To Holly re aide

[Guest guest]

Dear Holly,

On 3/13/06 11:47 AM, you wrote:

> They said

> that they don't do that unless the child is totally out of control and

> kicking tables and hurting others. At my son's school---they have ZERO

> kids with 1:1 aides. This school just doesn't do it. They also said

> that the kids who get the aides are hearing impaired or " physically "

> needing the aide.

If that is their policy, it's against federal law, which says that every

child has a right to a " free and appropriate public education " in the " least

restrictive environment. " If he needs an aide to participate in the

environment that would best match his needs, then the school has to provide

one.

Also, the reason he needs the aide IS physical -- his brain does not operate

the way " typical " kids' brains do. The school is not allowed to

discriminate between kids with visible and invisible disabilities. It must

provide the conditions under which your son can learn. It doesn't matter

what other kids do or need, since the law says that IEPs have to be based on

the individual student's needs, not the school's.

It's amazing that they would say they can't provide an aide unless the child

is totally out of control and hurting others. In other words, wait until he

goes nuts trying to survive in an inappropriate environment, THEN provide an

aide! That makes no sense at all.

If you have any desire to negotiate, try asking for a classroom aide that

would help your son as well as other children in the classroom. That was

the arrangement that worked for my son in elementary school, since he spent

most of his time in his home classroom, where the aide was. She made the

teachers' lives much easier. When my son entered middle school, we

successfully argued for a 1:1 assistant, on the grounds that he was moving

around too much from one class to another for a classroom aide to make

sense.

Jill