Education

I'm the lead teacher in a large urban high school inclusion classroom for five out of six periods a day. I have regular students, special education students, emotionally disturbed students, blind students, deaf students, English Language Learners, students in wheelchairs, you name it.

We average 30 students per period. I have an inclusion teacher, who is a special ed teacher with a Master's degree IN special ed, I have a teacher who signs for deaf students, I have another special ed teacher with a Master's specialization in emotionally disturbed students, all of whom are in the classroom whenever their particular special population has a member present.

On demand, we have assistant principals, campus police, the department heads of ELL, Special Ed, and Social Studies. It's the first non-boring job I've ever had. In 10 years, we have had exactly one classroom disturbance, and that was a regular student breaking up with her boyfriend, resulting in her shoving a desk around.

So does it cost money to have 3 master's level teachers in a room plus an interpreter? Yep, and the results are worth it. The senior class overall has a nearly 30 per cent failure rate, but our rate in our inclusion part of the world was less than 15 per cent, and in every case, was caused by poor attendance.

Maslow was absolutely right - if kids don't feel safe and supported, nothing good can happen. Sounds like St Paul is trying it on the cheap. Don't know how big the school is, but 6 total new staff don't seem like much. Best of luck to them, but they really need to commit to doing what is actually needed.