I share the common feeling among special ed teachers that teaching a special day class on a mainstream campus is a lot like teaching on an island. Moving special day classes from their isolated, separate school sites to classrooms on “regular school” campuses does not automatically guarantee inclusion!

I find that I am in a constant struggle to advocate and insure my students rights to be included in the general population of my school. The SDC students are almost always excluded from assembly schedules, left off assigned seating for special school activities/concerts, and when my students do push into mainstreaming time for weekly specialties (like library, music, science, or PE) the gen ed teachers come complain that my students are interfering with their students abilities to learn. My students cause ‘too much of a distraction’! (Doesn’t stop me from sending them!!)

It is both frustrating and heartbreaking!

That is why this week was SO AMAZING!!

After years making suggestions of how my students can be included; finding out after the fact and explaining how that was a perfect opportunity to blend our two classes for some fun learning; or flat out begging to plan joint activities, my class finally got an invitation to push into Fall Fun Rotations with the 1st graders!! IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!

Now, were my students able to independently participate in each and every activity? No. But did they try and did they have fun? Absolutely!! It was exactly the experience I have been hoping for. My students sitting side by side gen ed students in a shared learning activity, fitting in! I snapped about 100 pictures, and if you didn’t know who was who, you wouldn’t be able to point out my kiddos from the rest. Every student was working together, getting along, being supportive! They laughed together; got messy together; they had fun learning together!!

I feel like a ROCK STAR! I wish that this was the time admin chose to grade me. I think I would finally get a “making improvements in the area of mainstreaming students” on my report card!

I am hoping these opportunities will continue and that it was not just a one time day pass to the mainland. The island gets lonely and rarely are invites to visit accepted. So I will continue to check my mailbox and hope that another invite comes soon for us to visit and hold on to the happy memories of this vacation into gen pop! It was a lot of fun and I have the pictures to prove it!