Siblings and the SAP
Okay, so I have watched about 2 hours of the Board meeting (and boy do I feel for those parents who came to hear about the Transition Plan). At about the 2 hour mark, they got to the Transition Plan. But I stopped watching (my brain was tired and full) so I'll watch it and report back tomorrow.
However, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson said something important about the Plan previous to the actual discussion. Many speakers this evening were parents who were unhappy about lack of any real assurance about whether their children would be together in one school under the Transition Plan. What Dr. G-J said, was this (and I paraphrase but I listened to it twice):
If all the measures they have put in place to have the entering kindergartener at the older sibling's school don't work, then the district will assure parents that the older sibling will be at the entry sibling's attendance area school assignment.
Okay so that means two things.
One - all siblings will be kept together (at least an entering kindergartener and older sibling) at some school.
Two - if number one is true, then all the reopening schools have to open at K-5 which is something that has been in flux. But if what Dr. G-J says is true, then those schools would have to all open at K-5 to accommodate that promise because the older sibling could be any grade 1-5.
More to follow.
However, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson said something important about the Plan previous to the actual discussion. Many speakers this evening were parents who were unhappy about lack of any real assurance about whether their children would be together in one school under the Transition Plan. What Dr. G-J said, was this (and I paraphrase but I listened to it twice):
If all the measures they have put in place to have the entering kindergartener at the older sibling's school don't work, then the district will assure parents that the older sibling will be at the entry sibling's attendance area school assignment.
Okay so that means two things.
One - all siblings will be kept together (at least an entering kindergartener and older sibling) at some school.
Two - if number one is true, then all the reopening schools have to open at K-5 which is something that has been in flux. But if what Dr. G-J says is true, then those schools would have to all open at K-5 to accommodate that promise because the older sibling could be any grade 1-5.
More to follow.
Comments
1. SPS will try to put the incoming sibling (IS) in the same school as the older sibling (OS). If that doesn't work, there are two approaches:
A. If the IS applied to ONLY the OS's school and the family's assignment area school, the OS and the IS will be assigned to the assignment area school.
B. If the IS applied to several schools in addition to the OS's school, both siblings will be assigned to one of the schools in the middle school service area, preferably one of the schools the IS applied to or the assignment area school.
Both A and B only happen if the parents specifically request. This gives parents an interesting and perhaps difficult choice. If they want the OS's school, but would be happy with their assignment area school, then they would go with A. If they don't like their assignment area school and choose B, they're rolling the dice a little with the assignment--they may get a school they want in the service area, or they may get one they never even applied for.
This is from my memory, and I didn't get enough sleep last night because I stayed to the bitter end of the transportation issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I did notice the pushback on STEM, particularly on the cost and how staff chose their STEM contractor (NTN). It sounds like NTN is a high-end provider (great, if we can afford it), and it's not clear to me if there were other options that would have provided less to SPS at a lower cost. Presumably, the difference in what was provided would be made up by SPS staff. Carr in particular wanted to know how much was from outside and Cleveland funding sources, and how much was pulled away from other programs. DeBell wanted to know how SPS would make sure we had teachers who could be effective in the STEM program.
Isn't is a little late for "pushback" since 1) The board voted for the STEM program. 2) CHS is now a Option school.3)They have promoted the 2010 STEM program to families.
Sounds like Jane Addams all over again.
Seriously. This is out of control.
Having only 500 responses to the 9300 surveys sent out is causing the district to cry 'we don't have enough data' to model the transition plan properly. Sherry got pretty livid about it.
It does amaze me that they couldn't get information about incoming siblings. Whatever happened to asking for sibling information in the first day packet we all get every year ? Easy to do and there's the data to model a transition plan.
If you didn't watch that far, it's an interesting discussion that is showing the board is really listening to the parents right now.
The board a few years ago was bold...but also dysfunctional as an operating body and also often ascerbic and antagonistic to staff. This board is way more polished in dealing w/ staff and the public...and also appears more savvy.
And also..MGJ has been taking "charm and approachability" lessons. She's never going to be mistaken for a warm personality, but something's changed here. Possibly in direct correlation to the board getting bolder. Will it all matter in the end to parents? Hold on. (P.S. Another tip to MGJ...now that you don't text through the mtgs. anymore, and you are actually watching the public testifiers, could you also stop chomping on your gum while the public talks. It's tacky.)
Oh, and Susan Enfield appears a step up in both professionalism, knowledge and in persona than her predecessor. In this time of turmoil perhaps some small positive steps forward downtown.
If you have a kid in a special program (APP, Spectrum, etc.), is that child treated differently for the purposes of trying to consolidate kids (I'm really thinking about elementary schools, but I suppose the question could be asked for middle and high schools as well)? I'm assuming that the answer to that question is "yes" (and don't care that much from a personal perspective, since all of my kids will be four years apart in school), but I'm curious. At the time that the district split the APP program, one of the things we were told was that splitting the program would let us consolidate APP kids and their sibs at one school, but the SAP as far as I can tell doesn't make any provision for that whatsoever, since there are only a handful of APP students for whom the APP site is also their attendance-area school.
We pretty much predicted problems with that survey on this blog a few weeks ago. They sent the survey to families with at least one child who will be attending their non-reference school next year, but they asked families to send the survey back ONLY IF they have a younger sibling entering K in 2010! It astounds me that they didn't ask about siblings entering in later years or about families with no additional siblings. What a wasted effort.
So of course they don't have enough data for reliable modeling. They needed to ask ALL families to return the survey, whether they have an incoming sibling or not. You have to know the survey response rate to know how complete your results are and whether you can do any sort of reliable modeling or imputation of missing data.
Maybe 500 is the correct number of siblings entering in K. Unfortunately, there isn't any way to know based on how they handled the surveys.
Of course, what about data collected locally? Our school's staff feel fairly confident that they know the number of potentially split families for next year, and they appear to be prepared to enroll all of them. It might mean turning at least one more "specialty" room into a homeroom (eg, art room becomes a K class; art teacher rotates to the children instead of vice versa). Heck, the transition plan itself even says that they may ask office staff to work out of an RV on the parking lot for a few years to create new classrooms for the "surge."
I feel pretty certain that the vast majority of siblings are going to be accommodated at the older sibling's school if all of this holds true. Families may have to wait a few weeks after their initial assignment letter for confirmation, but I do think they are going to make it happen.
Yes there is a program at CHS, which parents must choose since they can't assign anybody to the school. 49 students put CHS as a first choice school this year, 88 student were assgined. (I don't know if that figure includes the 49) In any case, for 2010 they cannot assign one student to the school. If there is no STEM, I don't see why more than 50 families would choose the school, which makes it grossly under-enrolled. This could potentially mean that some other nearby highschools are over-enrolled versus being put on a waitlist. My understanding is that everybody gets a seat at their assigned school. Is this correct?
In any case, I really think that this is another example of the board voting on a proposal without first having all the information. Had the board known there was a million dollar price tag associated with turning CHS into an Option school with the STEM program I believe the school would still be a neighborhood high school.
My personal reaction is one of anger and dismay for the pushback for STEM - talk about jerking around the students who are already at Cleveland. STEM was voted in and the board should have been asking all these questions much, much earlier.
Wondering about enrollment at Rainier Beach for next year. Will families accept the assignment to RB or will there be alot of activity for choice seats at other schools? I still have a hard time thinking that RB will be fully enrolled next year. So, are RB families looking at STEM as an alternative? Wonder if families from RB are aware of STEM because of the poor marketing by the district. Will Franklin end up with a waitlist?
Am I missing something?
In my cynical way (and I hope I'm proved wrong), I think it's because they KNOW it will be a problem at some schools and they can't do it. They cannot accommodate all families in this situation.
For the most over enrolled schools, perhaps they can accept 75% of siblings, by lottery. Maybe it'll just be 5 kids at one school, 2 or 3 at others, that won't be able to accompany their older brother/sister.
I think this makes terrible precedent for future boundary "tweaks" and creates much uncertainty for families in the future.
For some families, it may be acceptable for the older child to leave his/her school and accompany the younger sibling to the new attendance school. For others, this is not acceptable and the district shouldn't feel like they've appeased families by offering this.
And, Maureen, I think you're quite right. There's no incentive for families within an attendance area to do early registration, since they are guaranteed a spot. Indeed, a family could move to the area over the summer and get a seat, right?
From the transition plan:
Students new to the district at any grade will start with an assignment to their attendance area school. New students eligible to enroll during Open Enrollment may also apply for any school during Open Enrollment.
All students may also apply for any school with space available after Open Enrollment through September 30. After September 30, assignments for new students are to their attendance area school only.
Metrics of success: Still vague, Susan said Brian B was still working on them. Carr pointed out that it looks like they wouldn't be comparing apples to apples anyway. STEM would be attracting kids that were already successful, so increased scores at the school could not be attributed to the program. The metrics don't look like you could say that STEM helps kids who weren't already successful. Susan enthusiastically agreed and said that's why they needed anecdotal evidence as well! Hearing stories of kids who didn't think they were college bound and STEM helped them. (???wtf???)
Another IMPORTANT note if you are considering STEM for your child. Maier asked about the ongoing costs of the extended day. Enfield replied that the extended day was NOT permanent. That eventually, (perhaps when all the elementary and middle schools are perfect???) it wouldn't be needed and would go away.
Also, I can't do the math here. The cost estimate for extended day (seven or eight periods?) was based on taking current salaries and multiplying them by 1.2 (unless I heard wrong.) Full time now means teaching five periods and being on site for the 6th period. What are the expectations for teaching an extended day? How does 1.2 work out?
In the CFO's report, Kennedy described the coming year as "a cliff" in terms of lack of funding. Something is going to have to give, so advocates, begin your input NOW on priorities. We can't have no teacher cuts AND no comp high school closed AND STEM as envisioned AND promises kept for resources for programs already in place AND launching the new schools with specialized programs like language immersion. No way.
I *think* the top priority for the Board is keeping teachers in the classrooms. So project from there. My best guess is that, for one thing, none of the new schools other than QA will be getting specialized programs. Don't like it? Get organized and loud.
And INSIST on organized ways the public can give input into the budget shortfall, starting now. I sent a "I'm flabbergasted" note to the board after hearing at the Dec. workshop that there was no plan for public engagement on the budget...just principals working with individual school communities on cuts. That's way too late in the game and way too fractured for the public to give testimony. Suddenly, as of yesterday, there are 2 mtgs (north/south) that will be scheduled on the topic. But personally, I don't think this is enough of a public engagement plan.
From what I could see in my brief TV watching last night my guess is that APP siblings might have a seat assignment at the older sib's school since APP kids are classified as "special ed" and there are no other options for them, but Spectrum kids are SOL.
Steve Sundquist made a big point of asking staff to add Spectrum at Arbor Heights to specifically deal with this issue (no room at Lafayette for any sibs). I think he mentioned that parents will have to pull their child out of Spectrum if they want the kids to stay together.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong...
I want to bring up another issue re: Option Schools. Tracy indicated that they will allow Eastlake kids to go to TOPS if they want, because under next year's plan, they would be guaranteed a space there due to geographic zone.
But what about families who live super close to any other Option school...do they get the same treatment? Since next year they would be all but guaranteed a seat under geographic zone.
Looks like the enrollment forms for K in 2010-11 have the same content as in previous years. There is still mention of "clusters" and it continues to provide the opportunity to list 10 schools (with the suggestion of listing at least 3). But given what you say (and other, similar, things I've heard elsewhere) we need to be very careful about how we complete the form if we want our younger (K) sibling into the same, "non-neighborhood" school as the older sibling.
I was heartened a couple months ago when someone on this blog made a comment about the 2010 entry kids not being affected by the plan because SPS wouldn't have time to change and print the new forms. But I guess SPS feels they've found a good solution - just change the dates and keep the content as is. Never mind that they'll elicit confusion and/or potentially enraged parents when they find out - after it's too late - that they should have completed the form differently than the district instructed.
The actual forms seem to be a major issue - but I don't see/hear any discussion on it. Hopefully it's just me, and this is not another thing that SPS got wrong in this whole SAP "transition" plan.
At 116.3 Enfield says that the choice of NTN model "predates her"-- they were chosen last spring! So if I'm interpreting correctly, this STEM thing has been in the works longer than we have been told.
I am on the RB Building Leadership Team. One of our jobs is the Master Schedule. We are being instructed by the district to put together a Master Schedule for 650 students.
Does this mean we are still underenrolled? Yes, but it is a long way from the 350 we had a few years ago.
It has been updated, and it includes a space to list siblings.
Blumhagn must be looking at last year's admission info.
Regarding extended day teacher cost. I would look at it this way, in terms of using 1.2 FTE:
1.0 FTE for a HS teacher is 7.5 hours
adding 0.2 FTE means adding 1.5 hours (I don't know if that means, legally or contractually, they have to use part of that for an extra 15 minute break or whatever)
1.5 hours is enough for one class plus a bit, or almost one blocked class. It's not enough for two classes. But maybe they could have just SOME teachers teaching 8 classes, some teaching 7, some teaching regular 6?
I'd expect an amendment on the plan to put in an exception to the system for Spectrum similar to the one for special ed. It'd probably also be a good idea to push it along with an email campaign to the Board.
Eric
This is a can of worms I think they would be best off not to open.
And the teachers at Cleveland who decide this is not for them? Super-seniority status to find another position in SPS.
If all schools offer advanced learning opportunities, then your current Spectrum student can be accommodated at your reference school, if that's where they have room to keep your children together. It seems to me like this has been flying a bit under the radar, but I wonder if the long-range plan is to do away with programs like Spectrum and APP and just have every student attend their local school with the claim that children of all abilities can have their needs met? It would save a lot of money if the district didn't have to do gifted testing each fall and bus children to certain non-local schools based on test results.
–If an older sibling of an incoming Kindergarten student is assigned to a non-attendance area school for special education services (that are not available at the attendance area school),then the incoming Kindergarten student will be assigned to the older sibling’s school at the request of the family (if not assigned during Open Enrollment with sibling tiebreaker).
(From slide 6 at SAP Implementation Presentation from last night's Board Meeting.
It's pretty clear that this doesn't apply to Spectrum kids, I'm not sure about APP, sometimes they get classified as special ed, but more often not. Does anyone else know for sure?
The catch in the wording of the change Libros is proposing might be "special education services that are not available at the attendance area school." Under the new ICS model, *all* schools theoretically offer services for all but the more profoundly affected and also medically fragile students. The reality is a bit different of course. But that's a longer issue to discuss.
Still, I feel more hopeful reading that--it gives some leverage for discussing this w/the district.
TM only has one class per grade in the ALO, and no room for more, so probably also won't be able to accomdate many APP sibs from outside the attendance area.
Your comments seem to echo Director Martin Morris: will they hire new teachers for STEM? His (and yours, seemingly) indicate that you don't feel the current Cleveland staff is "up to snuff"
I think CAO Enfield fielded M-M's "concern" very well: there are many teachers at Cleveland, and those who might not be a good fit are talking it out with the principal, and some are leaving. But even of these, most are fine teachers, and they DESERVE superseniority.
Most teachers are fine teachers who can easily adapt to the new program. Teachers adapt to new programs all the time - all teachers are adapting to about five new initiatives this year alone.
Have some faith in the fine educators at Cleveland - they'll be fine.
That's no insult to the Cleveland staff. Not everyone is a content expert in any field, and these technical fields require years and years of study, along with particular aptitudes.
1. Transportation presented data last night in such a way as to give the impression that the district wil save a lot by having a 1-yr transition plan ("NSAP[1]") instead of having a 5-yr transition plan ("NSAP[5]").
If data presented last night is put in appropriate context, one realizes the following:
Choosing NSAP[1] over NSAP[5] will save an average of $800,000 per year over the next five years
Cost of implementing NSAP[5] is inconsequential compared to the size of the District's operating budget: $550 Million this year.
This is, of course, not how the District presented the data.
It was Kay who seemed to see first that the data as presented was overblowing the significance of the savings of choosing shorter duration for the transition plan.
2. A solution for Sibling Grandfathering?
I learned last night it is technically infeasible for the District to add the sibling grandfathering rule that parents want into the "old system." The reasoning I heard from Tracy Libros was very convincing.
I learned that, under the old system, some of the enrollment forms are processed manually. You wil see why this may be significant for sibling grandfathering in a moment.
Tracy testified that the District has 17 idiosyncratic enrollment tiebreaker rules. I am not sure, but I think that it is these tiebreakers that result in some forms having to be processed manually. Thus, under the old system, some percentage of the student assignments are handled manually. The Salmon Bay preference for Thornton Creek students is an example of a tiebreaker that is processed manually.
This information leads me to the question of whether sibling grandfathering could be implemented manually.
Of course, it will be expensive, since the # of enrollment forms that must be manually processed will greatly increase over what has been typical.
How much is too much to pay for sibling grandfathering? If we can afford $50 Million on the BTA levy for Maria's Mistake, can't we afford even as much as several million to hire a big crew to get the manual work done within the necessary time frame?
3. The NSAP proposes to suspend the 20% geographic set-aside for TOPS, just for the one-year transition. When asked by about this by Kay S-B, Tracy Libros was not able to give reason why the district wants to suspend the rule.
3. Harium asked if feasible for NSAP to provide for Thornton Creek students to have Salmon Bay option. Tracy said there is no technical obstacle. She said typically only about half-a-dozen kids are affected by this. (does this sound right?)
4. The NSAP proposal has the effect that those students who don't have an alt school in their tranportation zone can chose an alt school, but can get yellow bus service. Harium was asked at his late nov. coffee hour to advocate for getting equitable access to alternatives, so I was listening for a question on this. He did not bring this up at the board meeting.
I have no idea what sort of teachers are at Cleveland. But this is a brand new thing that will require a different skill set and a lot of technological agility for the teachers. It is very different from what they've been doing.
Now Cleveland doesn't have a reputation currently for academic success. In fact, their 11th grade PSAT scores from 2008 are almost the lowest of the district.
(Critical Reading 33.3, Math 37.5, Writing 34.3) Like Charlie points out, the teachers could still be wonderful and doing wonderful things with these kids. We don't have enough data to tell. But teachers dedicated to working with this population and successful with this population are not necessarily the same teachers that would be successful with STEM.
Maybe some of the best will decide that they can't work an extended day for family or personal reasons. So there ought to be flexibility with that, keeping or recruiting good teachers who might only be there 6 periods.
That said, how many PhDs are teaching Language Arts? How many LA teachers are qualified to teach in college?
I guess my point is that teachers are not, generally, PhDs. Yes, the expectation would be that they are masters in their fields, perhaps with even some real-world experience, but most of the teachers I know are masters of flexibility who can teach just about anything.
And remember that they aren't teaching to the PhD level, they are teaching to the high school level.
It would be very nice if all teachers in Seattle were PhDs, but this is hard to accomplish. I understand your point about this being a very specific kind of school, and we hope that the teachers have that very specific kind of knowledge, but what does this say about other schools and programs? How can we get highly trained (and salaried....a PhD is rather expensive to obtain and those with them often do other things...) specialists in every conceivable position, particularly if teaching demands that teachers adapt to new needs and demands almost yearly?
No, it most certainly would not be particularly good if all the teachers in Seattle were Ph.Ds. Getting a Ph.D is a pretty esoteric activity requiring specialized focus in a particular content area. People who have one are not particularly well suited to teach in a high school classroom.
"Would they be qualfied to teach math or science at a community college or university?"
We often assume that Ph.D's are qualified to do this -- but they're often not. Frankly, they're most often not. They learn on the job, and some acquire teaching experience along with the reserach required for the Ph.D. Others are naturally talented in teaching. But, we let Ph.D's who fall in none of these groups teach any way, because we value or respect their esoteric knowledge, and because we want them to teach others to learn to acquire that knowledge.
That does not, emphatically, make them good high school teachers. The skill sets required for doing original scientific research (or building bridges) is quite different from the skill set required to communicate that information to others. It'd be fabulous if we could find people who can do both, but, honestly, those people walk on water. Most muddle at one or the other. For bridge builders, we're will to take muddly communicators who know their stuff. They wouldn't be good teachers.
Just as it's not always possible to turn an engineer into a teacher, it's not always possible to turn a teacher into a teacher of engineering (or any other specialized field).
It would be nice if this new technical school had a community of teachers that included both those who are stronger at teaching than technology and those who are stronger at technology than teaching.
And, there are two ways to increase hours by 20%: Increase the hours of your existing employees or add new employees (or some combination). Hiring a couple of really strong technical people to compliment the teaching staff is one thing that could be done. Personally, I think the combination would make the school stronger. Again, that's no more an insult to teachers than it is to engineers and mathematicians.
One board director told me about grave doubts because of the teachers. This director stated that the BioTech program at Ballard started with professionals in the industry, not teachers and the director felt like that's why it was successful. Suffice to say, this director is worried.
As well, I concur with the pushback on STEM from the Board. I;ll write a separate thread on it.
Plus, aren't they simply purchasing a canned curriculum from NTN? So, why not just use the canned curriculum scripted with fidelity of implementation? You don't need experts for that. (that's a snark, in case anyone missed it.)
Are the 2008 PSAT's available for each of the schools online yet? What was the C&I presentation covering at the last meeting?
Thanks-
If there's the money for ANY of this...ach.
"Having only 500 responses to the 9300 surveys sent out is causing the district to cry 'we don't have enough data' to model the transition plan properly"
Would it make sense to do another survey, but do it properly? Ask all the necessary questions. Advertise better, ask principals to encourage the families in their school to respond?. Ask principals to complete a survey as to what they know about incoming sibs in their school community?...
On a different issue:
From Melissa's and other's reports on NSAP, it sounds like these families are District's pawns:
a) having an older sib (OS) who wants to stay at a non-attendance area elementary school
b) also having an incoming sib(IS), and that they want to place in the ES's current elementary school.
Do I understand correctly that the NSAP gives the District freedom to use these families to fill up undesirable/unpopular schools within the transportation service area of the family's assigned Middle School?
Do I understand that such families (and there are many, aren't there)have to choose between being a pawn, or destabilizing the OS's social/academic life?
I guess my school nurse friend's impression is wrong. She is a sub, and has worked at many schools. Her impression is that teachers everywhere are under a lot of stress.
I wonder what these five initiatives are. Does anyone know? MAP must be one of the five.
The catch in the wording of the change Libros is proposing might be "special education services that are not available at the attendance area school." Under the new ICS model, *all* schools theoretically offer services for all but the more profoundly affected and also medically fragile students. The reality is a bit different of course. But that's a longer issue to discuss.
Very interesting MonkeyP. Not really true about ALL services being available under ICS. First off... ICS isn't really everywhere, and it's a big huge secret where it really is. And secondly, there really aren't any services in ICS since it's just the resource room. See? Fooled you. Technically, the district has always claimed that "inclusion" programs are really the same as "self-contained". Amazingly, according to union rules they ARE the same and get the exact same staffing. (ridiculous of course. we all know inclusion isn't the same as self-contained) Therefore, you're only in an inclusion program if you need it (and, in fact, can't be served anywhere else.) Technically, they would argue that inclusion isn't the same as ICS. After all, inclusion has people working there.. ICS doesn't.
Tracey Libros has long denied any special assignment needs of families with special ed kids.. for years now. Kids at McGilvra were booted out when they graduated, even if their needs could have been met there.. because.. well, you were soooooooooo lucky to ever to have been placed somewhere so elite, and after K, you should expect much worse service as a punishment. That is, BK graduates of McGilvra were routinely assigned to Madrona instead just moving into McGilvra's first grade. The current situation is to keep all the kids at McGilvra, regardless of need, even if they wish to leave, and then... not serve them, because they removed all the staff except the one resource room teacher.
But that is all a digression. If those are indeed the new special ed rules. Great. Your younger Monkey, can attend your inclusion kid's school.
1) MAP
2) Common Curriculum (some places, more coming)
3) Mainstreaming ELL and SpEd
4) Differentiation (not much yet, but one of MAP's purposes, in addition to targeting intervention, is differentiation based on RiT scores)
5) RtI - Response to Intervention; "triage" of intervention for behavior and other issues, might include academic, as per MAP RIT scores
6) SAP - changing demographics
7) Changing evaluation procedures
Other changes, not necessarily programatic, but impacting building educators:
* Loss of Career Offices
* Loss of lunch room staff (loss of any adult in a building is a loss for students that someone must make up for)
* Loss/transition of many staff after last year's RIF - building dynamic changes
* Loss/transition of Principals and APs as they are shifted around district
* Loss of smaller class sizes
* Loss of class funding = loss of "special" and "elective" programs (contraction to core)
* loss of benefits stability: One-year (only) CBA contract, due for renegotiation this spring
* loss of deep and meaningful pedagogy to mere grouped standardized test results
So hopefully it looks like all is well in terms of my kids staying together ... I'm just nervous bec technically my kindergartener is ICS not inclusion ... she just happens to attend a school that has an existing inclusion program, which means that she is getting services quite a bit more robust than some of the ICS parents I've heard from elsewhere. What happens to the inclusion program when the kids who are in it now graduate out? Are they just going to let it wither away, like the state under end-stage Marxism?
Totally OT, I apologize.
Sure you're smart to worry about what happens to the inclusion teacher after most of the older kids graduate. She'll need to somehow get herself to 22:1. One common tactic is to "identify" general ed kids into the program, to maintain numbers... and staff.