Disabled student sidelined during performance

[Tony_FLADEM]

http://www.11alive.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1535232444001

[liberalhistorian]

1. Many school districts are now becoming

openly resentful of IDEA and its requirements and are more openly defying it, practically daring parents to take the time, energy and money to bring suit. Part of this is because they sense that there's less and less political support for IDEA and it may very well be watered down to almost nothing in the near future. A lot of schools resented and resisted IDEA from the beginning, it's just becoming more open now.

Some of that has to do with all of the extra, unfunded requirements of IDEA that cost schools a lot of money that they often just don't have. That's no excuse, of course, but more of an explanation.

[MichiganVote]

2. That's a strange story. I see nothing in it that would have prohibited

the student from participating fully. And I can't see how sitting 5-8ft from the rest of the group cost the school district more money. How sad for that student and the rest of the kids.

[liberalhistorian]

3. Oh, I totally agree and I'm completely

disgusted. If I were the kid's parents, that school would be in a heap of deep shit right now. I was just trying to show that a lot of schools are now not even hiding their short-sighted mean-spiritedness toward IDEA and disabled students. It's going to end up costing them more in the long run, but they refuse to see that. Problem is, I think repubs are now going to go after IDEA as much as they can and shatter established regulations and policies that were very hard-won and hard-fought. It's sickening to think that we might have to start doing that all over again.

[Aerows]

5. No more hard-won and hard-fought

Than women's rights, but they want to abolish those, too, because it interferes with their fundamental idea of "survival of the fittest" (and most privileged).

[MichiganVote]

6. Well here is what I think.

Yesterday someone posted on a thread and proposed that "most schools" did such and such. Today, I read your comments purporting, "a lot of schools" do such and such.

How do you or others know this? Isn't it possible that individuals who work in these schools make these mistakes in place of assumed bias on the part of an entire school or school district?

In reality, IDEA has never, ever, ever, been properly funded. So wouldn't that seem to indicate that our very federal education dept. already dismisses the laws that govern children with disabilities? And wouldn't that also argue that legislators have already 'gone after' IDEA?

And let's be fair and frank. There is the IDEA law and then states issue regulations as a way to implement the law. And then they implement policies. The IDEA law is important. The state regulations are fairly uniform state to state. But the policies? They are a nightmare.

Sad fact is, people in every domain of society have been shown to ignore all laws, all regulations and all policies some of the time. Yet the laws remain on the books, the regulations continue and the policies only get more complicated.

So really, "most schools" and "a lot" of schools doesn't quite get to the heart of the problem(s).

[Morning Dew]

4. Good grief! The choir director said he didn't see the student off to the side

and blames it on a student helper not being there to wheel the young man into place.

Because, well, he just didn't notice that the student (using a wheelchair!!) that he said "hi" to before the performance wasn't in place.