Teacher Says Allowing Kids To Use Other High-Achieving Students As An 'Accommodation' Is ‘Exploitative’ — ‘They Can’t Opt Out’
“This job belongs to teachers and their resource team.”
Drazen Zigic | Shutterstock.com Between staffing issues and limited funding, many school districts are struggling to provide appropriate accommodations for students who need them. Whether it’s a learning disability or a standard IEP, some understaffed schools are turning to high-achieving students to provide the additional resources these kids need.
It’s exactly the situation one teacher on Reddit complained about, writing, “Let’s call this what it is: exploitation… Being ‘good’ at school should not mean you have to mind the work or progress of another student.”
The teacher said that her school’s ‘accommodations’ for students with IEPs are exploiting high-achieving students.
“It’s time we collectively dump the IEP accommodations stating that a student should be ‘seated near a helpful peer,’ or sometimes ‘near a model student,’” the teacher asserted. “Other students should never be used as an accommodation.”
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While many IEPs promote the use of buddy systems as an integration method, using peers for additional support is not a blanket solution to assisting students who need specialized attention.
This is especially true in districts that choose not to provide other resources or support channels.
The teacher explained that high-achieving students aren't given an option when forced into these peer support roles. “They can’t consent to this role, because they are never told about it,” she wrote.
“Families of these model students are never notified and therefore can’t opt out.”
Of course, there should be a healthy balance of peer integration when it comes to students with different learning needs, but it should never be the sole source of support. That does a disservice to the high-achieving students and the students with IEPs.
No student should sacrifice their education or receive less than they deserve simply because a school cannot provide the resources necessary.
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“These are usually the quiet, driven, polite students because they are least likely to cause any problems or protest being seated near the student in question,” the teacher lamented.
“They’ll probably still get their work done. That doesn’t make it right to ‘exploit’ them.”
The teacher insisted that student accommodations should be addressed by professionals.
“It's the student equivalent of an adult being punished for being good at their job,” the teacher wrote, arguing that they shouldn’t be burdened with motivating other students, whether they’re aware of it or not.
Many commenters agreed, sharing their own experiences with “gifted students” being used as peer-to-peer supporters, ultimately creating more harm than good.
Fordham Institute research on peer tutoring suggests students can “tell,” but they can’t “teach” and will often cultivate a skewed classroom environment of misguided authority when they’re at the same level or in the same classroom as their “buddy.”
So, while it might be the only thing many teachers can provide as an accommodation to students needing extra support, it shouldn’t be celebrated — especially if these students and their parents aren’t involved in the process.
To address the issue of unsupported students, first, we have to solve the problem of understaffed schools, which lies at the heart of the educational system’s failures.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories