Leah M. answered • 01/30/22
Elementary tutor, MA in Teaching Elementary Ed, Bachelor of Science
I looked up the article about "Building a More Inclusive Province."
I taught special education, grades K-2, for 2 years and inclusion (grades K, 2, 3, 5) for 4 years.
I do not believe this is a bias.
- Some students with disabilities can function in the mainstream/regular classroom. They have accommodations and modifications to assist. the children with IEP's. There is a wide range of disabilities: ADD, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Developmental Delays, Auditory Impairment, Deaf-Blindness (DB), Emotional Disturbance (ED), Learning Disability (LD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Multiple Impairments (MI), Orthopedic Impairment (OI)>
The higher functioning students are included in a regular sized classroom. They are assigned a Sped teacher for a certain amount of time during the day to help them with math, ELA, and testing.
Here are quotes from websites to help explain it:
Many schools have inclusive classrooms. In part, that’s because of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). This law says that students who get special education services should learn in the least restrictive environment (LRE). That means they should spend as much time as possible with students who don’t get special education services.
Inclusive classes are set up in a number of ways. Some use a collaborative team teaching (or co-teaching) model. With co-teaching, there’s a special education teacher in the room all day.
In my experience, inclusion means Special Needs students learning in a regular education classroom.
In my experience, I have noticed more disabilities in my classroom. This is not bad. It actually helps the students with disabilities. This could be attributed to home environment, diet, or developmental delays. The teacher, school psychologist, educational coordinator, and the principal discuss a plan of care/individual learning plan/initiation of an Individual Educational Plan.
Another meaning of inclusion means this. I found it on the web. When I went to grad school, we learned a lot about the importance of diversity. This actually works to prevent biases. This provides students from different backgrounds/races/SES the right to education in a regular classroom without biases.
This is directly from this website I found (https://tcf.org/content/report/school-integration-practice-lessons-nine-districts/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA6NOPBhCPARIsAHAy2zClhs-ciIn30Hb_HdBwoPdJEXC-GFycBPz0xLPAFBIvaQZ1hp1EXMEaAoFxEALw_wcB). I hope this helps you.
For two decades, The Century Foundation (TCF) has been researching and reporting on socioeconomic school integration programs that promote economic and racial diversity as a way of fostering social mobility and social cohesion. The case for pursuing these policies is powerful: low-income students in mixed-income schools are as much as two years ahead2 of low-income students in high-poverty schools; and diversity benefits middle-class students as emerging research3 has shown that being in diverse learning environments can make students smarter. We are, to coin a phrase, stronger together.
But how exactly does a school district go about creating socioeconomically and racially integrated schools? The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle4 struck down racial integration plans in Seattle and Louisville but allowed the use of socioeconomic factors (and the use of race at the geographic rather than individual student level). In 2007, TCF released a profile of twelve districts that detailed some early efforts at socioeconomic school integration.5 Since then, the number of districts pursuing socioeconomic diversity has more than doubled, as has the sophistication of those plans. So TCF has commissioned a new set of nine district case studies written by Century Foundation fellow Halley Potter, policy associate Kimberly Quick, and three outside authors: Carole Learned-Miller, Suchi Saxena, and Kim Bridges.6
