Every Student Deserves a FAPE — But That Doesn't Automatically Mean Full Inclusion

Let's talk about FAPE and placement.

You might have heard the phrase free and appropriate public education or FAPE, and it is something that your district is required to provide to every student.

If you're a public school district, you have to provide a free and appropriate public education to every student.

But one thing we've stopped talking about in recent years is the idea of placement and the idea that some students may need a different placement.

And that may be an alternative school, that may be a therapeutic setting, that may be a residential program, that may be an inpatient treatment setting, that may be a juvenile justice setting.

There are a variety of different settings other than the traditional public school, the mainstream classroom.

where students can receive their education.

There's also virtual, online, home-based.

I mean, there are a variety of settings.

And of course we want every student to participate in a regular classroom to the greatest extent possible, right?

Like we don't want to quickly resort to things that are you know kind of drastic that really cause the student to miss out on a lot of the the good aspects of an education but we also don't want to be in a situation where everybody's unsafe and i feel like that's where so many schools are saying you know where teachers are saying that's where my school is we are unsafe because we have these extreme behaviors that we are not equipped to handle and i don't really think i like i don't think we can accept the mission of being a behavioral health center.

I don't think you can accept the mission of turning your school into a full-on treatment facility.

I mean, if it is, great.

I've heard from a lot of people who do work in centers like that.

But they have very specialized training, they have very specialized staffing ratios, and they have different funding.

And I think we're seeing schools try to do that, try to be that way without the resources and funding because it's cheaper, right?

I said in one of my other videos, like you are the cheapest person for your district to inconvenience.

And if you have a student whose needs you legitimately cannot meet in your classroom, like you are not personally responsible for providing a free and appropriate public education.

So I think one of the things we need to have a bigger conversation about as a society is What percentage of students, you know, how many students are we talking about who really can be educated in a regular school with typical resources versus a more specialized setting?

And I do not want to increase the number of students who need to be educated in a specialized setting.

I think we need to decrease that number.

But I think we need to serve the students who do need a specialized setting in a specialized setting and not just try to make it work in a setting where it's never going to work.

So I don't know what the right numbers are.

I don't know what the right percentages are.

I don't think we can have a quota system.

But I do know we're failing a lot of our students and we're making life very, very difficult for many, many other people, including teachers, including students, when a student who needs a different setting is not getting it.

Let me know what you think.