The dreaded phone call.
there are times that I dread the phone. I have numbers in my phone that I rarely ever call and when one of those pops up I almost always know the news is bad. That is what happened this week.
This is a situation where my son is friendish (they are friends but are at each other and compete in sports) with a boy. This is a boy with a learning disability of some sort, he is not a bad kid, but not exactly thoughtful either. He and another BD boy made up an EXTRAVEGENT story about my son and an incident that happened in class. The team taught class was being "taught" by one special ed teacher and one gen ed teacher...the personalities don't mesh and the end result is that my son now HATES science classes and thinks that both of these teachers are horrible. It is sad but that is how it is.
Anyhow, after the call from the Dean we went, after a sleepless night for the 3 of us, and heard a load of codswallop from the other 2 boys and my son told his part, he was nervous, the Dean, Asst Principal, Pyschologist, his Case Manager and parents were there. The end result was the teachers didn't follow the IEP or behavior plan; as I can gather it sounds like one of them MUST be functionally illiterate, she didn't read what was supposed to happen when there is a problem in class. they wouldn't allow our son ot leave the classroom to talk to his cse manger or psychologist, which is clearly stated in the behavior plan and IEP; our son has a pass to leave when he needs to go talk to someone. We have determined that one of the teachers must get off on the "excitement" because then she can go home and say, "YOu wouldn't believe what the animals did today." At least that is the way it appears on our end.
Although we thought our son deserved a detention, and my husband recommended that the dean give him one, he didn't. Our son got a warning, and although it was deserved I still think that he deserved more of a punishment. He is being punished at home, still no cartoons or video games.
Now for the tough part, what does one do with a class where the trust that an IEP and behavior plan are not being followed? This problem would have never happened and we would have never heard about it if the 2 teachers in the classroom were doing their job, which frankly, would have been made EASIER if they had sent our son to his pyschologist or case manager. He had asked once before to go talk tohis psychologist and they wouldn't let him go, so he didn't even bother to ask this time. AS far as he was concerned, what was the point in asking again, the answer would be "No, you can't go"?
Which now begs the question: if a teacher doesn't follow an IEP or behavior plan what happens to them? I would like to think that there is some kind of punishment involved...I doubt it though. Frankly, a tenured teacher around here doesn't garner much respect with the special ed parents. In fact, we really are not impressed that they have been teaching for a long time. Burnout rate is high with teachers of special ed and if they do it for too long they need a job change, environment change or something to keep fresh and do well. We have seen it happen. There are very few that can do it for longer than a few years; I know of 2 that have been at it for a long time; both are in a special ed district and are highly respected. That is 2 teachers in heaven knows how many years we hve dealt with schools and districts.
That isn't saying much is it?
This is a situation where my son is friendish (they are friends but are at each other and compete in sports) with a boy. This is a boy with a learning disability of some sort, he is not a bad kid, but not exactly thoughtful either. He and another BD boy made up an EXTRAVEGENT story about my son and an incident that happened in class. The team taught class was being "taught" by one special ed teacher and one gen ed teacher...the personalities don't mesh and the end result is that my son now HATES science classes and thinks that both of these teachers are horrible. It is sad but that is how it is.
Anyhow, after the call from the Dean we went, after a sleepless night for the 3 of us, and heard a load of codswallop from the other 2 boys and my son told his part, he was nervous, the Dean, Asst Principal, Pyschologist, his Case Manager and parents were there. The end result was the teachers didn't follow the IEP or behavior plan; as I can gather it sounds like one of them MUST be functionally illiterate, she didn't read what was supposed to happen when there is a problem in class. they wouldn't allow our son ot leave the classroom to talk to his cse manger or psychologist, which is clearly stated in the behavior plan and IEP; our son has a pass to leave when he needs to go talk to someone. We have determined that one of the teachers must get off on the "excitement" because then she can go home and say, "YOu wouldn't believe what the animals did today." At least that is the way it appears on our end.
Although we thought our son deserved a detention, and my husband recommended that the dean give him one, he didn't. Our son got a warning, and although it was deserved I still think that he deserved more of a punishment. He is being punished at home, still no cartoons or video games.
Now for the tough part, what does one do with a class where the trust that an IEP and behavior plan are not being followed? This problem would have never happened and we would have never heard about it if the 2 teachers in the classroom were doing their job, which frankly, would have been made EASIER if they had sent our son to his pyschologist or case manager. He had asked once before to go talk tohis psychologist and they wouldn't let him go, so he didn't even bother to ask this time. AS far as he was concerned, what was the point in asking again, the answer would be "No, you can't go"?
Which now begs the question: if a teacher doesn't follow an IEP or behavior plan what happens to them? I would like to think that there is some kind of punishment involved...I doubt it though. Frankly, a tenured teacher around here doesn't garner much respect with the special ed parents. In fact, we really are not impressed that they have been teaching for a long time. Burnout rate is high with teachers of special ed and if they do it for too long they need a job change, environment change or something to keep fresh and do well. We have seen it happen. There are very few that can do it for longer than a few years; I know of 2 that have been at it for a long time; both are in a special ed district and are highly respected. That is 2 teachers in heaven knows how many years we hve dealt with schools and districts.
That isn't saying much is it?
