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“Then what is she doing with a job where she’s responsible to teach him?”

I dunno, maybe she didn’t expect having to contend with a “student” with the mental age of a toddler. I seriously doubt that the idea behind mainstreaming these children has anything to do with teaching them at all. More like publicly-sponsored daycare for the parents’ benefit.

“Again, disciplinary action, moving him to a different program, placing the incident on his school record, etc. would be the proper responses.”

I doubt that there are alternative programs and anything less than removing him from the class would be ineffective.

I’ve been out of school for a long, long time, but I still remember the disruption caused by these “developmentally challenged” children. I seriously doubt that any of them learned a damn thing and I’m sure we “norms” learned a lot less because of them.

I seriously doubt that the idea behind mainstreaming these children has anything to do with teaching them at all. More like publicly-sponsored daycare for the parents’ benefit.

Well, my viewpoint may be different because I'm a homeschool parent, so I see the entire public school system as government-sponsored daycare for the benefit of parents.

However, I agree that a disruptive child should not be in a class with children who aren't disruptive. He should be in a separate program. It's the criminal charges against a six year old autistic child that are over-the-top.

I’ve been out of school for a long, long time, but I still remember the disruption caused by these “developmentally challenged” children.

I've been out of school a long, long, long time, too. (Ahem. Feels like three lifetimes ago.) But I remember many of the so-called normal kids being far more disruptive than the developmentally challenged kids, with the so-called normal kids pushing the developmentally challenged kids around. Every kid is different.

In any case, the teacher should be demanding this child be put into a separate program. The school should be telling the parents that their child cannot be in a class with other children and that he must be moved to a different program. I can see filing charges against an older child, but not a six year old. Imagine this six year old autistic boy having to take the witness stand to defend his own actions. I just find it to be silly to take it that far.