04/21/2026
The ethical concern is this:Special need schools used to provide the staff and training needed to support the child in the school. This allowed the child to get quality care at school AND quality care after school in their therapies. Special need schools realized it costs them zero dollars to instead utilize the student’s ABA staff - so many schools have cut out quality training and hiring teacher assistants for the classroom- they instead use the child’s ABA therapy hours. School hours should NOT replace after school therapy hours because those after school 1:1 therapy hours are where intensive teaching happens- however, often they do because insurance companies will only authorize so many hours for so long. The underlying deficits are treated in the out of classroom, 1:1 therapy, giving the child the skills they need to thrive. Some ABA companies don’t care the child is only getting school hours because they are getting paid and some special need schools don’t care because it saves them money in hiring and training additional staff. Parents don’t realize their child is being cheated on actual intensive teaching because they think their child is getting “8 hours of ABA at school” and believe that must be meeting their child’s needs. I’m not saying in school therapy (especially in a general education setting is not necessary), I’m saying schools, especially special need schools that charge high tuition, should not be using the child’s RBT as a teacher assistant- instead they should staff and train according to the classroom’s needs.
