DESPERATELY SEEKING: General Education Inclusion for Autistic Child (Redmond, Kirkland: fit in, how much)

[charliefoxtrot]

Hi. I've been struggling for years to find a public school, within Washington State, that is supportive of General Education Inclusion for Autistic students and has an Inclusion Model program in place. I cannot find A SINGLE ONE! At this point, I'm ready to leave the state...

My child has been stuck inside of Contained Learning Centers/Life Skills/Resource Rooms ever since he started public school. Private schools hesitate to enroll Autistic children (at least, this seems to be the case w/ many I have spoken to).

Though Contained Learning Centers, theoretically, provide more intensive support...they also enclose these children amongst each other's dysfunctional behaviors (all day). Furthermore, from an academic standpoint, the curriculum moves at a much slower pace and children, like my son, end up falling behind.

Appropriate Placement seems to be another issue. Depending on the district's model, many Special Education students are placed into the same CLC classroom regardless of age, grade level, disabilities, or academic skills. As such, what was once considered the 'Least Restrictive Environment' has become the 'Most Restrictive Environment' for a child in desperate need of appropriate role model behavior, assimilating expressive language skills, higher academics, and opportuntities for social interaction with grade level peers.

One Special Ed instructor actually referred to her classroom as a 'dumping ground for disabled students'....Mercifully, she quit at the end of this past school year.



Even though my child is higher-functioning, w/ close-to-grade level academic skills, I get many excuses and roadblocks at every damn IEP meeting. Excuses like:

• "Inclusion is not our district's model"
• "His time needs to be 'purposeful" (this was said by a District 'Behavorialist' who should know the social/adaptive benefits for ASD kids when they're included in an environment of appropriate role model behavior). In truth, ALL time at school should be 'purposeful'.

and, of course, my personal favorite:

• "We cannot allow parents to dictate minutes".Funny, I thought parents were part of the IEP 'Team'.

(For those parents feeling my pain, right now: Have you ever noticed just how much we're excluded from the actual IEP process? How the mood in the room changes when a parent starts advocating for their Child's needs & placement? And, as always, there's the Administrative bulldog whose job is to intimidate the parent. Basically, it's 'Sit down. Shut up. Listen. Read. Sign!').

Problems arise when I address the issue of 'Inclusion Minutes' at these IEP meetings. Though Special Ed students are allowed group Inclusion time (such as lunch/music/recess/PE) I don't believe this is sufficient enough. Many of these activities do not provide structure, or consistent opportunities for interaction between special needs students with the typically developing peers. Also, the Special Ed students are kept within their own, respective group during these activities, without any facilitation from staff to support interaction between them & the General Ed peers.

When I asked one instructor WHY increasing Inclusion minutes is such a battle with public school administrators, she replied: "Administrators start freaking when parents want to increase their kid's Inclusion minutes 'cause it messes with the funding"....True?

(I am not even asking these nincompoops for full-day mainstreaming...at this point, 2 hours a day would suffice!).

I am looking for ANYTHING at this point: Private school, a public school, school district, programs, etc. that is/are supportive of General Education Inclusion for Autistic children and has an actual Inclusion program in place.

My son's now entering the last year of Elementary school. I believe the public school system has let him down, terribly...and that time is running out.

So, if anyone out there knows of such an pro-Inclusion environment, has resources, or knows a person I could speak to: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE respond.

Thanks & God bless.

[Mil title]

Hi - has anyone replied to you? We are thinking of moving to Washington and our daughter has been in a full inclusion environment for 2.5 years. She has Down syndrome, but performs at or above grade level. I would be very interested in what you have learned.

[Hemlock140]

I missed this one back in 2009. Lake Washington School District has "resource centers" but will leave some students in the regular classrooms and provide some additional help part of the day in other cases. Talk to the District Office in Redmond about it. Their schools are in Kirkland, Redmond, and Sammamish. Many parents of Special Ed kids in these areas have hired advocates and/or attorneys to make sure their kids get the services they are entitled to by law.

http://www.lwsd.org/Parents/Special-...s/default.aspx

[restless in woodland wa]

look at the la center wa school district.
reason i say this i went to this school my intire school years k thru 12 and it is a very very good school district as well as they do not put up with all the crap other schools do.
further more they have great adademicis and sports programs.
next my dad voluntered/taught/helped at the school since i was in 9th grade.
he also run all the clocks for all the sporting events and has since about 74/75.
yet he retired fully about 2 year ago as he will be 73 here this yeaf.
how ever when he was teaching/voluntiring it was mostly in the metal/wood shop and they would bring the specail needs kids right into the wood shop and he would help the specail needs kids build there owen wood projects/grandet the specail needs kids and there teacher helper are what ever they call them ther with them.
but they were interacting with the normal students as they were in the shop at the same time as the normal students doing hands on and there was no specail time set up for them to be in the shop when the normal kids were not in there.
in fact he work with 1 high school aged student that was in a wheelchair that was born with birth defects making it impossable for him to speak talk move etc.
how even my dad said he gave him a piece of ceadar wood and it made the students day and the student tilt up like you would not belive as well as my dad let the student take the piece of wood when his time in the class was up and the students teacher/helper said it made the students day .
further more i can tell you from going to school at la center my intire school years that the teachers were great and always willing to go over and above to help the students.
lastly ci am not sure what there programs are for the specail needs kids exactly but based on what my dad has said and my personal exspriance of etending school her k thru 12 that la center has an abouve average school that is willing to go the extra mile to help there students.
lastly this is comming from a forumer student of the lacenter school district that has know bin out of school for going on 25 years and i know for a fact the lacenter schools are better and inproved sence i went to school and they were great back than.
restless in woodland wa

[lady fern]

Mil title, if you child is in a school that is working for them, I would be cautious about a move. My son had an IEP as well and I found the process maddening. We moved through several local elementary schools and only one of them seemed to have a structure that was truely supportive of the children. I always got the impression that the schools wanted the children to fit into a box and really didn't know what to do when they didn't.