Vent Spec Ed in school

[Anonymous]

I have a long list of hurtful things that have happened to my DC in school but this one really ticks me off

A teacher ask if he wrote his paper with his feet in front of the entire class (he has dysgraphia/poor fine motor the District refused to provide therapy for). His iep calls for assignments to be provided on computer which this teacher also disregarded.

Do teachers not have any training in working with SN students? This is a W school at mcps.

Dc won't let me complain to the school because he's afraid it will make things worse.

Imagine making fun of anything else a student had no control over infront of their peers!

[Anonymous]

That's extremely mean and I am sorry that happened to your son.
Does he typically have difficulties with effort?

[Anonymous]

What are you doing at home to help?

[Anonymous]

When we moved to a W cluster from another cluster in the county I was really struck by how out of place we were. It was like rich, white people aren't supposed to have kids with needs. When I toured the new home school the principal went on and on about enrichment and didn't say a word about resource services. When I pointed that out he just shrugged. When we were at the Burning Tree Learning Center, the guidance counselor wanted nothing to do with the LC kids. It was much more acceptable to have needs on the east side of the county. I'm not surprised to hear this at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do teachers not have any training in working with SN students? This is a W school at mcps.

MCPS Gen Ed teachers do not have enough training. Neither do MCPS Special Ed paraeducators.

I think that at W schools, the training deficit can be exacerbated. More families pay for private services outside school, for example they might have received Orton-Gillingham reading interventions, additional speech therapy or OT to help with handwriting. So Gen Ed teachers see less in their classrooms. I see it even with good and well-meaning teachers. They just don't have the experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we moved to a W cluster from another cluster in the county I was really struck by how out of place we were. It was like rich, white people aren't supposed to have kids with needs. When I toured the new home school the principal went on and on about enrichment and didn't say a word about resource services. When I pointed that out he just shrugged. When we were at the Burning Tree Learning Center, the guidance counselor wanted nothing to do with the LC kids. It was much more acceptable to have needs on the east side of the county. I'm not surprised to hear this at all.

I can’t say that things are perfect at our high-poverty DCPS but everyone has been very supportive and seems to view helping kids as part of their job.

[Anonymous]

That was clearly not nice, but devil's advocate- do you know the intention? I have one NT and one SN and just last week, the NT kids came home laughing because his math teacher told him that he was clearly destined to be a doctor because his handwriting is so illegible. It is. He does not have OT, though I'm sure he could use it, just really poor handwriting. The teacher said it in front of the whole class and he could have taken it meanly, but he thought it was funny and came home bragging about his horrible handwriting. I'm not saying this in a way to excuse the teacher, but it might be a way to turn the events around in your child's mind.

[Anonymous]

The entire layout of public school, especially inclusion, being used for special education is useless. Each individual SN child can take several months to understand even in a 1:1 or 1:2 setting. Expecting a teacher to manage a classroom of 20 NT children and add in 5-10 SN children each with a different plan is a ridiculous ask. Imagine now if it’s a new teacher with zero SN experience.

Welcome to the shit show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That was clearly not nice, but devil's advocate- do you know the intention? I have one NT and one SN and just last week, the NT kids came home laughing because his math teacher told him that he was clearly destined to be a doctor because his handwriting is so illegible. It is. He does not have OT, though I'm sure he could use it, just really poor handwriting. The teacher said it in front of the whole class and he could have taken it meanly, but he thought it was funny and came home bragging about his horrible handwriting. I'm not saying this in a way to excuse the teacher, but it might be a way to turn the events around in your child's mind.

There is a far cry between "you could be a doctor!" And "did you write this with your feet?"

ND people are much more likely to have hypermobility in specific areas of their bodies including their fingers. This is not a muscle weakness but rather a weakness of the fascia which can not be strengthened with more use. Intact more use leads to cramping an injury-- I'm talking to you, specifically, the poster above who said "what are you doing about it at home?"
Bullying a student who can't write is as bad as bullying a student with Cerebral palsy because they can't walk.

Just because you can't see the disability doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

There doesn't need to be special training to be a decent human being.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the poster who thinks intent is important. A lot of teachers try to make jokes to bond with the kids (this one missed the mark to be generous) but I think that's really different from a teacher who is actually hostile and discriminatory towards kids with special needs.

There are so many horrible things that happen to children with special needs that you really need to pick what you get upset about. In my book this would not register and my child has been good naturedly teased by teachers like this many times.

[Anonymous]

Pp, for a sensitive child, this will not come across as good-natured teasing. This teacher needs more training.

[Anonymous]

This teacher needs a manageable size class without a bunch of students that need different accommodations.

[Anonymous]

That really sucks.

My 9th grader has dyslexia and poor fine motor skills. He's done OT many times and several rounds of explicit handwriting instruction, including at a SN school. It still looks like he writes with his feet.

He used to get teased by other students but not so much anymore. Teachers struggle to read his writing (as do I) but he is supposed to be able to type it.

At this point, there isn't much farther he can go. He did OT last summer with no improvement. My goal this summer is for him to be able to sign his name fluidly and fill out a doctor's form legibly. It is what it is.

We low key rib him about it at home at times. Mainly to keep it from being a forbidden topic that has power. His handwriting is terrible and it most likely will be terrible for the rest of his life and he does need to be able to shrug it off.

That said, what that teacher did is not right!

[Anonymous]

So my younger sibling has dysgraphia and I just have bad handwriting. I have always been baffled by the ways that people treat handwriting as some sort of proxy for character or effort or anything. Like most people use computers for everything and are like 10 years away from AI obsoleting everyone but sure let’s focus on handwriting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the poster who thinks intent is important. A lot of teachers try to make jokes to bond with the kids (this one missed the mark to be generous) but I think that's really different from a teacher who is actually hostile and discriminatory towards kids with special needs.

There are so many horrible things that happen to children with special needs that you really need to pick what you get upset about. In my book this would not register and my child has been good naturedly teased by teachers like this many times.

The gaslighting is crazy

My mother in law makes passive aggressive comments like this and tries to pass them off as jokes. They're not good natured.