Teachers, how would you take this?

[Anonymous]

I was in a student's special education meeting and we were all talking (the school team) with the parents and the mom was sort of sitting through the discussions and contributing while the father was sort of silently sitting there until the very end when the group proposed a plan (with a plan to check on the plan in six weeks) and he said "this all sounds like a great plan, but does Teacher X have everything she needs to actually accomplish what we all spent the past hour discussing? Because it doesn't seem fair to her or everyone's time if we reconvene and the answer is that circumstances prevented certain aspects of the plan (interventions, record keeping, etc) to actually be accomplished in a meaningful way. She has 28 students and this seems like a bit more work for her to take on." It got very weird after he spoke.

I was one of the teachers in the group (not the classroom teacher) and our principal actually took offense. I'm not sure if this makes sense, though. Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Maybe he’s under the mistaken impression that the teacher won’t just ignore the gen ed students a little more to make the IEP work

[Anonymous]

I like it but be someone actually speaks something useful and not the usual blah blah where everyone pretends and then no one cares to actually do anything.
Too bad you didn’t have the answer for the dad!
Signed,
-hourly employee at a school district

[Anonymous]

This was a reasonable accountability question for a parent to confirm up front.

The principal should be monitoring this extra IEP workload for the teacher anyway.

Time will tell if the dad’s concern was valid.

[Anonymous]

Wow. That dad was advocating for the teacher and his kid at the same time. I’m impressed

[Anonymous]

What were they asking the teacher to do? Maybe the dad was just concerned how it was possible for the teacher to do all of it. A legit concern especially if there are other students in the class the teacher has to do this for.

[Anonymous]

Smart dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. That dad was advocating for the teacher and his kid at the same time. I’m impressed

Same!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like an extremely thoughtful and reasonable questionable.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps they have been told things would happen before that just didn’t happen because it was too much for the teacher to balance. Very reasonable question and it speaks to the amount of support teachers need and if the admin is supplying that support.

[Anonymous]

This is a really good question and if the principal was offended by it, that says a lot more about the principal and the supports (or lack of supports) s/he provides the teachers at the school than it does about the parent who wants to make sure the teacher has that support structure.

[Anonymous]

It also sounds like this family has been burned before. For many families, this is not their first rodeo, and a lot of schools have made getting and implementing IEPs really, really challenging.

[Anonymous]

I say stuff like that myself at the IEP. This is just how it goes. They can’t keep piling onto the teacher. The teacher already has a workload that’s rough. Asking them to do more often seems unreasonable and won’t get accomplished like it should anyway.

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, this is actually really impressive. He is savvy because he knows the team can put together a wonderful looking IEP but if it isn’t actually doable for the teacher it won’t amount to much. Sounds like he wants to ensure that she has support people in the room who can help her accommodate and provide services, that the class itself isn’t too large for her to provide the focus on the kid that the IEP demands and things like that. That’s a great person to have at the table for that kind of merging, kudos to him for holding the school accountable for what they say they’ll provide and not just telling the teacher to “get creative.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a really good question and if the principal was offended by it, that says a lot more about the principal and the supports (or lack of supports) s/he provides the teachers at the school than it does about the parent who wants to make sure the teacher has that support structure.

This was my thought, as well. This Dad simply said what I’m usually thinking at IEP meetings. I’ve been that general Ed teacher with 140 other students, who is being told to devote 5-7 hours weekly to individualized plans for one student. I’ve sat next to administrators who have assured the parents I will “spend every waking hour” making sure these accommodations are met. I’ve also had an administrator say “Ms. X will make your child her top priority.”

The promises made are often NOT sustainable. I’ve said that during meetings just to be run over by my admin.

Thank you, Dad, for questioning the workload and whether it was all useless blather by an administrator.