Recently we moved to Mississippi. There are a lot of things we love about the place. But occasionally we find something that rubs us the wrong way. One of those is the issue of diplomas for special needs kids.
Here in Mississippi, if your child is in the resource room they will not be receiving a diploma upon graduation. I have a problem with this.
This is, to put it bluntly, just wrong. This is my son’s last year in middle school unless he gets held back. We just have a few short years of high school left. The way things are currently looking, my son will never leave the resource room for the rest of his school career. This means that even if he changes his ways and does the work necessary he will not be getting a diploma at the end of high school.
There are some special needs kids who won’t need a diploma, their lives will be spent at home or group care. They will never be able to live on their own. And as hard and as sad as that is, I understand these kids not getting diplomas.
However, there are plenty of children in the school systems who just need a smaller environment to succeed. They need a little help but are capable of doing the work with the right accommodations. Yet these kids can’t have a diploma upon graduation here in Mississippi.
Mississippi isn’t the only state to do this. While we were living in Washington state, they were issuing post dated diplomas to all the kids who should have received a diploma but didn’t before things were changed there.
Currently our son is choosing not to do the work necessary for a diploma or anything else. Unless things change drastically he will not be looking at a diploma no matter what the state allows. But there are plenty of other kids out there that deserve a diploma, so I will speak up for them.
I understand this. My son is perfectly capable of doing the work. However; being in the mainstream classroom would be very disruptive for others. He has to always be “moving”. We are still in elementary school; so we still have a little time to wiggle. But I do stress about what the future of school and will he get a diploma vs a certificate of completion. It doesn’t weigh heavy on his mind; but it sure does mine.
I appreciate you speaking up for the kids who do the work necessary to secure a diploma – as well as those who miss out for whatever reason.
It is good that you have a platform to do this.
And it is not right. The work in the resource room is as important as the work outside of it. So is the work in the community. It all can and should be recognised – formally and informally and nonformally.
How is your son doing with his IEP goals which he is working on in that resource room?
And 504 and the ADA protect and safeguard everyone.
In Australia some of the senior secondary qualifications are unscored or substantially modified, and employers still recognise those. This is the same or similar in many developed countries like Great Britain and France.
It’s always interesting to hear about how other countries handle ADA type issues. There’s a broad spectrum.
He isn’t interested in doing any of his work right now- The joys of being a parent of a teenager?? The school recently canceled a lot of his goals and are trying to focus on one in each subject.