My sister is a special ed teacher, too. :)
I homeschooled my youngest for some years because he was not learning to read. My sister pushed on me to do it so we could get him on the right track early. He was not thriving, mentally, in the herd. To be exact, he was thriving way too much, socially!
My purpose in posting was to illustrate that things aren't always as they seem. If someone had talked to the parent of my student, they would have a picture of a teacher that made NO effort to get in touch with her about a problem, when in fact I've made almost daily efforts. The truth is often somewhere in the middle :)