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Special Education (also known as SpEd within the districts) students have historically faced systemic neglect and marginalization. Often forgotten and looked at as someone else’s problem, these students often fall through the cracks, both academically and socially. While general education students build bonds with teachers and grow to become everyday adults, often SpEd students need their basic social functions reinforced and learned from the very educators working to get them graduated. Basic societal norms, such as understanding right from wrong and practicing courtesy, need reinforcement for these students to take on the outside world. But now the outside world has come to them, and all its iconography, imagery, and social rhetoric is playing havoc on these students and the teachers attempting to stem the tide. These students are particularly vulnerable to the influence of the drug culture due to external factors beyond the control of schools and teachers. In my experience in the special education classroom environment, it was a constant battle not only to attempt to stop drug use but even to educate them on why it’s important not to partake in it.
For a whole class of invisible and forgotten students, A puff of smoke or vapor may seem like an escape, but it can lead to serious and lasting harm.
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