Did anybody else have a bad experience in the special ed sys

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Did anybody else have a bad experience in the special ed system?

I did. I attended New York City public schools and was in special ed since kindergarten due to "specific learning disability". The reason according to my mom is because the school said it's easier to work with me in special ed, I did not follow directions and they'd thought I'd never be able to write (I did have handwriting problems). In 6th grade I began to realize what special ed was. In 8th grade I expressed a desire to go to general ed. My dad told this to my teacher at the parent teacher conference, and the teacher mentioned integrated co teaching, but it never went further than that. In 10th grade, I was finally put in general ed. I was happy. But I still had a paraprofessional (in some places they call it an aide). I had a para since 6th grade till 12th all day. The summer after sophomore year I asked my mom to remove my para EVERY DAY (literally). During the beginning of junior year my mom wrote a letter asking them to remove my para. The school then called my mom and asked if it was me or her who wanted the para removed. Unfortunately my mom answered honestly , so they never listened to me. My mom told me she did go the school and they said if I get raped or something, they would go to jail. What? Every female student is at risk of being raped. I did go to an office and tell the school EVERY DAY to remove my services. That is until one day they called me into an office telling me "we're not terminating your services". I went back to my class immediately and stopped telling them. I stopped going to counseling that year (also a related service). It was a waste of time. The para was the reason I failed one of my classes. It was humiliating having someone follow me around all day, making me "special". I didn't need a para at that point. I ignored her. There were times were the para was absent and I had no sub. I did fine. Also another time where I thought my para was absent , but then she came to my 3rd period class:(. I was happier without the para. The principal once observed my computer class and asked why my para wasn't sitting next to me (I was a senior). So my para started sitting next to me. During my senior year, my last class teacher was absent, so everyone went home because it was the last class. I too went home while my para went to the bathroom. Then the next day my friends asked me “where were you? Ms. ZZZ was looking for you.” Then my para told me I was supposed to wait for her to come back to tell her I was leaving, because she is responsible for me and will be in trouble if something happened to me (I was 18). So all my friends just got to leave and I had to tell my "babysitter".

Why did they keep the para? During my IEP meeting ( end of sophomore year) one IEP member said "the para is there to protect her in case she says something inappropriate". That never happened. BWwhat kind of reasoning is that anyway?

Now transition. For those who don't know, transition is preparing for life after high school. There is a page on the IEP that says how many credits a student has earned, if the student will be earning a regular diploma and all goals pertaining to the students future. When I was 14 (just started high school) they had me fill out a checklist to see what I was interested in. How is a 14 year old supposed to know what they want to do with their life? 70% of COLLEGE students change their major at least once. Then at the end of my sophomore year (before my IEP meeting) they had me fill out a paper asking what I wanted to be. I wasn't sure so I just wrote lawyer. They don't listen to you regarding services but they expect you to decide what you want to do with your life? Interesting.

Did anybody else have negative experiences in the special ed system?

I was in mainstream, except for two years where I was part of a base/resource unit (for hearing impairment), though I was always in mainstream classes - just had an interpreter. I loved the base, but I wanted to go to a more pretentious school than the base school I was offered for secondary.

The base school had a bad reputation for the other kids, but a wonderful reputation for the base. It was a very caring school, but less academically ranked. The other secondary school had a good reputation for a mainstream school as far as deaf kids went. It was one of the best ranked state (non-fee paying) schools in the country. It did have a link with a special school, but to this day I'm not sure how that worked as the linked school was a few miles away.

My mum won the appeal for me to go to the mainstream school.

The school was streamed, so I never really came into contact with "lower ability" children.

I quickly discovered that the good reputation was entirely linked to the SENCO. Once she left, the new one was constantly acting in illegal ways to not provide my provision, despite frequent visits from my teacher of the deaf reminding them of their legal duties. One year they tried to entirely remove my Learning Support Assistant, claiming they'd allocated my funding (funding in the UK through statements is tied to specific pupils) elsewhere. Only a threatening letter to the head got it returned.

The tricked me out of my exam provisions and then used it as grounds to "forget" to reinstate them - meaning I lost my reasonable adjustments. I came 1 mark from an A without it and because I got BA over the two years of science instead of AA I wasn't allowed to take the options I wanted in 6th form.

In 6th form, they claimed they'd never had a statemented pupil at that level and so refused to provide my services. I bartered with them over which of the hours they were funded for I was willing to sacrifice from my funded 15 hours to 2. For one term they only sent someone once, but not to the class I wanted to.

They barely sent them to lessons for the rest of the two years and when they did, they sent someone who's cigarette smoke as a PTSD trigger and allergy trigger. When I asked for a swap at the end of the year (keeping in mind that I had never had an LSA for more than one year before) they basically told me to shut up because 'no-one else has ever complained' and ' she's a good friend of mine and I don't appreciate you talking about her that way'.

(That was how I ended up with even less support. Every time I spoke to them, they complained that they were 'doing their best'.)

My whole time at secondary, the pulled my LSA if they needed one for someone else - my school had 250-270 people in each of the 7 years that attended so this was often.

The opposite problem to you, I guess.

Oh, and one of their excuses for not supporting me in 6th form, when I really needed a note taker, was because I wasn't failing. They outright said they wouldn't support me at all unless I got a D. Even though, I was meant to be getting As and was slipping and had so many problems that I was a constant concern for my teachers.

It sucks that you were forced to stay in the special ed system.
I think if an HFA kid is place into special ed earlier on when they have more behavioral problems and can't control their behaviors, the goal should be get them out of it by early to mid teens like 13-15 ages.
It will be better academically for them to be mainstreamed and also better in terms of future independence to not have a babysitter at school.
And the whole thing with being special sucks if the kid doesn't want it or need it.

they wouldn't let me go eat lunch, they said I didn't need to eat, I could wait until supper at home.

I have always been in private school special ed and its been pretty good. The hardest part is being around other autistic kids because we get on each other's nerves with all of our stims and tics.

I have been told by kids in my school who were in a special ed classroom located in a mainstream school, that the conditions weren't very good.

It's probably better, in your case Ezra, that you're in the self-contained school.

Usually, Special Ed within public schools is not good.