Hi Lee,
As a former pupil of Special Schools, I can see benefits as well as liabilities when it comes to inclusion as well as exclusion in the education process. All of my education until college was exclusion based. I had no idea of the cruelty of the able bodied teen to the disabled teen until I got on the internet, and read some of the accounts. It was an eyeopening experience for me.
As far as I can see there are points to be made on both inclusion and exclusion and the pupil with the disability should be the one to decide where he/she should go if the student is old enough. If you'd like me to ruminate further we can do it off listl.