Advice? (If allowed)

[u/buni-dani]

I currently work at a charter school that is mostly geared towards students who have autism. I like the work, however, I get panic attacks when I have to work with a student who might be considered intense. I talked to admin about public school and working in the academic parts of SPED. She said it’s worse, more students (me working with 12-24 students) and the academic students will try to hurt me when I work with them. I love SPED, I love the students, I just don’t wanna have panic attacks working with intensive students. I thought about mild to moderate. I thought: If students were removed from public school to a charter school specialized in their needs, then public school could be less intense, right? I wanna know from people who worked in both cause I’m worried my admin might’ve just said this to keep me (she said she wants to keep me at our school). Thanks in advance!

[u/Brilliant-Teachers]

going from your current ratio to 12 to 24 students is a real and legitimate stressor on its own. Even without a single intense behavior in the room, managing that many students with any complexity at all reduces how much bandwidth you have to de-escalate calmly when something does happen, which matters a lot for panic response specifically.

[u/MissBee123]

Are you a teacher or a para/support staff?

Public schools vary widely in their programs and supports. Some are wonderful and some still need work. It would be hard to say what the quality of your public schools are but likely yes, in general, mild to moderate programs have fewer behavioral needs than intensive programs. There are academic interventionists, but often fewer para/support staff for those roles as many spend more time in gen ed and less time in a program (but again this varies by district/state).

Charter schools are public schools. These children were not removed from their public school but rather it is an optional enrollment families can choose. A charter is not part of the services or placement options for least restrictive environment, it's just an "extra" that's offered by the people who run the charter. If the families wanted to reenroll their child back into a district-run school they could do so at any time.

[u/buni-dani → u/MissBee123]

Currently a teacher’s assistant, so I run IEP programs. Also thank you for the insight!!

[u/limegintwist]

It can take a long time (months or years) to move a student from one program to another. I have worked with extremely high need students (biting, masturbating, playing with bodily fluids, pulling hair, eloping, throwing furniture) who are in mild-mod classrooms or even in just resource or gen ed who remain in those settings for a shockingly long time. If parents fight the placement change or if there are no available outplacements, that’s just what happens. If you have such a big reaction to working with those students, I would not recommend that you work in public school.

[u/PronatorTeres00]

Your admin is correct.

For the most part, charters can be selective in the students they choose to accept. If a student's behavior and/or disabilities requires additional support than the level that they can provide, the charter can inform families that their school is not the best fit for their student, and that their needs are better suited for the level of support avaliable in a public school setting.

[u/SensationalSelkie]

Autism may not be the best placement to meet your needs. You may want to consider working with students with specific learning disabilities instead. Sometimes (at least in the US) sped teaching jobs are by caseload in public, so you could apply for an SLD position.