Special Education in 2017

Today's education for students who have disabilities still has not improved enough to truly help them. Supposedly there are laws in place, but just try to challenge something that is wrong and see if they help you. They don't. All students who have disabilities have a right to privacy. No student should ever be forced into a situation where they are made to feel uncomfortable. How would you feel if your doctor told everyone that you have a disease? Students who have disabilities have advisors that are assigned to help them. The problem is that these advisors really have no authority to correct something if anything goes wrong. There is always a boss of a boss that is higher up than they are, so where does it end when students run into problems with a class? What should be solved in a few days turns into weeks of waiting. When this happens it adversely affects the students who are having problems.

My child has disabilities. She has struggled for years because the people that should be helping her don't. It is either that they do not want to, or it is more likely that they do not understand how the disabilities impact their daily lives. When a student with disabilities has accommodations, the laws say that the teachers, or the professors, must follow what those accommodations say. My child's accommodations were not followed until she left public school and went to a homeschool co-op. A co-op is just like public school. They have teachers who teach daily and then you go home and do the work by yourself. Public schools need to get their act together, or if parents are smart they will send their children to home schools, or to private schools. I am sure that the government would not like that public schools are shutting down because of this. My child was a lot happier when she left to go to a homeschool. There these teachers actually cared about what she needed to stop struggling.

Now I am not talking about your everyday struggles. Yes those are difficult too, but she has disabilities. These are things that she has no control over, and the staff at her public school seemed to think that she should adjust to what they wanted her to do. It does not work that way. They need to accommodate her needs. Right now she is dealing with a similar situation at her college. It is either she tells everyone in the class that she has disabilities, or she gives up her accommodations. Do you understand how this is not fair to ask someone who has disabilities to do this? Their response is that this is not fair to the other students. Do the other students have disabilities? Maybe they do. If they did, she would not know about this and these students have no right to know that she has disabilities either. We have contacted the state education agency for help. They do nothing but say contact the federal government. When we do that, just guess what they say? Yes, they say contact your state education agency. Now just how is this helping? By the time anything gets done the class is over with, and again who has suffered? It's the child who has the disabilities.

My point is that nobody is actually doing their jobs. If the federal government, the Office of Civil Rights, wants to say that these are laws then properly punish those educators who will not follow what they say. It is 2017 and they are still not doing that. I am going to add links where you can contact the OCR. Write to them, and tell them that they need to start following their own rules. It is the law. No child should have to suffer just because a teacher or a professor does not want to do what is required of them to do. The OCR needs to have swift and severe punishments for these educators who disobey the laws. You can also contact the secretary of education. I will add that link below as well. It's likely that you are going to have to contact her press department, because her email address is not listed on their website. If you have children, you should care. If you do not have children you should still care. Please remember that these students are working towards the goal of getting a good education just like any other student is. They cannot do that unless they have the full support of the Department of Education. One day one of these students could be working for you, or you could be working for them. This is how this all affects you. You will want these students to have learned everything that they are capable of learning. This can be accomplished, but only if the OCR enforces the laws that are there in the first place to help the students who actually need their help.

As I said, my child has disabilities and she is also extremely intelligent. Yes this is possible. It is called Twice Exceptional. This is something that has no laws to protect these Twice Exceptional, these 2E students. This too must change. My child has so much potential and it is all being squashed just because these educators, these government agencies do not want to properly help her. One day if she is working for you, believe me, you will want to fully benefit from all of her knowledge.

Many students who have disabilities drop out of school because they cannot get the help that they need. Think about this too. Who do you think ends up paying for that? That is why you must get involved.

Write to Secretary DeVos, write to the OCR, and tell them to buckle down on educators who refuse to follow the laws. Turn it into a "three strikes you are out" law for these educators. Make it impossible for them to get away with not doing what they are told to do. With each mistake that they make then, they get closer to losing their jobs. This is the only way that things are going to change for these students who have disabilities.

Here are the links. Please write to them and tell them to get tougher with the people who are educating our students. We as a group can make a huge difference in the lives of these students. Like they say, "It takes a village."

U.S. Department of Education—Office for Civil Rights

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education