Q13 Fox

Gigi Jordan showed no emotion as a New York prosecutor described to a jury a "chilling and horrifying scenario" in which the businesswoman who made a fortune in pharmaceuticals allegedly concocted a lethal cocktail of painkillers and anti-inflammatories and forced her 8-year-old autistic son to swallow it.

CBC News British Columbia

A former teacher in Chilliwack says she quit her job after 14 years because she didn't have the resources to help the special needs children in her classroom.

Willow Reichelt spent more than a decade as a teacher in B.C., before quitting her job in 2013.

"I got to the point in teaching where it was taking my whole life," she told CBC News.  "It does, honestly. If people think teachers work the hours of a school day, they are crazy."

The last class Reichelt taught, eight out of the 30 students were designated with special needs. Despite that, there was only one teaching assistant assigned to help, for just one and-a-half hours a day.

Anyone might say that this is Canada and things are much in the U.S.  (Although a quick Google search will bring up lots of stories of these students being abused or neglected by teachers, aides, and bus drivers here.  So the problems associated with the CBC News British Columbia: Mainstreaming special needs kidhe explosion in special needs kids are happening in our schools as well.)

What's telling here are the numbers.  One out of every FOUR STUDENTS in her class is special needs.  Is this now the norm?   Are regular ed teachers currently being trained in special ed?  (I wasn't back when I was in college.)   

Faith Bodnar, the executive director of Inclusion BC, still believes all the kids who can't learn or behave aren't really anything to worry about, they just need more funding:

Bodnar says while special needs designations have expanded, funding hasn't gone up.

"We're better at identifying the unique learning needs of children with special needs than we were 15 years ago," she notes. "[But] with that comes the fact that investment in our school system hasn't kept pace with diversity in the school system. "

So we're supposed to believe that the boy spinning "like a dervish up to the front of a class" was just missed in past years. 

"Diversity in the school system" has got to be one of the most bizarre phrases to describe this nightmare that I've ever come across.  

Education Minister Peter Fassbender doesn't want to place caps on spec ed students in reg. ed classrooms, thus making himself very fiscally responsible I'm sure.

The teacher, Willow Reichelt, is clearly the only rational person in this story.  (And she's also the mother of a child with autism.)

 

The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand.  Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy is one of the largest and most respected compounding pharmacies in the country. They use only the finest quality chemicals and equipment to prepare our patients’ compounded medications and nutritional supplements. Customizing medication and nutritional supplements for our customers allows them to achieve their unique health goals.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of  The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which goes on sale this Fall from Skyhorse Publishing.