Special ed kids used as janitors

[Rudey]

So what you're telling me is it takes 12 years of training for someone retarded to understand how to broom.

You also think they are undeserving of an education or even babysitting if you want, but the general US population that makes the average SAT score fall to around 1100 or so is deserving of their education.

You see that the parents object. Did the school go and present this to them or did they not know?

-Rudey

Originally posted by ktsnake
They, like every other American deserve the right to be able to work. These kids are developmentally on many different levels. Yes, it actually does take repetition and training sometimes to teach them to do janatorial jobs. I think most of these kids and most of their parents are glad to see their kids having the opportunity to be productive. I'm sure if the parents object, the kids can be taken out of their work-study programs and sit with the severe/profound kids that can't do much more than drool on themselves.

Switching to being a Doctor/lawyer is not exactly an option here. The message is that the school is doing the best it can to prepare these kids for life after school. There's a janitor at one of the schools I work at who's shall we say of below average intellect. He graduated HS and got a job at his alma mater cleaning. Dude loves his job and is truly as happy as he can be.

And these days when we have to deal with all of these budget cuts in schools, this program sort of kills two birds with one stone.

[33girl]

It would have been one thing if these kids had been working in an offsite location under the auspices of this being an adult job. My alma mater's had a work-study program for years where special ed kids have jobs like food service and janitorial work. They go out in the "real world" and do it. Forcing them to pick through garbage in front of their peers, however, is demeaning and cruel. I'm not saying janitorial work is demeaning, but for kids who are the targets of cruelty anyway, it just is another thing to tease them about.

p.s. Rudey I like your new sig. I liked Creed when they were called Pearl Jam.

[AGDee]

I agree that the ideal situation would be to work away from the school. The programs that I'm familiar with in this area are self contained schools, not integrated with the mainstream. However, the article did say that this was the first time they'd done it in the school because they couldn't get businesses to participate. I don't think they meant any harm to the students, I think they were scrambling for work for the students to do and didn't think it through thoroughly.

As for having to train for 12 years to do this type of work... Many of these students spend far more than 12 years in school. A child with Down's Syndrome begins school at age 3 and is entitled to an education until age 26. Most that I've seen in Vocational Rehab were actually older than the students in this article... more like 19-26. It could have taken them until age 10 to speak clearly, to learn to dress themselves, to learn to eat with utensils, etc. They function at hugely varying degrees so you can't generalize. What takes you 5 minutes to learn very well may take them 5 years to learn. Recognizing and counting different denominations of money is taught around 1st or 2nd grade but some of these students may not be able to do it by age 18 even. Some are never able to learn these basic skills.

Dee