This is a teacher usually sitting down 1 on 1 with a student (or at least it should be). Now if we see the teacher doing this, no problem. If my kid just spends the time he is supposed to be with the teacher working, with him sitting in the corner while she does Facebook on her phone, then I and hopefully the principal, would want to see that.
Now another question, if YOUR kid was in special ed and you felt the need to see what was going on with them, what would YOU do to find out?
Before we go on with this anymore, have any of you all had a non-verbal kid with an IEP? Did that kid spend a large amount of their day in the special ed room?
If not, I really dont think you understand the problems we parents face.
I don’t believe that’s true. Not at “any time” or “can come in all the time.” I know of more than one school that has certain times for this and for other times, permission from the principal must be granted. Here’s info I found on an attorney’s website:
But that really has nothing to do with what you quoted by Patx2. That quote is regarding her not wanting recordings of her child being made; it’s not regarding parent access to classrooms.
Again, that depends upon the school and the principal and the classroom teacher. I’ve seen some that yes, are restrictive. Others pretty much have an open door policy as long as the teacher says its ok.
often parents can do some basic work like writing up lessons, grading papers, and such which free up the teachers time. I remember at my sons school in second grade I did this and on one occasion, the teacher had me run a reading evaluation. Basically each kid came into the hallway and I ran a basic reading test.
Now some school had to become more restrictive because some parents abused this and caused a problem in the classroom.
Again? I’M the one that just said it; you don’t need to remind me.
You told Pat:
I dont think you realize that in a regular classroom, parents are allowed to come in anytime and watch the class.
You told her that she doesn’t realize something followed by a statement that isn’t true. That’s why I responded.
And “again”, that response by you was a non sequitur. “That quote is regarding her not wanting recordings of her child being made; it’s not regarding parent access to classrooms.” So continuing to discuss parent visitation isn’t germane to the topic.
This is understandable, especially because (and I’ve told this story here before) the one school I’ve seen that was on continuous lockdown and had a guard, who IIRC was armed, on duty at all times by a metal detector was a K-3 school in a quiet middle-class neighborhood in a medium-sized Midwestern city. This was done because it was the school attended by children that age who lived at the domestic violence shelter. I could also see a policy being put into place for situations where a parent, or other relative, is not allowed to see a child for whatever reason, or at least not under very restrictive circumstances.
No they can’t. Maybe they can where you are since the world is a big place but I’ve never been part of a district with an open visitation policy for parents, not as a student and not as a parent myself. And you certainly aren’t going to be allowed to make yourself a regular or persistent visitor.
I’ve never heard of an open visitation policy either. Our district has 3 days each year for parent visitation, which includes special ed rooms. It used to be years ago, community visitation days but I think they got some common sense and realized, maybe letting everyone having access wasn’t the best idea. Honestly, I wish they’d stop it all together. No one ever seems comfortable, the parents the teachers, and quite honestly, all you need is one parent that’s pissed about something with a teacher and not operating with a full deck, very possibly setting the stage for a tragedy.
Yes, that’s possible, and there are good and bad in every profession, I may be naive, but I think most professionals, teachers included, tend to be honest and try to do a good job.
Well thats her school. My kids school said it was ok for parents to visit. At the first of the year the teachers sent out letters stating their policies. I never saw any where they said no visitors.
At other schools in another district they allowed parents who were thinking of moving to that school zone, a chance to visit the school and walk around and peak in on the classes.
Again, it was very frustrating that a parent could observe their kids in a regular classroom without a problem but I could NOT observe them in the special ed room.
Another issue, sometimes we had parents who had their kids attendChildrens TLC, which goes to age 4, which has a 2 way mirror on the classroom door. They then have their kids in the public school where they are cut off.
Have you actually checked the district handbook? Mine says that parents may visit if scheduled with advance notice and may stay no longer than one hour. When you arrive you need to check in and get escorted to the classroom. This isn’t really any different from the previous complaint that “Oh, well of course the teacher will perform well when they know the monitor is coming that day…”
As a teacher, cameras in class are a terrible idea if they are always on and the images widely available. It will stiffle the way you teach because you’d have to be super careful about anything that might be misconstrued. Every time something happened instead of using your instinct and experience, you’d have to either be ready to explain it in minute detail or simply go strictly by the book.
Allowing parents to observe a class is far from universal.
One can assume that if a parent is observing, the behavior of the teacher will change. Are the parents going to be there all school day everyday???
Hence the idea of a camera recording. You get observation and perhaps more realistic behavior.
But what is so special about school? It is one of the safer places for kids. Do parents want 24/7 observation of their kids everywhere??? Being raised by Big Brother parents doesn’t seem like a good idea at all.
Some compromise is needed when being a parent. Lots of monitoring for tiny kids, less and less as they grow older.
Part of the problem with “lots and lots of monitoring” is that you’re not just monitoring your own child. I know our special ed instructors are always extremely careful when discussing other children both due to ethical standards and probably legal ones as well. In a special education classroom, you have a variety of students with different abilities and needs far exceeding the spectrum in a traditional classroom and instructors are (or at least should be) very careful about giving parents information about how other students are progressing or what their struggles are. I don’t see “lots and lots” of parental monitoring being tenable and wouldn’t want it in my child’s classroom.
