jcox
New Member
Okay... the school succeeded in pissing me off this morning. When I dropped Elijah off at his school this morning his 1:1 aid told me she was a little upset that all the kindergarteners at the K-2 school up the hill went on a field trip yesterday to an animal farm. She did not get notified of this trip and neither did I. She has spoken to the SPED director several times about including Elijah in trips, performances, etc. with his peers. Is this legal? From my understanding it seems that it might be a violation of Section 504 because he was excluded do to his placement which is a result of his disability.... The school district only had one substantially seperate classroom in the whole district which is at his current school of 3-4th graders. We told the SPED director that we wanted him included in activities with his peers from kindergarten. When his aid was talking about it this morning Elijah mentioned how he would have petted the animals like this... showed with a gentle hand, and how he would have fed the baby sheep it's bottle. He looked sad too that he was excluded. His aid also told me that the rest of the kindergarteners are having a Memorial Day Program which she did not get informed about. They all started practicing thier songs last month, but he did not have a chance to. I don't even think that the plan was to include Elijah, but his 1:1 aid is going to get a couple songs that they are singing, teach him them, and bring him anyways.
Another thing the kindergarteners have thier own computer based reading program called Lexia that his aid is doing with him... yes his aid... not the SPED teacher. She is getting some good teaching experience because it seems that she is his unofficial teacher. Anyways the teachers, assistants, etc. got a three day training on this program which is new a couple weeks ago. She did not get informed of the training, so she did not go until the second day when she found out from word of mouth, not from a supervisor, that it was going on. So great not only is my son excluded from field trips, but his aid is being denied the right training do to his placement as well....
I guess I should look on the bright side... atleast Elijah is getting to go on a field trip to Boston on a Trolly Tour with the 3-4th graders that I am chaparoning him on. When they told me about the trip they were telling me that they did not know if maybe I wanted to drive the 90+ miles and meet them there because he might not do good on the bus. No thank you I drive to Boston enough! I told them that I would go and he would be fine if we get to sit up front where he won't be able to see all the other kids.
Okay... enough is enough. I am going to spend the day researching and trying to figure out if it was legal for them to exclude him from the field trip, deny his aid training, exclude him from the Memorial Day program, etc. I might just file a 504 violation with the Civil Rights Bureau just in case it is not legal. They should know better than to **** me off! I already called the SPED director, and my advocate but neither were in so I left messages. Later this afternoon I will call the SPED director back. I was thinking on going to sit in his office until he comes, but maybe that would be rude. Maybe I should call the superintendent too just to "inform" him of what is happening and what my son is being excluded from.
