Placement of Students with Extensive Support Needs in California School Districts: The State of Inclusion and Exclusion

Abstract

Access to general education settings for students with disabilities varies greatly among and within states across the United States and worldwide. The variability in placement and lack of access to general education for students with disabilities, particularly students with extensive support needs, are reasons to identify factors associated with placement and then address the role of current policy. Explored in this study were the placement of students with extensive support needs in 938 school districts across the State of California in the United States and the relationship between placement and economic and demographic factors. Results suggest alarmingly low access to general education classrooms for students with extensive support needs, significant variability in placement, and relationships between placement and factors, such as total enrollment, race, and expenditure.

DisCrit at the margins of teacher education: informing curriculum, visibilization, and disciplinary integration

“…Specifically, (a) tenet two, troubling singular notions of identity; (b) tenet four, privileging voices of multiply marginalized populations; and (c) tenet seven, requiring activism and resistance, seem to present important starting points for positioning DisCrit as a possible avenue for reconceiving the experiences of students labeled with complex support needs, who experience multiple forms of marginalization that are often unrecognized, within educational contexts. This also offers the opportunity to reconceive educational opportunities and settings that remain highly segregated for these students, with little-to-no access to general curriculum, general school environments, and peers without disability labels (Cosier et al 2020).…”

“…The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities demands inclusive education be available for every student regardless of the complexity of their disability (UN 2006), yet far too often inclusive opportunities are denied to historically marginalized students. In fact, many students labeled as needing 'extensive' support, experience severely segregated settings (Cosier et al 2020), rendering them largely/all but invisible.…”

Increasing Inclusive Education Through a Learning Center Model: A California Approach

“…Students with severe disabilities are more frequently educated in segregated environments and away from their peers without disabilities (Morningstar, Kurth, & Kozleski, 2014). Particularly in California, access to general education classrooms for students with disabilities has varied based on severity of disability (Cosier, Sandoval Gomez, Cardinal, & Brophy, 2020). Most recently, proposed California State A.B.…”

“…Most recently, proposed California State A.B. 1914(2020 recommends, "...increasing opportunities for pupils with disabilities to meaningfully participate in general education." This legislature provides guidance on why and how inclusive education could be increased, while the programming itself will be left to each district within the state.…”