Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Disabled students twice as likely to be suspended

Dbat, it's sad, but lots of people send their kids to private schools expressly to keep them away from kids who have (ahem) "issues." Private schools are under considerable pressure from those parents to keep out kids who are regarded as troublesome, different, what have you--they typically have little incentive to help or serve those kids.

Often kids who have unusual needs really will do better in a public school, where at least they have their civil rights to fall back on.

DeeDee

Wow! And you accused me of being making regressive, biased claims based on pseudoscience! Can you please show me some peer-reviewed studies demonstrating that private schools trample the civil rights of their students? And that so many of us private school parents are putting considerable pressure on our kids' schools to keep out kids who are "troublesome, different, [or] what have you?" Or are you just allowed to make unsupported claims because you believe them?

I've looked at a lot of schools for my kids over the years (30+), and the only one I encountered that expressly didn't want kids with disabilities was a "high-performing" public school. They were honest with me: "our test scores are high because we don't admit kids with disabilities. They can get services at the other schools in the district."

The only point I'm trying to make here is that your generalization doesn't hold water. I expect that the knife cuts both ways on this question.

Sheesh!

The legal protections I am referring to (the "free appropriate public education" guaranteed by IDEA) do not apply to private schools. These schools are not required to make the same accommodations for people with disabilities as public schools are. These schools have a choice, and many of them choose not to offer services and supports such as aides, PT, OT, speech, as well as many subtler forms of accommodation. This is not a matter of "trampling" on anything; it is a matter of what rules apply to those schools, and the choices their administrators make. This is not necessarily an instance of "meanness"; it's undoubtedly a decision about resources and clientele and a host of different variables. Running any school is complicated.


Sorry I offended you; obviously, I am not talking about all private school parents or all private schools everywhere.

However, in my extensive school-shopping in my region and in my wide-ranging correspondence with other people who face the same issues in educating their 2E/AS kids that I face with mine, this is noted as a frequently occurring situation. Prestigious private schools routinely decline to admit kids like mine, or they expel them when the going gets rough. (I can add that therapeutic private schools often don't know what to do with the 2E, either, leaving few options.)

DeeDee

If that's what you meant, that's what you should have said, instead of making sweeping generalizations. For example, you said "civil rights," not "IDEA legal protections that apply in the public schools." These are very different things.

One might ask for clarification before becoming inflammatory. Just a thought.

DeeDee

Respectfully, you did precisely what you accused me of doing (twice now), which I am merely exposing. Calling me a regressive pseudoscientific racist when I wasn't even bringing up race or thinking in those terms was way more inflammatory than anything I've written in this thread and was highly offensive. But it's okay when you don't like what other people say, right?

I see that this is a tactic that people use to distract people from the real point at hand. It's common in politics and elsewhere, and I'm sorry to see it here.

I have no problem with contentious statements when supported. I just don't like this tactic of accusing others of doing what you're doing.

Nobody called you, or anybody else, that, Val, either on this thread or on the other. Please don't put words into people's mouths (fingers) and then attack them; it isn't either fair or helpful.

It sure sounded that way in the quote I included above that was posted here. But we're derailing this thread now.

Food Fight!