Introduction
In order to complete this activity, I reviewed the Individuals with Disabilities Act and looked specifically at the concept of the least restrictive environment. I spoke with EL, the head of our on-campus school for students with special needs and MW, our lead special education teacher. I also spoke with AF, a middle school language arts teacher and considered my own experiences as the parent of an Asperger’s student in the school.
It is important to note that, as a private school, we’re not obligated to conform to IDEA the same way a public school is. Many schools like ours simply don’t have programs for students with learning disabilities, but we are proud of the fact that we do. We have a partner school on our campus which offers classes for exceptional students and, when appropriate, mainstreams their students into our classes. In this way, we offer an inclusion program for students for whom it is appropriate.
Findings
Our school professes to be an inclusive school and, for the most part, this is true. I have found, both as a teacher and a parent, that students with special needs get varying levels of support depending on the teacher of the class into which they are included and different teachers comply with the instructions of the special education team to varying degrees. That being said, we offer one of the better programs in our area for religious Jewish students with learning disabilities.
One point worth mentioning specifically is the remarkable way the school welcomes these students socially. Faculty and students alike go out of their way to make students in the inclusion program feel welcome and many of the mainstream students remark that having exceptional students in their classes impacts them and their learning in positive ways. The inclusion program may not comply fully with IDEA but it does offer a LRE option to families like mine and has in important moral benefit for our school as well..