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The Beaverton School District is slowly shrinking it's sped programs.  Fewer elementary students are being admitted although teachers continue to ask for more help for many of them. 

High school sped classes are being cut completely.  Middle school sped teachers have been told to "get kids ready" for mainstreaming in high school because there will be no sped programs for them. 

These kids will not be able to make it through high school and we will see an increase in the number of drop outs.  Society will have to support these individuals because most will not be able to find or hold on to a job, certainly not in the current economy.

However, has the sped program actually helped these kids?  They make it through school but with lots of individual support, curriculum modification and lower standards.  Teachers often wonder how these kids will survive as adults after years of being allowed to slide through school with missed assignments and poor behavior.  Parents often want special treatment not special learning techniques and strategies.

To be blunt, it is the parents that need the special classes.  A large percent of sped kids are there due to poor parenting passed down from generation to generation.  Teachers often shake their heads when a kid gets a consequence for behavior learned and accepted from lax, absent parents.

I hope that the Beaverton School District is planning to replace it's sped program with something that truly works to help these students learn to learn and cope with the society they are entering.

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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My ex-husband carries concealed. He has been hospitalized twice for mental problems and was discharged from the military as being unsafe for service. For years he was sure the Vietcong were after him for atrocities in Viet Nam (he never left the basic training center, spent 4 month in the hospital and was discharged, all in the US).

We finally divorced after he refused to take medication to control his paranoia and our counselor told me he was so out of touch with reality that she feared for my safety.

This has never stopped him from getting a license to carry concealed. Every time I hear of a murder-suicide, road rage or someone found dead, I worry it might involve him.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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