Coming Home

What is behind the increase in behavior students? Is there an increase? I only see what I can from my vantage point in the Ford library. There is all this commotion with this game of musical chairs(really classrooms) and it looks like the NASA program may not have a place to call home.That would be tragic. Science is our future.

For some reason. it seems that Ford has become the place where other schools are placing their behavior students. Most of the kids in Ford's behavior class are coming from other schools. While I believe Coach K is an exceptional teacher, I strongly believe students do much better in their neighborhood school. I base this opinion on my own personal experience as the parent of a special needs child.

My son was in a .4, behavior class at Shoemaker for about 5 years. His tenure there culminated with the fact that they could not take him safely on a field trip to the Science Museum. In his one year at Ford in a Honors class he was able to go on a 3 day field trip to Washington, DC. Of course, there were bumps at first to his initial placement there but I view those as kind of a decompression in the readjustment to his neighborhood school.

Keeping a student has the added benefits of not having the costs for transportation, a network of familiar friends(this is especially difficult for kids with spectrum disorders), and a known environment. A person's own community is just an extension of the family. Nobody takes care of family like family.