When students at a California high school received their yearbooks recently, one group was conspicuously missing. There were no photos of the school’s 11 special education students.
Officials at Madera High School in Madera, Calif. say the error was innocent. Special education students do not have student identification numbers and, as a result, the computer failed to include their photos to be printed in the yearbook.
School officials printed an insert with the 11 students’ photos, but only gave the new page to the students whose photos were omitted. And that has the students’ parents saying the school has done too little to correct the problem. They insist the insert should have been distributed to all 600 students who purchased the yearbook, reports The Fresno Bee. To read more click here.
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My daughter was graduated from high school in 1996. She was included in the yearbook, but among the remembrances you could order was a mug that purportedly featured the names of all the seniors. We bought a mug, but when it arrived, her name and all the rest of those from the Special Education classes had been omitted. I requested that the school submit a new order that would feature hers and the others names. I was told that it would cost too much. I was also told that I would not be compensated for the cost of the mug I received (even though I did not ask for that).
I know that 1996 was a long time ago, but my heart still aches whenever I see that mug and think about how (intentional or not) she and her friends were slighted.
Don’t be fooled. The error was not innocent. It was a mistake of convenience. Ask yourself a question? Why were the self contained students not pictured on their work sites. (I am assuming they were in a community based program.) Why were they not pictures cooking and doing other things that students in functional programs do. Doesn’t anyone sing in the school choir? This kind of thing happens somewhere every year. Last year it was an elementary in Louisiana. The only time it does not happen is when someone decides to ensure that it won’t. That means there is a special educator at or near the top of the helm at the school or there is a special education parent on the School Board or maybe there is a particularly hellraiser of a special education teacher on staff. Sometimes you have to put the fear of God in those regular education people. You will be left out if you don’t.
Why don’t sped students have student id numbers? Why wasn’t everyone sent an insert? So often, in so many ways, disabled people, and especially developmentally disabled people, are forgotten or deliberately ignored.
This “oversight” is not something that happened in the mid-nineties. It happened at the end of the last school year, and it’s hardly the worst of it. These things happen because nobody pays attention. They are not, and will not be, things of the past until everyone starts taking notice.
this is no cause for this to happen for anybody exspecialy the special needs children. these childern are very special and do not need to be excluded from any program that it offers.these childern has strengths that nobody cares to know about or wants to take the time to invest in. these childern which is going to be our future adults someday. from a concern mother and a para educator/teacher.