What Should They Miss?

I was saddened to hear about a new policy at the elementary school I am currently interning at for the new school year. Most students that receive special services for ESL, learning disabilities, speech and OT are pulled out of the classroom during the day. Some of them are pulled out just once, some for longer periods of time, depending on their personal needs. Up until this year, students were pulled out for special help usually around the time during the day that the subject they needed help in was taking place in the classroom. Since reading, writing and math all take up more than one period each day, students would be pulled during part of one of these sections so they never missed the entire lesson/unit. Well, not anymore. Now, all students must be pulled during the social studies/science block of the day. Every student is pulled in the morning (for the 4th grade) and this is supposed to coincided with the social studies block because the administration has let the teachers know that it is less important than the other subjects and since it is not tested on, students are better served to miss these lessons. This makes me so angry! First of all, I never experienced pull-out this way in elementary school because I attended a magnet school with electives. I was able to spend 2 periods a day in CA with my special ed teacher and never miss a single minute of classroom instruction. Was this the best way? No. I would have loved to take some more fun electives sometimes, but I was able to choose one each semester so that was better than nothing. Would it have been better for me to miss L.A. everyday in my regular classroom since that is the main area where I needed assistance? No. I benefited from spending time the the classroom with my peers. Is there any perfect way to help these students get all of the help they need each day without missing out on something? No. BUT why do they have to miss out on two subjects that could be very successful for them and that could help engage them in something that can lead to success? My teacher is working with the special educators as much as she can to ensure her few students who are being pulled out can still participate in social studies by working to help prepare activities and lessons for her students to work on in their special education classroom, but with this set up, they will miss out on so much. I just wish that administrators and those involved in making decisions like this could understand that students with learning disabilities need to have as many opportunities within the day to feel successful and just like every other student. When a student with a learning disability hears that it is time for reading or math, the subject in which they have a disability, they can easily feel discouraged before the lesson even begins. But, you tell them it is social studies and you just happen to work in reading, writing and math, then you can help students succeed in ways they never felt was possible. This is a great reason to utilize integrated lessons, but it is still excluding students from activities every day that they should not have to miss. I hope that this new policy will encourage teachers to work social studies and science into the other times within their day and that the administration realizes that it is unfair to exclude students from any chances to work with their peers in the classroom.