We know that merely opening the doors to school for students with disabilities is not enough.
Heck, it’s 2022, and some students are still using a “back door” to enter the special education classroom directly.
Across our country, the number of children with disabilities who spend 80% or more of their day in general education classrooms reached a high of more than 66% in the
2020-2021 school year.
The number of students with Intellectual Disabilities who spend 80% or more of their day in general education is at a dismal 17.9%.
We know that only looking at the number of minutes a student is seated in a general education
classroom does not equal being an active participant in the learning or making progress in the general education curriculum.
We know 80% of students who are physically restrained and 77% of those put
in seclusion have IEPs.
We know there are alternatives to restraint and seclusion, so students are not traumatized.
We know better and it's
past time to do better.