missouri, the Lebanon School District has decided to put their Special Education students into two trailers. In other words, the Special Education classes are not being held in the same building where the general education classes are held. The Special Education classes are for elementary students who have special needs, but, the trailers are located behind the Lebanon Junior High School.
This has many parents quite upset, and they are asking for this situation to be changed. The parents want their children to be educated in a classroom that is located inside the elementary school building. They point out that the Special Education students are spending 90% of their day inside the trailers, and that they have very little interaction with other kids their age.
Lebanon Superintendent Duane Wildham says that this is a matter of funding and limited space. He said:
“We don’t have unlimited funds in our district to do everything we would like to do and we would like to see done. So we continue to spend it the best we can.”
This, of course, is an unacceptable response. Some parents have said that they will give the school district until the beginning of the upcoming school year to stop the segregation. If the school district continues to put the Special Education classes in the trailers behind the Junior High, parents have threatened to pull their children out of the Lebanon school district. They will either homeschool, or will move to another district.
Image by Jeff Kopp on Flickr