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to start things off, all i got from my own schooling days were examples of what not to do. (for context, i went to a rural public school in australia in the 90s.)

in primary (elementary), the special ed kids usually had their own room where all the grades and abilities seemed to be grouped in together and had almost no opportunity to interact with anyone outside their class. every day would have a few periods where they were dragged out and sat in a classroom with everyone else, but with their own material, their own teacher, and no chance to work with or talk to any of the mainstream students. the only time any of us noticed they were there was when one of them started acting up, which only created resentment and imo did more harm than good.

what seemed particularly cruel to me was that for some reason, the teachers forced all the special education students (past a certain level of functioning) to do pe and sport with the rest of us. so almost their only real interaction with mainstream students was going through the harrowing ritual of team choosing, where of course all of them were left until the very end, and then having to hear everyone complaining about having to have them on their team and blaming them if they lost. that was awful enough to go through as a regular nerd, but on top of the social stigma they already experienced it must have been excruciating.

once we got to high school, there was zero attempt at integration. the special education students had their own building and most of them chose to even spend lunchtimes there because they got bullied so much in the playground. they became invisible. i never heard any success stories from that town.