Thursday, January 29, 2009

Justified Spending

School budgets have a reputation for being insufficient. There is always talk in the mainstream media about how teachers are underpaid and how schools are enrolled beyond capacity. So how do we justify spending parts of the budget for special needs students? It is justified because schools are allotted an amount of money proportionate to the number of enrolled students. This amount ideally covers things like books, supplies and extracurricular activities. If spending is justified for students to participate in extracurricular activities then it is easily justified to use additional spending to meet the learning needs of special need students. In the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 it says:


The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 defines assistive technology device as "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability" (IDEA, 1997, 20, USC, Ch. 33, Sec. 1401 [25] US).
A lot of times these “assistive technology devices” are rather inexpensive such as books on tape or self sticking notes of the seeing impaired. Then there are Scotch tape to hold paper in place, Velcro, slant borders or adapted common tools for aiding Assistive Technology for Access. These solutions are cheap and increase the learning capability of disabled students greatly and are easily justified.



Assistive Technology to Meet K–12 Student Needs ." "Learning Point Associates" North Central Regional Lab Educatioin. 2004. 29 Jan. 2009 .
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6 comments:

  1. Justin BoatwrightJanuary 30, 2009 at 12:55 PM

    I really like the comparison of the schools spending money on extracurricular activities with the spending for the special needs children. How much money is spent on new uniforms or equipment that could be spent on assistive technologies? You make a very good point.

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  2. maui808January 31, 2009 at 2:20 PM

    I totally agree with you about "If spending is justified for students to participate in extracurricular activities then it is easily justified to use additional spending to meet the learning needs of special need students." Your statement said it all.

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  3. Mr. TaylorJanuary 31, 2009 at 3:02 PM

    I agree with your correlation between extra cirricular avtivities and assitive technologies as it pertains to a school budget. I also found it interesting how you found "inexpensive ways" to meet these needs such as scoth tape. Never thought of that.

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  4. RyanJanuary 31, 2009 at 5:49 PM

    I like the comments about the low cost common sense approaches like books on tape and Sticky notes. Things like this will allow us to expand our outreach to all students, not to metion students with special needs.

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  5. Travis HoudeJanuary 31, 2009 at 8:07 PM

    I liked how you talked about the budget and how we need to improve on assistive technologies. I liked how you had suggestions to fix the problem. I enjoyed read it.

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  6. MelissaJanuary 31, 2009 at 9:38 PM

    This is a very true thought that I didn't really take the time to think about. Each school is alloted a certain amount of money per student, and no matter what the condition the student should be entitled equal opportunity with their education.

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