One of the things I realized as I was planning this presentation, is that I had assumed that by now school leaders would know they shouldn't create a policy to specifically exclude students with disabilities (special needs students). It wasn't something I've really included in the most recent set of presentations. There is brief mention of this in my iNACOL publication but basically I felt it was something that was obvious. But then a while ago I saw a report on a state (to be nameless) where two cyber charter schools were approved for operation by the state education agency (SEA) even though those charters submitted policies as part of the state approval process where they specifically said that they would not enroll special needs students.
Not very bright, in my opinion, but even more frustrating, the schools were approved by the SEA. Since I learned of this in a report that was done by a state legislative oversight committee after the fact I don't have more detail, but it's enough to say that some folks, be they school administrators or state department of education staff, need to be doing a little more thinking about educational access for students with special needs.
So, doing the Leadership Webinar I have made sure that I will be clear in my presentation that preventing students with disabilities from enrolling in an online school (aka cyber school. cyber charter, virtual school) is a no-no!
