Individualized Education Plan. Says what the kid’s problems are, and how the school is going to address them during the year, what kind of therapies and assistance they will get, and what goals are to be set and striven for.
Yes, I did bring it up, and even asked her not to tell the teacher who complained about it. The teacher does freely admit that she has a very strong personality and has said things to me like, “I’m the queen bitch of my classroom”, etc., and so I think that his fears of retribution are justified. She does not seem to me like someone who takes kindly to her actions being questioned. But, maybe that’s how she needs to be in order to maintain her classroom, and I can somewhat justify that. Although, I can’t justify her “I’m going to die and it’s going to be all your fault” schtick.
I can see where you’re coming from, but I do believe that this type of environment is best for him. He has ADD and needs a lot of supervision, even one-on-one at times. He’s experienced horrific bullying in the past, and has become rather defensive and angry towards potential bullies, and so I believe needs the self-contained room so that he is not out in the general population on his own all the time. Also, he has some fairly severe hand disabilities, and needs to be able to do some of his work on a laptop, which is only provided for him in this classroom.
Um. I’d be at the school board over this. This, plus everything else is just too much.
I don’t think you or your son are snowflakes.
My kid went through something similar a couple of years back and I get your frustration, not only with the teacher, but with the aid who won’t back his own observation and the ass. principal who is trying to dismiss your concern.
I wish I could offer some helpful suggestion, but we were advised (by other teachers) to do nothing in case the teacher ‘took revenge’ - and she made it clear that she’d happily give my kid a bad report on her permanent record.
So I did nothing but tell my kid it was the teacher and not her, this was a case of getting through the year without letting the bully get to her. She did and moved on to a new school the next year and blossomed.
That same year my neighbour was in tears over her kid being emotionally destroyed by the same teacher. I felt like crap.
Teachers are people, some of them are not very nice people.
Just another voice agreeing that this is all kinds of B.S. If the principal wants to ignore it I’d go straight to the school board.
Now this is a snowflake.
I’m thinking that the thing with this is that every questionable thing she has said has been just that, things that she has* said* with no evidence. Hearsay, if you will. If the aides in the class are afraid to speak up, and the children are too, then I just look like a crazy lady and cause trouble for my son. At least I know that by being talked to by the asst principle, even if nothing happens, she will at least know that people are paying attention and she needs to be more careful with what she says in the classroom.
Damnit wrong thread, sorry.
You go to the school office, and you park your butt on a chair, and say, “I need to speak with the principal. Now.”
My son had problems due to his ADD. The last year my kids went to parochial school, I tried to meet with his teacher before classes started. She was a nun (the ONLY one in the school), and said, “Oh, I’ve had ADD students before. No problem.”
She probably ATE them.
Her solution was, when my son became a problem (almost daily, because she had 36 second-graders in her class, so it was more zoo than schoolroom), she sent him to the office, where the secretary would call me at work and say, “Come get your kid.”
After doing this multiple times, she decided that she owed the other students “an explanation” as to why my kid was gone so much. She stood up in front of a roomful of second-graders (at that age, they are barracudas) and said, “VOWkid has to leave the class because he has something wrong with his brain, and the doctors are trying to fix it.”
Oh, GAWD.
His classmates later called him crazy, retarded, brain-dead, you name it. When he couldn’t take the teasing any longer, he’d go to Sister Mary-Jerk and tell her. Her response? “Don’t listen to them, you know it’s not true.”
Yeah, I went to the principal. SHE wanted to know why I didn’t come swinging at the school with a sledge hammer.
The kids went to public school the next year. That was a DIFFERENT brand of nightmare. But I don’t want to completely hijack the thread.
ANYWAY…go to the principal. Go to the school board. If nobody will listen, go to the newspapers. Your child is entitled to an education, NOT emotional blackmail.
~VOW
Years ago, they also gave out IEPs to “gifted” kids. Statements of how the child was going to be challenged, specific educational target areas (e.g. “problem solving,” “creative writing,” “advanced math”), how his talents would be developed and whatnot. Not sure if they do that any more.
Now this makes me wonder if you ever give anyone the benefit of the doubt at his school. Principals are insanely busy and it is very common with an assistant principal to talk to parents. Most of the time, it’s their job to handle parents and behavior disputes. A principal does more admin/super duper serious stuff. I understand you care for your son, but kids take things out of context and even if she did say it, it was really stupid but not the end of the day. You handle 15 kids for six and a half hours a day. It happens.
edit: I just saw your other posts about the teacher; sorry
“Oh, GAWD” indeed!!! This reminds me of the kind of crap some of my grade-school teachers (nuns) would pull. They had no problem with humiliating students, deliberately or otherwise. Slapping 'em for making mistakes, embarassing them in front of the whole class, or whatever. None (hah) of the ones I had could have handled special-needs kids. From 40+ years ago, I can imagine a number of those kids had ADD or learning disabilities, but they weren’t helped, we just knew they were “the dumb kids”.
As the parent of a (now-adult) child diagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), I have to say I agree with both Mama Zappa and VOW. My child would literally throw books across the room or yell obscenities at teachers if he got frustrated. Yet, the counselors, administrators, and teachers agreed to keep him mainstreamed as much as possible. He had the resource room for at least one period daily, but could and did go there when he was having a bad day. The resource room teacher was his primary facilitator and worked with his other teachers to make sure they were informed and kept up his IEP. This was high school and it was an amazingly cooperative and productive experience. He didn’t make it, but not for lack of trying and ultimately it was his decision to move on a charter school that dealt with troubled kids of all sorts. But his facilitator from the original HS kept in touch with him and continued to encourage him and counsel him when he requested it even though he was no longer her responsibility. He was so fortunate to have her on his side. When he got his GED after several years of struggle, she was the first person he emailed to let her know he’d finally done it. He’s in community college now (which I really did not expect to see him do).
I would also urge you to seek out a better IEP team for your son. It does make all the difference in the world. You and he especially deserve to have an IEP facilitator that takes your concerns and his needs ultra seriously and works from the inside to deal with issues as they arise. Doesn’t sound like you’ve got that right now. My son didn’t get an effective IEP team until high school. I hope yours gets one sooner than that.
This is almost an aside to the main topic of this thread, but I wanted to comment on the fact that the OP’s son’s classroom is the only one where he can have a laptop. That does not sound right to me.
My son (now in college) has dysgraphia, and would have benefited from using a keyboard/word processor from the moment he was required to do written work. I did have to go to the school board to get this accommodation, but finally did get it for my son when he was in fourth grade, in a regular classroom. (Son had a 504 plan, which is similar to an IEP.)
Being able to use a word processor made such a huge difference. Before that, all he could manage to write was maybe a half page. With the word processor, he was suddenly churning out three-page essays. (They had to do a lot of writing in that school!) He did not have to be in a separate class to use this accommodation.
Just a suggestion: don’t communicate with the administration orally anymore. Send an e-mail or letter to the Assistant Principal recounting your phone conversation, including “Don’t expect a call back, I’m so veryvery busy,” and state that that is unacceptable. Say what you expect them to do and when, and that you want all communication in writing.
This puts the AP in the position of letting your description of things stand, or writing back and correcting herself, saying she will take care of it and get back to you. Generally people are much more reluctant to be irresponsible jackasses in writing, where it can be referred to unequivocally later. Say, to the school board.
This is an excellent suggestion.
Oppositional Defiance Disorder? Seriously? That’s a thing now?
What do you find weird about that?