Are State Schools The Place For Children?

The crisis facing Texas’ state schools for the disabled is perhaps the worst of the crisis facing the states’ health and human services agencies–and the least discussed. The Dallas Morning News takes another look at the crisis:

The number of children living in state schools for the disabled has grown by 80 percent in the last five years, a trend advocates say threatens decades of work to move Texas’ most fragile youths back into family homes.

It’s the result of hopelessly long waiting lists for services at home. Of school districts unable to serve a growing number of autistic students. And of communities too quick to turn youths with mental illness over to the courts.

Yes, those are the causes, among likely others. What are the effects? Check this:

Recent news that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Denton State School – the second federal inquiry into a state school in two years – is fueling the fire for those who think state institutions are no place for juveniles.

And while state officials say they only house these youths until they can find them permanent family homes, opponents point to signs that state schools are getting too comfortable with their new charges – from building campus playgrounds to cordoning off child-only dorms.

“We need to be able to stop it at the front door,” said Colleen Horton, the public policy director for the University of Texas’ Center for Disability Studies. “I’ve never ever heard a family say, ‘I want to place my child in a state school.’ What I have heard is, ‘We are at the end of our rope, we can’t get any help, our family is falling apart and we just can’t do it any longer.’ “

State schools clearly aren’t the place for juveniles. But, what are the alternatives?

The fact is there aren’t any easy solutions. The state claims that the juveniles in the facilities are “temporary placements,” and will eventually return to their homes or another family.

However, what happens to those who really can’t return to their homes and wouldn’t be safe in that type of environment? Evidently they stay in the state schools for a long while. Again, no easy answers.

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