I hear you! I'm afraid a lot of school districts do not follow the federal law unfortunately. The support is the part I think our county has trouble with. Sure, he can go in there, but he's not getting any help because we don't have the money. Even though the law clearly says that they cannot do that. UGH!
Sandra
What a lot of states are trying to do is sabotage NCLB because it did not include federal funding with its demands. Basically, the federal government said "you have to do this, and you have to figure out a way to pay for it yourself..." It's just more piled onto the FAPE, which many states are not funding properly either.
Our wonderful governor- (now wanna be pres.
) Romney even cut grants that funded special education programs in the last quarter of the programs. He didn't even wait until the end of the school year. The funding was just gone, in April. Try telling kindergarteners why Miss Helper is not coming back after vacation...
We've cut 2-3 high school regular classroom teachers each year to keep our special ed department up to standards with students' needs. But now we have over 28 kids in a classroom, electives are gone, and we still need to cut $$$.
So, when schools say they don't have the money, they mean it - the economy stinks, house sales are down, and pretty soon a FAPE will mean everyone gets to sit in overcrowded classrooms with no support. Of course that's not fair for anyone, and it's not appropriate, and it's not an education, but that will be all the public schools can afford unless the federal government pays for what they demand we do.
Sorry to be on my soapbox, but I deal with this mess every day, and I've watched the government demands go up and the funding go down for over 11years.
