Question 7

Question 7: Why do you support inclusion of "Special Needs" children?

Answer: I support the inclusion of "Special Needs" children because they have done nothing wrong in order to be "excluded". They are not a threat to society, they have not robbed a charity, they are not drug dealers, and they do not eat babies.

What they actually do is... love everyone, never hide their joy from seeing another kid, play with toys awesomely and will do whatever they can to brighten your day.

I do not believe in taking my children to school to have them sitting in a room by themselves. Obviously they are not going to have hygiene cares taken care of in front of other people, but they do deserve to be around other children. Bo and Cote may never reach a point where they attend eight hours of class, and that's OK. Melissa and I will bring them, we will supervise, and if it looks like they are not getting the "inclusive treatment", we will head home. I can teach them a lot more at our loving farm than someone can teach in an excluded environment. As much as I want inclusion for them, I also know that it is my job to protect them. At this point Bo is three and Cote is two, and I think they have been through so much in such a short time, that we forget how young they are.

I want to inform you of something else as well, inclusive does not only pertain to school. Each day I hope we reach a point where we have a completely inclusive community. Where my children are welcomed into a store. When they are invited to play dates and birthday parties. I want to be comfortable knowing that if anything ever happened to me, the community would pick up the slack and Welcome them into their hearts.


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I am going to post a very informative link about inclusion. It has a lot of great information about the different definitions of types of inclusions as well as some great info on the laws.

http://www.weac.org/Issues_Advocacy/Resource_Pages_On_Issues_one/Special_Education/special_education_inclusion.aspx