More On The Dude

Remember The Dude? If you need refreshing click here. Anyway The Dude is about to be officially mainstreamed. I am all for mainstreaming a student. When it is for the right reasons. But unfortunately mainstreaming The Dude is for the wrong reasons. He is being moved because he is a behavior problem. But more because of personality conflicts within the class.

The Dude's mother will be coming in to sign the papers so he is no longer in special ed. Mom is sweet, but needs someone to advocate for her. The Dude and his sister are the adults in that home. In fact Sister is the one that cooks, gets The Dude ready for school and so on. Mom is going to be met with a full court press and told that The Dude has progressed and he is ready to move on. Also, why aren't teachers being asked to join in on the meeting with mom? But what, you may ask yourself, is the problem?

The problem is that the IEP/PPT team (school psych, etc...) have not tested him out of special ed. Nor was there any conference or anything to discuss it with IEP/PPT team. The Dude is two grades behind where he should be in reading and several teachers have mentioned that there might be dyslexia. Shouldn't he be tested for this? Seems to me that the law, if not the spirit of the law is being broken. Time to call in the school cops?

So another example of the "Children First" philosophy gone awry. More of the "cover your ass and hide your head in the sand and hope the problem either goes away or becomes someone else's" philosophy.