I'm feeling all inconsistent about inclusion these days. On the one hand, last week I had to head off yet another attempt to pull my daughter out of her mainstream class and stick her in resource room for a good portion of the day. I had to again explain that that sort of remediation does not work for her, and that being in a classroom with everybody else does. Her teacher was just being concerned; I don't think it was an official child-study-team-mandated request, just an attempt to gently talk me into it. She didn't. My girl needs to be in the regular classroom, and I'll do everything short of crazy glue to keep her there.

 

So there, I'm the queen of inclusion. And in that spirit, I've also pulled the plug on my son's expensive, exclusive special needs camp and have found an in-town mainstream program that will take him on. We'll pay for him to have a one-on-one aide, but beyond that, he'll be just another kid, albeit a jumpy, noisy, busy, key-obsessed one. I'm feeling good about having him be part of the community this year, with kids he might actually see around town. Mainstream children have generally been kind to him, and I hope that will continue. For summer, anyway, inclusion's the ticket.

 

But during the school year, I can't work up any enthusiasm for that boy being in a mainstream class. He has a hard enough time staying focused in a small, structured, self-contained special-ed class; put him in a regular classroom with too many kids and too much going on, and he'd be at his hyperkinetic worst. It's even occured to me to wonder, as we approach his latest three-year review, whether he wouldn't be better off in a special school instead of just a special class. That's about as far from inclusion as you can get, and it's going to make some child-study-team heads spin that the mom who won't even allow her daughter to be pulled into resource room wants to send her son out of the home school, out of the community, and way out of the mainstream. But that's okay. It's good to keep them on their toes.