There are some kids who simply don't belong in school. I had one at old Marshall High who was waiting for an opening at Lino Lakes but attending school in the mean time. THere are other kids who (ele-ed.) just do not belong on a regular classroom. They have no self control because of a variety of reasons (little parental involvement, physical problems, psychological problems). These are the kids who need to be out of the regular classroom because they can't learn in that low structure environment. They desperately need close attention in a regulated and carefully structured environment if they are going to get any education at all.
Trust me: these kids are very capable of interfering with the education of the kids who can learn in a regular classroom. My Marshall kid was in a wheelchair and came very close to deliberately killing the chem teacher with a mallet to the temple. That is why he was scheduled to go to Lino Lakes. He was very capable of upending my lesson plans which goofed up the 50 minutes for the other 19 people in the room and THOSE kids were the ones I was trying to and able to reach. I agree that the number seems high, and I totally agree that suspension of lower ele-ed students is counter-productive. My son was very bright, usually got his work done in 5-10 minutes and then needed something to do. If the teacher had open ended projects for him, that was wonderful, because he was going to find something to occupy his time. Sending him home would have been great in his opinion. More to do and plenty of time to do it in. He could have finished a finite homework assignment in an hour and had the rest of the day to do what he wanted. A study room with open ended project, isolated from his friends but in the school would have been punishment but the only punishment would have been the isolation part. For kids with not quite as supportive or intellectually rich a home environment, what are you sending them home to do? Vegetate in front of the idiot box or game time, I expect. That's not education. That's time off. We call that kind of time "vacation" Emilie Quast SE Como _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
