Right. Also keep in mind that it should be considered impossible to limit access to the video stream only to parents. Schools just aren’t set up to be reasonably good at computer security. If some parents can view it, who else can?
Again I’d like to ask, do any of you have experience with having a non verbal kid in special ed or dealing with the IEP process?
Even with my own kids and with parents at my sons school, they could hardly believe me when I brought up these issues. They had no idea what was going on with special ed. They thought everything at that school was going great.
This needs to be repeated more often and more loudly.
Schools: Where every single adult has to pass a background check, usually MULTIPLE checks, and where a felony conviction of any kind means *automatic *termination. Where all employees have been screened and vetted, received higher-level education and do their jobs publicly in front of dozens of witnesses every day. Where every person with direct responsibility for the “product” (the students) has to be professionally licensed and get continuous training to stay employed, quite often out of his/her own pocket.
Almost every other type of workplace: None of the above.
Also, Schools: Where people who could never qualify to work in one (see above requirements) feel free to make demands on how they should be run.
raising hand
Like I said before, it’s not that I disbelieve you. But there are more than 98,000 public schools in this country, serving almost 51 millions students, with more than 3 million teachers. Do not make the mistake of assuming your experience is typical, or that there is one harmless solution that will help everybody equally.
My son is in a special education setting and has an IEP. Although he qualifies as verbal, he is incapable of answering a question like “where did that scratch over your eye come from?” Which is what we care about, I assume, not whether or not he can say “Cat”.
I passed over your question the first time though because (a) I don’t see the value of the “Your kid isn’t disabled enough for your opinion to count” game and (b) everyone’s kid is being affected by a school-wide policy so everyone should have an equal voice. Even if restricted to a special education setting, anyone implying that my opinion on my child’s classroom counts for less can go pound walnuts.
Thanks for chiming in.
What I meant was most parents are really clueless about what happens in the IEP process or what happens in special ed rooms. Yes, by nature, the IEP process is confrontational. And what happens in the special ed room is totally different than what happens in the normal classrooms.
And BTW, I’m only interested about cameras in the special ed classroom.
I know and work with on occasion with some special ed teachers. I’ve never known them to refer to the IEP process as being confrontational. If parents are clueless about what’s going on in the process, they need to educate themselves and ask questions. Why does it seem like what happens in the special ed rooms is more secretive than what’s going on in the general ed rooms? I’m not sure I follow. I think different districts are going to have different policies but I’m just not getting the “totally” different. What exactly is? The teaching methods, obviously, the way the students may or may not interact, very possibly, but that’s obvious. The teachers I know work extremely hard and really examine all data points when putting together IEPs.
I don’t get it either. My daughter has had an IEP since the third grade, and all of her teachers have clearly had my daughter’s best interests at heart. The same with the other administrators who were involved. She’s in the 11th grade now, and we meet regularly with the special ed teacher and the school psychiatrist. Both are awesome. If we ever disagree with something they want to put into the IEP, then we all come up with a solution that is good for everyone involved. I’ve never felt there was any kind of confrontation taking place.
Under FERPA, parents have the right to ALL records of their child. All records mean anything maintained by the district: student cumulative files, special ed files, files the nurses office maintains, the computerized Student Information System, email system. There is no way in heck the district wants to add video tapes to that list. The hours of tape would be impossible to redact other students out of, and parent requests for records would be through the roof, wanting to see tapes for any perceived infraction. Nuh uh, never going to happen.
Really? Where? In my entire life, as a student and as a teacher, I can recall one parent in the classroom regularly.
Your suppositions have already been addressed, but I had to chime in here.
I see it as the parents in the OP wanted to audio record the one-on-one interaction with their child. Unfortunately they would also gather background commentary and noise. This to me is different than classroom video surveillance.
I’m not sure about that. While I agree it’s different than actual classroom surveillance, I think they wanted permission for him to have a camera.