From a special ed teacher....
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Anonymous
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I've had 7 years of IEP teams and the skill/quality has run the gamut. Actually, it's not just the IEP team, we've had some amazing general ed teachers that continue to be a positiive influence. The team we had in early elementary was absolutely the best (Title 1 FWIW). I actually feel weepy when I think how caring and dedicated they were. The most memorable is our first special ed teacher. Even when we were hitting roadblocks to get them to just evaluate DS, I felt she understood what the future held in store for us and was as much of an ally as she could be. It was the head of the committee (school psychologist) that was the problem. Once we got an advocate/consultant, things turned around quickly. That spec ed teacher wasn't bothered in the least by us getting an advocate and worked really well with her. She was the one who finally taught my DS to read. Now, 7 years later, when I see his love of reading and think back to that time, I'm just so very grateful (and weepy).
I'm also really grateful for the teachers who recognized my DS worries and fears. He'd sometimes act out because of anxiety and their responses were firm but compassionate. They reinforced what we were trying to teach him at home and it's really paying off. He's really maturing in a direction that's positive and with a good set of tools to help him compensate for his challenges. I know he can be a challenge sometimes and I really appreciate the efforts they made to connect with him and earn his trust. Finally, I'm grateful to the first year teachers (general and spec ed) that clearly didn't have the experience to identify the source of my DS's behavior but were open to discussing it with me and considering it from a different point of view. They didn't always make good choices initially (like keeping the kids in from recess to do work) but were willing to have a dialogue about alternate strategies that would be more effective not just for my kids but for any kid. I hope they really know how much they're appreciated. |
Anonymous
| I've always been very proactive with my DS teachers, sharing what we do at home and asking for feedback and ideas. I am too a working parent and it is not always easy to find the time but you figure it out. So yes, OP, I too don't understand why some of the parents can be bothered to make it to IEP meetings or at least ask for feedback and just rely on schools alone. |
Anonymous
Yes please. And OP is not even local. So maybe your school system is a bit more flexible and amenable to SN kids and families than the giant, lumbering systems we have here (ie - MoCo). As a teacher, you have ZERO idea of what it is like to parent one or two SN kids and navigate a system which is fully stacked against you. Do you think I like paying for advocates and tutors and emailing SN teams at school on a weekly basis? Not so much. But that's what it takes to get heard. We have been lucky to have a year here and there when my kids had teachers and team leaders who "got them" and who cared enough to educate them in the most appropriate way, often to the chagrin of the school administration. Those years were a gift, because I could back off and breathe easy for a bit. Those teachers are few and far between. So yes, please go away. |
Anonymous
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Lay off the hate to OP. You're violating the norms of this thread with your vitriolic posts (which, BTW, are suspiciously similar). You should know by now you don't have to be local to post and as OP has experience with SN kids, she certainly qualifies to post.
OP - thank you for your post. It's nice to be recognized by someone from a group I respect so highly. I'm glad kids less fortunate than mine have you and your fellow teachers doing what they can. |
Anonymous
I am the "go away" poster. And I'm not responding to OP. I'm responding to the other poster, the principal, whose posts on this forum are out of line. The OP's post isn't the issue And the poster who agreed with me, the "yes, go away" poster, is not me. I don't "make up" people to post to agree with myself. I think u need to read all the posts to follow who is responding to who. |
Anonymous
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I'm the "please go away poster", and no, I'm not the same as the "go away" poster.
I agree with the PP - please read the thread carefully. There are many of us on this board who have been burned and otherwise thwarted by the machine that is SN in MoCo (the only county I have experience with, so the only one I can speak to). My kids have certainly had amazing teachers, and we are forever grateful to them. But on balance, the SN system in MoCo has not met our childrens' needs. And in some cases, set us back. While I believe this has more to do with systemic issues rather than individuals, I have seen my share of teachers who do damage. I don't think that anyone is violating the norms of the SN board. Replying to an administrator or educator is vastly different than supporting parents, or teachers who post to offer us support. |
Anonymous
^^ machine that is FCPS is not much better...but I agree with you, MoCo has it worse. |
Anonymous
Similar expereince in Fairfax County. We are in a good place now, but it took a hell of alot of work to get here. |
Anonymous
Administrators and educators are people, too - people who have a lot of experience working with SN kids. As a PP noted, there are bad apples on both sides of the fence. I've had my share of negative experiences with some of the school staff and never attend an IEP meeting without our consultant/advocate. On the other hand, knowing some of the parents I do, I can easily imagine how difficult it is working with some of them. Their posts shouldn't be limited to the rosy ones. I'm more than happy to welcome administrators and educators to this forum and look forward to their insight and contributions. |
Anonymous
While I agree that admins and educators should be welcome in this forum, I think its important to remember that this is a parents support forum. So in this particular circumstance, the OP was a teacher who posted nothing inappropriate, but the principal who replied to her (and now we have an educator speaking to an educator in a parents support forum) called the parents who live in this area (of this forum) "animals". I mean geez, yeah, I would love and welcome educators on this board to post support or help, but really....we want free form allowing of blatant insults of the users of this forum, who are already in fragile shape--most of them in that position due to struggles with administration and educators? I don't think so. |
Anonymous
You're cherry picking from the principal's post. She didn't call all parents 'animals', she made reference to the "kind of animal" some parents are. I know exactly the kind of parent she's talking about. This area seems to have more than it's fair share of that 'kind of animal'. In fact, I live next to one. She also commented on the parents who refuse to see the seriousness of their child's challenges. True enough and seems to mirror what the OP said. She also said "I truly admire those families that are involved, interested and work with the school system, and even question the school system in order to get the best for their child." That's far from insulting and isn't the only time she was complimentary to parents. You exaggerate greatly when you say users of this forum are in fragile shape - -most of them due to struggles with administrators and educators. We all have our moments but by and large from the posts I've seen, the SN community here is strong and resilient. The norm on this site is to ignore insults or unhelpful posts. It's one of the things I love about it. The community is good about not engaging those who are insulting or provocative. When someone does choose to respond, it's typically in a measured way, inviting discussion - one that doesn't escalate conflict. We don't feed the troll which is the best way of shutting one down. I don't think the principal is a troll. You might have had a knee jerk reaction to her post but rather than telling her to go away, ignore her or ask her to start her own thread regarding her experiences with the 'kind of animal' she refers to. Finally, this site/forum isn't just for parents. Jeff and Maria have been very clear that all are welcome. Report the post if you like but I don't think it will get much traction. |
Anonymous
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+100. Thank you, PP. I agree with the point you made about the cherry picking.
There are parents that create adversarial situations in schools that then actually negatively impact others efforts to engage with an IEP team. I have had it happen to me. I have also seen the situation that OP describes. In our first back-to-school night for middle school, we went to visit DS's classroom. Seven kids in the class. Three parents showed up, me, my husband and the father of another kid. Those teachers did everything to reach out to the parents, but could not get them engaged. Even the year-end awards party at school, it was 4 parents (the mother and father of the other kid). I can't imagine not going to an IEP meeting for our child, but we have seen it happen. |
Anonymous
I don't report posts. I don't generally care about postings. This ONE post hit a nerve. Lets be clear: this principal didn't post something that said "some of the DC metro parents here are nightmares!!" The message to the other teacher posting was "oh, I didn't know you were not local to DC...you cant imagine the kind of animals the parents here are, with their lawyers and constant buggings for extra services." (paraphrased, I realize, but its the gist of the post) It was a sweeping broad generalization of parents in the DC metro area of kids with SN--on a parent support board for kids with SN in the DC metro area. THAT is not acceptable, IMO. I don't care if the admins of the board say its acceptable, or whether the post stays up or gets pulled. All I am saying is that the posting was inappropriate for this forum and the poster needed to be responded to. It's a discussion that the principal should have with the rest of his administrator coworkers, when they vent about their pain in the ass DC families in the break room. If the post from the principal said "there are some nightmare families I have to deal with every day, who are so unreasonable it makes my head hurt", I wouldn't have blinked an eye. And yeah, I would have agreed. Like anything else, there are unreasonable people in every group. I think it is very worrisome when administrators complain about parents who hire mediators and lawyers and make generalizations about them. And as a group of families with SN on this board, everyone had better be concerned about that attitude. If you haven't gotten to that point, well, thank god for you...and I am happy for you. You've been lucky. You might have a great school/IEP team, or you might have a kid whose SN's are easily met with resources the school has readily. But just be aware that this could easily be you some day. I never thought it would be our family, either. if you have gotten to that point where your kid is not getting what they need simply by you begging and begging, and you have to hire out experts to help, (as I have), you know what happens, and the principal's post reeks of the attitude you will face. of everyone in the education industry, principals and teachers should be understanding of how complex the web of IEP/504 regulations are. Parents are ill equipped, extremely ill equipped. When they hire experts to help them level the field of knowledge with the team they need to work with, that shouldn't be seen as a negative, it should be met with understanding. But its not. The minute you get an advocate or lawyer, you turn into "the bad family". And its not just here in the DC metro area. I've lived in 3 states, and its the same everywhere. And it shouldn't be like that. And administrators have to also stop making generalizations that families who hire attorneys are the "rich" families. In my case we had to empty our 401(k), IRA and savings accounts AND borrow money from both of our parents, to pay for our experts. Not that it should matter if we are rich or not, but I am sick of hearing the generalization. Should lower income families have the ability to do the same thing and help their own families navigate the complex IEP/504 process? Absolutely. But they can't, and that is so unfortunate. There are SO many kids in my daughters situation that we know of, who are lower income and couldn't afford the advocate and mediator we hired. We would sit in the hospital ward and talk to them in the family center of the hospital, and try to help them by using what we learned. But what are families who DO have the means supposed to do? Not hire lawyers/advocates, because other lower income families aren't able to? Sacrifice their own child because a lower income child cannot have access to the same thing? Its a ridiculous concept that just because families hire lawyers, they are demanding, irrational families who nag at schools to provide their kids unreasonable amounts of services. But that is the stigma. That's why the principal's post kicked me in the stomach, and I know many on this board are in the same position I am. And if we are going with sweeping, broad generalizations here, then here's one from the other side: you know all those parents who LOVE their IEP team, and write thank you notes? Well guess what. I've been doing this IEP team thing for way too many years now, and I have family members who are on the administrative side of education. And you know what? Many of these families that educators LOVE so much are NOT getting the services their kids need and deserve. They just have absolutely no clue that is the case. So they plod happily along, thinking that everyone at the school is doing things in their kid's best interest. Meanwhile, the kid makes barely any progress, and gets pushed from grade to grade. Well, you know what, I am SO glad that the principal gets a thank you note. Congratulations. As for this forum in general, I don't agree with you that families on this board aren't fragile. Look at how many posts on this board say "how do you cope" and "i am at the end of my rope mentally". I don't think its at all unreasonable to say that families on this board have built-in life struggles. Do they cope? Sure. They HAVE to. Do they thrive? Some of them. But its HARD for most of these families every single day. Thus, my characterization of "fragile". Take it or leave it, agree or not. And as to families struggling with school districts well as another poster on this thread mentioned, the overwhelming number of posts on this forum are NOT positive. (which is not representative of experience, but by design of this board and the members who post on it, but that furthers my point as to who the families are who are represented on this forum). As for anyone being able to post on this forum, sure, whatever. My point was only that this is a MOMS/DADs board. I couldn't care less who posts or what they say, but if someone does post something like what this principal posted, I would only expect that they would understand receiving backlash when they post incendiary statements. And "you cant imagine the animal DC metro families are"...I mean holy crap, if that isn't incendiary, I don't know what is. My mom has been a principal in Massachusetts for 40 years. She is retiring next year. I read her the principal's posting last night, and she said that "it sounds like what she would have said 10 years ago". But, she said, after having gone through the experience of helping me and her own grandchild, and seeing things from a different point of view, she said she actually treats parents differently now during IEP processes. She understands their perspectives, she understands when they walk out the door what they are going to deal with when they go home. She said she considers services she would have automatically said "no" to before, because it would have been easier to just say no rather than to deal with the superintendent complaining about the money. She said she does not see kids as money drains at every IEP meeting anymore. She said that often when she goes to meetings now, her team does the whole "pre-IEP meeting meeting" (you know, the one where all the teachers and admins meet to talk about the stance they are going to take in the IEP meeting, and how they are going to answer anything that is questioned by the parents? That meeting that isn't supposed to take place? Yeah, that one) she actually feels like everyone on the team is on the defensive, and she is alone as the voice of the family they are going to meet with. All of this, because she had personal experience with her own family. The last thing she said to me last night was "I honestly would have been a much better principal all these years if I had the perspective I have now, its too bad I am retiring next year". So I stand by my original thought that this post was inappropriate-with a 40 year principal with the same exact position about this post when she read it. Everyone has an opinion, and this is mine. Although I never respond to "troll" posts, as you said, in this particular instance, this was clearly not a troll, but a position which exists out there in the universe of education, which I chose to respond to because it deserves a response. |
Anonymous
| The person who wrote about the "kind of animal" (which is an expression--the person is not saying the parents are animals) is NOT the principal! |
Anonymous
| It was Colonel Mustard! |