SPECIAL EDUCATION POLICY IN THE BELO HORIZONTE-MG MUNICIPAL SCHOOL SYSTEM

In this paper we seek to analyze the Special Education policy of the municipality of Belo Horizonte-MG to understand the organization of this type of education in its network and the articulation with national policies. To do so, we used the analysis of national and municipal documentation that we consider representative of the Special Education policy, and the analysis of data from the School Census (2018). We can see that historically Special Education is characterized by disputes between public and private. Both nationally and at the municipal level, there has been a tendency to target private-assistance institutions, thus enabling public funding for the private network. The school census data showed that most students in Special Education were enrolled in municipal schools and 84% did not attend AEE; besides the significant number of students with intellectual disabilities enrolled (45.4%) and the existence of segregated spaces. Despite the obstacles that public school presents, we believe that this is the space where students have access to systematized knowledge and, therefore, this is the space where Special Education students should be.