Schools Love To Talk About Their Commitment To Inclusion. But My Daughter Is Being Excluded.

I was prepared and excited for my daughter's very first IEP meeting. I was a little bit nervous, sure, but by all accounts that was to be expected. I had done my research and knew my daughter's rights and what the school district's obligations were.

I had provided the IEP team a Statement of Parent Concerns and a Vision Statement prior to the meeting, per the request of the meeting chairperson. In these documents I emphasized how important I feel it is for my daughter (as well as for her non-disabled classmates, teachers, and the larger school community) to be fully included in a classroom setting and educated alongside her non-disabled peers. I also shared my concern that my daughter would be underestimated because of her physical disabilities, which make it difficult for her to communicate without assistance.

I later realized that these two concerns, the importance of inclusion and the fear of being underestimated, really go hand in hand. Disabled students and disabled people in general are often underestimated and misunderstood precisely because they have historically been (and often still are) denied the opportunity to be in all of the places where non-disabled people live, work, and play. They are underestimated because they are often unknown, hidden away in segregated spaces. What is the best way to remedy this problem? Inclusion, of course! If disabled people were actually fully integrated into our schools and workplaces, I have no doubt that this problem would diminish greatly.

Anyway, back to my daughter's IEP meeting and my fervent wish that she be included with peers of all abilities. Above all else, I worry that my daughter will be rejected or misunderstood. I think this is a worry that parents share pretty much universally. For parents of disabled students, this worry is often heightened and persistent. We fear that our child who uses a wheelchair will be left out at recess or PE. We fear that our non-verbal children will be ignored, misunderstood, and denied their fair chance to learn to communicate in their own ways. We worry that they will be cast aside, bullied, or both.

Facing my daughter's entry into school, I felt some measure of comfort because we live in a large, heavily resourced school district that highlights its commitment to the principles of inclusion, and specifically the inclusion of students with disabilities. For example, there is at least one speech therapist on staff who deals solely with adaptive communication technologies for non-verbal students.

So, when I signed on to the IEP meeting (via Zoom, as we live in COVID times), I was feeling optimistic about my daughter's transition into a school district that is resourced, experienced, and seemingly committed to the inclusion of disabled students. I was looking forward to discussing my daughter's needs, of course (she has severe cerebral palsy, a G-tube, is non-verbal, and requires maximum physical assistance as she cannot sit, walk, or stand unaided), but also her strengths (she knows her shapes, colors, numbers, and alphabet, can read some words by sight, is social, funny, loves to laugh, loves to learn, and is extremely hard-working and focused). I was excited to discuss which supports the school would provide her to ensure that she could access the curriculum in an integrated neighborhood preschool classroom. And I was of course excited to find out which local school she would be attending.

It was gut-wrenching to realize that the IEP team had no intention of placing my daughter in an inclusive classroom. They told me that they would be assigning my daughter to a segregated classroom that is up to an hour away by bus in traffic (I found this out after the fact because no one informed me of the location of the school during the meeting). This segregated classroom, they told me, was populated only by students with physical disabilities. They said that it would be a good place for my daughter because the teachers and support staff are experienced with physically disabled students (whatever that means - every disabled child, like every non-disabled child, is unique, so experience with the "physically disabled" is not a compelling reason to deny a child her right to an inclusive education).

In recommending the "physically handicapped" classroom, the IEP team essentially said that it would not be appropriate for my sweet, smart, 3 year old daughter to be in a mainstream classroom in her own neighborhood. They rejected her.

When I asked to share my concerns that a segregated environment was not appropriate for my daughter, I was told that the time to share my concerns was after the school sent me the formal IEP for review. This was of course inappropriate and in violation of the law, which requires the IEP team to meaningfully consider all factors in support of placing a child in an inclusive classroom before even considering placement in a segregated classroom.

The meeting ended. I felt steamrolled. Then I felt embarrassed that I hadn't advocated more vigorously. I beat myself up, telling myself that with my legal background and all the preparation I had done that I should have been able to get a better result.

And then I realized that my understanding of the law, my preparation, my experience, none of it mattered. None of it mattered because the decision to place my daughter in a segregated preschool classroom had been made prior to the meeting and nothing anyone said was going to change that.

This is not the end of our story. I will review the IEP and I will reject any proposed placement of my daughter in a segregated preschool classroom. I will advocate for my daughter's right to be educated alongside her non-disabled preschool peers in an inclusion classroom much closer to home. I will advocate to get her all of the supports she needs for her full inclusion in that preschool class. If necessary, I will pursue all available legal remedies. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that.

One thing has become clear to me in this process, and that is that a school district's professed commitment to the abstract principle of inclusion has very little to do with how it implements (or fails to implement) inclusion as a practice in its schools. My daughter's exclusion from an integrated preschool classroom is exactly the kind of exclusion that reinforces the unnecessary marginalization of disabled people in our society. It's time to demand real, meaningful inclusion in our classrooms.