A teacher cant refuse to take a child on the trip if you signed the paper to permit him to go . If you cant go it make no difference on him attending. Now if y ou as his mother think he cant handle it ,dont send him. he is allowed to stay in the school on another classroom while they come back, This is what they do in my son's school. There is one kid who is non verbal from what i can see and has behavior issues and he never goes to trips or isbt allowed and i have see another teacher picks him up and takes him to her class until we come back . If y ou want him to go , thats why they have aides and other tehrapists join th trips, to help these kids and they learn in the trips also. I have seen the OT in our trips and he even takes time to give some OT to the kids who need it most ..making them hold on the handrails and walk down stairs or up etc.... Call an IEP Team meeting to discuss this. The school cannot summarily exclude a child with a disability from a class trip because of his disability. HAve the IEP Team come up with an accommodation and have it written into the IEP. If your son is refused the trip, you have grounds for and Office of Civil Rights complaint. The school district will not want this.I work in a school that is exclusively for children with autism or emotional disabilities. Last week our entire school went to a local museum. There was the group of students who were there for the whole trip (many have 1-1 aides) and then there was a group who only went for an hour (as long as their sensory systems could cope) and then there was a group of about 6 children who were held back at school because we could not guarantee their safety or that of others. Our students are signficiantly impaired by their autism and have aggressive behaviors.Just asking ahead: we requested in our ds's IEP that on school excersion
either one of us would be allowed to go along or that the teacher would
be the one to supervise him.
He has never had/ been a problem on a class trip but he is quirky and
has some auditory processing problems. Since other parents don't know
him and the school can't tell them about his diagnosis I thought this was
in everyone's best interest.
He has a class trip coming up and the teacher has sent an e-mail asking
who of us will come along. Actually neither of us is able to on that day.
My question: Can a teacher refuse to take him along because she can
claim that it would be a safty issue? It is a trip scheduled during regular
school hours and it is a public school.My sons always had their teacher or a teacher's aide escort them on field trips. I have never heard of a child not being able to go along because a parent wasn't available. When your child is at school or participating in a school function/trip, the school is responsible for them.
Something like that happened with my sisters child last year. The teacher basically said he couldn't go since my sister was unable to go. When the director of special education found out, he was furious. He made sure an aide with the district was there. I would ask for the policy in writing, and if the teacher puts it in writing that your child is unable to attend, that might get them into trouble.
One thing that WILL keep a child with a disability from going on a field trip is the need to medicate. Sometimes the school nurse can go. If that's possible, fine. Otherwise, the IEP TEam may have to hire a nurse to go. I may depend on State Law. Some states require that a nurse dispense medication, not the teacher. Of course, the school would be responsible for hiring a nurse for that day, but they would resist and you might have to go to some sort of Due Process. My son was excluded from field trips because of this. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have taken them to Due Process over it.PS YOu can also threaten to lodge an Office of Civil Rights complaint. They won't like that. They might decide that it would be cheaper to hire a nurse for the day than to pay a lawyer to defend them against the OCR complaint.The answer should be NO, but address this ASAP so that your child is definitely able to go.
Do you have a babysitter, therapist, or another family member who could go? I arranged in the past for Andrew's babysitter to go when I was working.
Thank you for all the replies. We ended up with a compromise. I could