Rural Missouri Special Education Students Need Some Alternatives

My children seem to thrive in the schools available to them. Fortunately so, because there is only one option for each grade level; one elementary, one junior high school, and one high school. However, there are students in their classes that are not so lucky. In our small town, there are over 200 children with some sort of disability. Granted, not all of those children require special learning requirements, but some do. These students need the option of transferring to another school if ours cannot educate them properly. The ones stuck in our schools are going to constantly fall behind the rest of the children and may suffer form it the rest of their lives.

According to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), there are about 130,618 students in Missouri with some sort of disability. Again, not all of whom who need special education services. About 48,100 students have a specific learning disability, 11,629 are mentally retarded, and 4,534 students have autism. Many of these students require special education and it is not always available to them. These students may fall through the cracks and this will affect the rest of their lives. They should be given the chance at success too.