Inappropriate response from teachers at Elementary School Summer Program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long was the entire episode? I am thinking pretty long. If the child started having issues, the school would have first tried to handle it. After they gave that some time, they would have called home. There would have been a time for dad to get there and then got dad to calm his son down. This is probably closer to an hour. If those teachers have been working the episode for awhile and finally saw that the child had calmed down, I can see them lowering their guards.

In fact, if they had just been intently staring at the dad/son and not saying a word, that might have been more triggering for the child.

It sounds like the situation was over or close to over and the teachers relaxed. These situations are very tense and staying alert for that long is hard. The child was calm enough to ask about it.

Just ask the teacher about it. And let her know how it felt to your child so that she can be more aware next time. This is way too many pages about this, yet I am drawn in as a parent of a child with school behaviors.

It almost reads as fiction, right? OP still hasn’t responded and that is another red flag.

The bolded answer was given long ago to contact people involved and administrators but that’s now why OP posted.

[Anonymous]

I'm calling BS on this story. If your child was threatening suicide and his father was there to take him home, how was there time/opportunity for him to conduct a conversation w/his teachers? Wasn't he hysterical and leaving at that time? Or did he get his s**t together long enough to have a detailed convo w/his teachers? Come on, man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long was the entire episode? I am thinking pretty long. If the child started having issues, the school would have first tried to handle it. After they gave that some time, they would have called home. There would have been a time for dad to get there and then got dad to calm his son down. This is probably closer to an hour. If those teachers have been working the episode for awhile and finally saw that the child had calmed down, I can see them lowering their guards.

In fact, if they had just been intently staring at the dad/son and not saying a word, that might have been more triggering for the child.

It sounds like the situation was over or close to over and the teachers relaxed. These situations are very tense and staying alert for that long is hard. The child was calm enough to ask about it.

Just ask the teacher about it. And let her know how it felt to your child so that she can be more aware next time. This is way too many pages about this, yet I am drawn in as a parent of a child with school behaviors.

It almost reads as fiction, right? OP still hasn’t responded and that is another red flag.

The bolded answer was given long ago to contact people involved and administrators but that’s now why OP posted.

Maybe OP contacted the teachers and the school and MCPS admin in the time it took everyone else to add their opinions to this thread. Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

This discussion is exhibit A why people should discuss special needs kids on the kids with special needs forum. Most of y'all have no f-ing clue what like with a special needs kid is.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

That’s too bad. The principal should know about their unprofessional behavior. They are now free to behave this way in front of many more children. And so it goes. The birth of teachers who mock and make fun of students in public and at conferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

I think you made a good decision. I’m the PP who said that for summer school to be effective you have to put in a lot of work and that the regular IEP is often just not sufficient. I found summer school only effective for very specific reasons - credit recovery. I hope leaving summer school brings your child peace.

[Anonymous]

Did you talk to the teacher about the laughing? I think it would give you peace of mind just to let her know how it made your son feel. It doesn’t have to be accusatory, just an explanation. You would hate for history to repeat itself but it will if nothing is said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

I think you made a good decision. I’m the PP who said that for summer school to be effective you have to put in a lot of work and that the regular IEP is often just not sufficient. I found summer school only effective for very specific reasons - credit recovery. I hope leaving summer school brings your child peace.

A good decision because MCPS staff can not be trusted to do their job and put students first. It's also a good decision to run from a house on fire. But it's a total and absolute failure of MCPS to do the mission which they are paid to do by our tax dollars. It should never be good for a parent to have to flee. That's a cry for vouchers and why we are headed in that direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

I think you made a good decision. I’m the PP who said that for summer school to be effective you have to put in a lot of work and that the regular IEP is often just not sufficient. I found summer school only effective for very specific reasons - credit recovery. I hope leaving summer school brings your child peace.

A good decision because MCPS staff can not be trusted to do their job and put students first. It's also a good decision to run from a house on fire. But it's a total and absolute failure of MCPS to do the mission which they are paid to do by our tax dollars. It should never be good for a parent to have to flee. That's a cry for vouchers and why we are headed in that direction.

Unfortunately there are many who are fleeing if they have the option to do so. There are many who are putting up with this due to inability to move elsewhere. As soon as they have opportunity to move, I am sure they will.
For past year or so, things have really fallen off the cliff in terms of support for teachers and students. Only political activism and grand standing is going on to benefit some groups while others including the highly abled students are left behind.
Its a shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did you keep sending him back into an environment that was so detrimental to his mental health?

We were trying to adjust his medications at the time and was wondering whether it was him getting use to the new medications. When we observed this, we decided to stop sending him right away.

What a mess.
His doctor was ok with this nightmare?

[Anonymous]

Don’t feed the troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm calling BS on this story. If your child was threatening suicide and his father was there to take him home, how was there time/opportunity for him to conduct a conversation w/his teachers? Wasn't he hysterical and leaving at that time? Or did he get his s**t together long enough to have a detailed convo w/his teachers? Come on, man.

Agree. How can this kid even process what is going on in a reasonable manner if they are threatening suicide. I’d be extremely concerned about my kids being around a kid threatening self harm. How does the school protect other children from a kid that is unbalanced and potentially dangerous to himself and others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t feed the troll.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I did send an email to the principal and notified him of our intention to withdraw DS from the summer school program with the rationale for our decision. We did not mention the two teachers laughing. DS was calming down as soon as DH got there. Therefore, of course DS and DH could observe the two teachers (one who guided DH into the classroom where DS was being contained) and the other that was in classroom watching DS while waiting for DH to show up start laughing and giggling to each other.

I think you made a good decision. I’m the PP who said that for summer school to be effective you have to put in a lot of work and that the regular IEP is often just not sufficient. I found summer school only effective for very specific reasons - credit recovery. I hope leaving summer school brings your child peace.

A good decision because MCPS staff can not be trusted to do their job and put students first. It's also a good decision to run from a house on fire. But it's a total and absolute failure of MCPS to do the mission which they are paid to do by our tax dollars. It should never be good for a parent to have to flee. That's a cry for vouchers and why we are headed in that direction.

Regular main stream teachers are not trained to deal with mentally ill kids and suicidal threats. Kid was in a new environment and parents were experimenting with medication without involving the IEP team. It is shortsighted to blame the school.