I was struck by the amount of exclusion that students with disabilities face in classrooms. After the activity with the sticky notes, I went to the BCEd Access website and found their Exclusion Tracker reports, which report the number of student absences and instances of exclusion faced by disabled students. Looking through this document was a huge wake-up call for me as a future educator; when I was in school I never noticed instances of exclusion, or if I did, I assumed that they were due to “bad kids” misbehaving and not because the classroom wasn’t meeting their needs.
The fact that the school district receives additional funding for students with designations, but that the money doesn’t go directly to the students in need, doesn’t sit right with me. I feel that as an educator I should try to advocate for these student needs during department and staff meetings where discussions about funding arise, hopefully persuading the administration to think about where they money they are receiving comes from and where it should be going.
As somebody who has waited for well over three years on a waitlist for a psychological evaluation, I sympathize with students who are waiting for the same thing right now, especially those who need that evaluation to get the supports that they need to succeed in school. I hope that as a teacher I can understand these students and help them out in my classroom regardless of what designation they were or were not able to receive.