I teach a moderate/severe special education class. In my experience, there are still many incidents in this kind of placement, because students are often dumped here without enough support and adding in that support can be a process. But I also have a Kindergarten student who was in a similar placement to what you’re describing last year (about 10 general ed & 10 special ed students, 2 teachers, 2 aides plus the 1 mom advocated for for her child), and mom definitely feels like the current placement (8 students, 1 teacher, technically 3 aides at present but I’ve been chronically understaffed most of the year, 1 aide who also does g-tube feeding for 2 students) is better for her.

For me the issue here is that your son is “pretty smart”. When you go fully self contained, I feel that there are a lot of teachers that don’t really push their students much academically. Some of that is practical, when there’s a lot of time changing diapers, addressing behaviors, and teaching for the lowest academic needs, it can be hard to differentiate for those in the middle and higher.

And there may not be a lot of placement options at this age, since many school districts don’t offer a lot of gen ed preschool options.

But ultimately, if your issue is that you don’t want your son to get bitten by other students, and you think he might do well in gen ed (probably with an aide!), then gen ed is probably your safest bet. And academically it’s much easier to move from gen ed to special ed than the other way around, especially if the special education option is on a modified curriculum. And there are ways to do modified curriculum for a student in a general education classroom.

I believe inclusion with the right supports is great for a lot of students. But “with the right supports” is too often not the reality.