On the first day of kindergarten, her teacher asked the class to trace letters. My daughter politely asked if she could read instead because she already knew her letters. The answer was no. The class was tracing letters, so she needed to trace letters too. Look, I understand that teachers have to manage an entire classroom, but I wonder if this was the first time our daughter learned that school wasn’t going to meet her where she was.

Children with special needs are often cited as a demographic most reliant on public school. In this month's episode of our Choosing School podcast, Jody speaks with parents of children with special needs and administrators of Special Education.