Academic Support for Kids with Concussions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience is that IIS is overwhelmed right now by the number of kids who need their services. Instructors are hired on a as needed, part time basis. This short term approach and outlook affects their ability to hire and retain quality instructors.

With it being football season, has anyone considered or studied how many kids play sports for their school who become injured and subsequently need IIS services? If money is a factor on IIS ability to hire and retain instructors then perhaps funds for IIS should be subsidized by the sports programs that impact the need for services. Increasing the extracurricular fees from $35 to $50 with the $15 increase designated for IIS to cover the additional expense if children are injured would be one option. IIS then should consider hiring a core group of well qualified full-time instructors who are enticed to stay with benefits similar to what MCPS teachers receive.

Not a bad idea, but I would prefer to see that the head injury-causing sports programs should be stopped.

Some sports are more prone to concussions than others - football and soccer being the top 2. However, kids can get concussions in PE (my son's case) as well as other sports offered as school teams. With the number of high school teenagers who have died across the US this fall, I think there is strong data to get rid of high school football. There may be other sports that should be considered for elimination but someone needs to evaluate data on each sport to determine that type of justification.

There are benefits to team sports such as school spirit and better time management skills that need to be weighed against the risk of serious physical injury. Parents always have the option of saying no to a particular sport. At our high school, parents saying no to football is causing a slow death to the football program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience is that IIS is overwhelmed right now by the number of kids who need their services. Instructors are hired on a as needed, part time basis. This short term approach and outlook affects their ability to hire and retain quality instructors.

With it being football season, has anyone considered or studied how many kids play sports for their school who become injured and subsequently need IIS services? If money is a factor on IIS ability to hire and retain instructors then perhaps funds for IIS should be subsidized by the sports programs that impact the need for services. Increasing the extracurricular fees from $35 to $50 with the $15 increase designated for IIS to cover the additional expense if children are injured would be one option. IIS then should consider hiring a core group of well qualified full-time instructors who are enticed to stay with benefits similar to what MCPS teachers receive.

You can't give benefits to people who work on an "as needed" basis. Furthermore, working FT means a 40-hour week. Even if the IIS teachers were permanent PT employees at 20 hours a week, there's no guarantee there would be 20 hours of instruction. Most of the kids on IIS don't have the stamina to work in longer shifts, which means these FT or PT permanent teachers would be paid for not instructing.

Even if you paid them more hours for designing lessons, there would always be an imbalance btw planning and instructing b/c each case is different.

Allocation of funds is a whole other issue, too, as transferring $ from pot to pot isn't typical.

It's a tough situation all around.

There is more demand than teachers available for IIS. There is enough work to keep a core group of teachers on a full-time 40 hour a week basis. MCPS choses to not hire full-time teachers for this program, like they do other staffing positions, so they don't have to pay benefits. The net result is less qualified individuals and difficulty filling the positions.

You could have a core full-time group - especially for English and Math - then supplement with part-time as needed for the waxing and waning periods of demand.

If there's isn't a regular "9 to 5" time frame, it's hard to justify a position like this.

Supplement with PT? What do you mean? People taking on these cases have to be flexible, as there are cancellations mainly due to illness. So if I'm an IIS teacher with two cases that were canceled in one week, where will you place me so that I may justify my 40-hour week?

Logistically, to hire FT people, you'd need multiple folks who could handle K-12. And at the HS level, not everyone can teach biology or chemistry, for example. You need people comfortable with specific content areas. With cases changing from year to year, from month to month, some FT teachers would have more work to do than others. While English teachers can handle 6-12, that's not the case with math or science. Even social studies has its specific courses.

not disagreeing with you in theory - But I am saying that logistically, this structure would be difficult to manage.

[Anonymous]

After reading this thread, I'm already feeling discouraged about our upcoming experience with IIS. My child has been out of school for six weeks. Up to this point, he hasn't been physically able to begin any kind of instruction. We submitted all paperwork a little over a week ago, and are waiting to hear about scheduling some part time instruction. I thought this would get us moving in the right direction. However, after reading all of these comments, I'm now more worried than before. My child is in middle school. Has anyone been through IIS support with a middle school child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After reading this thread, I'm already feeling discouraged about our upcoming experience with IIS. My child has been out of school for six weeks. Up to this point, he hasn't been physically able to begin any kind of instruction. We submitted all paperwork a little over a week ago, and are waiting to hear about scheduling some part time instruction. I thought this would get us moving in the right direction. However, after reading all of these comments, I'm now more worried than before. My child is in middle school. Has anyone been through IIS support with a middle school child?

Hi, I am a PP. I just want to say that if you do not get IIS quickly, please contact Steve Neff immediately to complain in writing. Mention that it is a violation of the obligation to disabled students to not provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). I posted some links up thread about the obligations MCPS has to provide IIS.

Have you asked in writing for an IEP or 504 plan meeting? This is something you can do at the same time as the IIS, to plan for your child's eventual re-entry to school, so that your child can return as early as possible and thus get off IIS as soon as is appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience is that IIS is overwhelmed right now by the number of kids who need their services. Instructors are hired on a as needed, part time basis. This short term approach and outlook affects their ability to hire and retain quality instructors.

With it being football season, has anyone considered or studied how many kids play sports for their school who become injured and subsequently need IIS services? If money is a factor on IIS ability to hire and retain instructors then perhaps funds for IIS should be subsidized by the sports programs that impact the need for services. Increasing the extracurricular fees from $35 to $50 with the $15 increase designated for IIS to cover the additional expense if children are injured would be one option. IIS then should consider hiring a core group of well qualified full-time instructors who are enticed to stay with benefits similar to what MCPS teachers receive.

You can't give benefits to people who work on an "as needed" basis. Furthermore, working FT means a 40-hour week. Even if the IIS teachers were permanent PT employees at 20 hours a week, there's no guarantee there would be 20 hours of instruction. Most of the kids on IIS don't have the stamina to work in longer shifts, which means these FT or PT permanent teachers would be paid for not instructing.

Even if you paid them more hours for designing lessons, there would always be an imbalance btw planning and instructing b/c each case is different.

Allocation of funds is a whole other issue, too, as transferring $ from pot to pot isn't typical.

It's a tough situation all around.

There is more demand than teachers available for IIS. There is enough work to keep a core group of teachers on a full-time 40 hour a week basis. MCPS choses to not hire full-time teachers for this program, like they do other staffing positions, so they don't have to pay benefits. The net result is less qualified individuals and difficulty filling the positions.

You could have a core full-time group - especially for English and Math - then supplement with part-time as needed for the waxing and waning periods of demand.

If there's isn't a regular "9 to 5" time frame, it's hard to justify a position like this.

Supplement with PT? What do you mean? People taking on these cases have to be flexible, as there are cancellations mainly due to illness. So if I'm an IIS teacher with two cases that were canceled in one week, where will you place me so that I may justify my 40-hour week?

Logistically, to hire FT people, you'd need multiple folks who could handle K-12. And at the HS level, not everyone can teach biology or chemistry, for example. You need people comfortable with specific content areas. With cases changing from year to year, from month to month, some FT teachers would have more work to do than others. While English teachers can handle 6-12, that's not the case with math or science. Even social studies has its specific courses.

not disagreeing with you in theory - But I am saying that logistically, this structure would be difficult to manage.

FWIW, a couple of years ago, when I looked at info about HHT (the predecessor to IIS) it was clear to me that it was part of the teacher's union contract that union teachers who didn't have full-time placements in school got first crack at these HHT positions and then other union teachers. I think part of the problem was at that time that MCPS didn't actually hire any separate pool of people to teach HHT. These were teachers who were either 1) very old and no longer really able to teach full time in the classroom or 2) regular teachers who were only available to teach afterschool between about 3-6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our experience is that IIS is overwhelmed right now by the number of kids who need their services. Instructors are hired on a as needed, part time basis. This short term approach and outlook affects their ability to hire and retain quality instructors.

With it being football season, has anyone considered or studied how many kids play sports for their school who become injured and subsequently need IIS services? If money is a factor on IIS ability to hire and retain instructors then perhaps funds for IIS should be subsidized by the sports programs that impact the need for services. Increasing the extracurricular fees from $35 to $50 with the $15 increase designated for IIS to cover the additional expense if children are injured would be one option. IIS then should consider hiring a core group of well qualified full-time instructors who are enticed to stay with benefits similar to what MCPS teachers receive.

You can't give benefits to people who work on an "as needed" basis. Furthermore, working FT means a 40-hour week. Even if the IIS teachers were permanent PT employees at 20 hours a week, there's no guarantee there would be 20 hours of instruction. Most of the kids on IIS don't have the stamina to work in longer shifts, which means these FT or PT permanent teachers would be paid for not instructing.

Even if you paid them more hours for designing lessons, there would always be an imbalance btw planning and instructing b/c each case is different.

Allocation of funds is a whole other issue, too, as transferring $ from pot to pot isn't typical.

It's a tough situation all around.

There is more demand than teachers available for IIS. There is enough work to keep a core group of teachers on a full-time 40 hour a week basis. MCPS choses to not hire full-time teachers for this program, like they do other staffing positions, so they don't have to pay benefits. The net result is less qualified individuals and difficulty filling the positions.

You could have a core full-time group - especially for English and Math - then supplement with part-time as needed for the waxing and waning periods of demand.

If there's isn't a regular "9 to 5" time frame, it's hard to justify a position like this.

Supplement with PT? What do you mean? People taking on these cases have to be flexible, as there are cancellations mainly due to illness. So if I'm an IIS teacher with two cases that were canceled in one week, where will you place me so that I may justify my 40-hour week?

Logistically, to hire FT people, you'd need multiple folks who could handle K-12. And at the HS level, not everyone can teach biology or chemistry, for example. You need people comfortable with specific content areas. With cases changing from year to year, from month to month, some FT teachers would have more work to do than others. While English teachers can handle 6-12, that's not the case with math or science. Even social studies has its specific courses.

not disagreeing with you in theory - But I am saying that logistically, this structure would be difficult to manage.

FWIW, a couple of years ago, when I looked at info about HHT (the predecessor to IIS) it was clear to me that it was part of the teacher's union contract that union teachers who didn't have full-time placements in school got first crack at these HHT positions and then other union teachers. I think part of the problem was at that time that MCPS didn't actually hire any separate pool of people to teach HHT. These were teachers who were either 1) very old and no longer really able to teach full time in the classroom or 2) regular teachers who were only available to teach afterschool between about 3-6.

Most of the instructors my child has are coming during the school day. For us, that is the preferred time because my other children are at school so the house is quieter.

[Anonymous]

Any tips out there on how to get IIS and the school staff to communicate so there is a clear understanding on who is in charge of teaching the curriculum, who decides what the child needs to do, and who is responsible for grading what is completed? This experience has been a nightmare because no one is taking ownership of helping my child get caught up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any tips out there on how to get IIS and the school staff to communicate so there is a clear understanding on who is in charge of teaching the curriculum, who decides what the child needs to do, and who is responsible for grading what is completed? This experience has been a nightmare because no one is taking ownership of helping my child get caught up.

The IIS teacher who visits your home is responsible for teaching the curriculum. They have access to most guides. The office supplies other materials/resources IIS teachers can't retrieve on their own. The classroom teachers may be asked to provide textbooks, for example, but their main role is to share where they are in their instruction so that the IIS teacher can keep the student at the same pace as the classroom. However, this can be challenging due to numerous factors (time, health of the child, complexity of the content, gaps in skills). But the expectation is to teach the content with fidelity. Therefore, compacting lessons is often good practice.

The IIS teacher plans instruction and grades assignments. Ideally, a graded assignment per session is good practice. This is assuming the student is working between sessions, however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any tips out there on how to get IIS and the school staff to communicate so there is a clear understanding on who is in charge of teaching the curriculum, who decides what the child needs to do, and who is responsible for grading what is completed? This experience has been a nightmare because no one is taking ownership of helping my child get caught up.

The IIS teacher who visits your home is responsible for teaching the curriculum. They have access to most guides. The office supplies other materials/resources IIS teachers can't retrieve on their own. The classroom teachers may be asked to provide textbooks, for example, but their main role is to share where they are in their instruction so that the IIS teacher can keep the student at the same pace as the classroom. However, this can be challenging due to numerous factors (time, health of the child, complexity of the content, gaps in skills). But the expectation is to teach the content with fidelity. Therefore, compacting lessons is often good practice.

The IIS teacher plans instruction and grades assignments. Ideally, a graded assignment per session is good practice. This is assuming the student is working between sessions, however.

Even with the limited IIS instruction, my child is behind in EVERY subject. First, there was a delay in the school telling us that the program even existed. Then after I found the forms, gave them to my child's doctor, and hand delivered them to the counselor, there was a delay in the school getting their portion of the form filled out and sent to IIS. Then IIS had to hire teachers. The first teacher began working with my child 2 weeks after IIS received the paperwork. Only 3 out of the 4 teachers my child was supposed to have were provided. So the delay in beginning services caused a mountain of work to pile up that my child is struggling to work through.

As far as assessments, our IIS teachers are sending them back to the school teachers for grading. Why??? It seems that some of the instructors are completely new to the program and may not know what their full responsibilities are. Have all of the IIS teachers had the same training to follow the same best practices???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any tips out there on how to get IIS and the school staff to communicate so there is a clear understanding on who is in charge of teaching the curriculum, who decides what the child needs to do, and who is responsible for grading what is completed? This experience has been a nightmare because no one is taking ownership of helping my child get caught up.

The IIS teacher who visits your home is responsible for teaching the curriculum. They have access to most guides. The office supplies other materials/resources IIS teachers can't retrieve on their own. The classroom teachers may be asked to provide textbooks, for example, but their main role is to share where they are in their instruction so that the IIS teacher can keep the student at the same pace as the classroom. However, this can be challenging due to numerous factors (time, health of the child, complexity of the content, gaps in skills). But the expectation is to teach the content with fidelity. Therefore, compacting lessons is often good practice.

The IIS teacher plans instruction and grades assignments. Ideally, a graded assignment per session is good practice. This is assuming the student is working between sessions, however.

Even with the limited IIS instruction, my child is behind in EVERY subject. First, there was a delay in the school telling us that the program even existed. Then after I found the forms, gave them to my child's doctor, and hand delivered them to the counselor, there was a delay in the school getting their portion of the form filled out and sent to IIS. Then IIS had to hire teachers. The first teacher began working with my child 2 weeks after IIS received the paperwork. Only 3 out of the 4 teachers my child was supposed to have were provided. So the delay in beginning services caused a mountain of work to pile up that my child is struggling to work through.

As far as assessments, our IIS teachers are sending them back to the school teachers for grading. Why??? It seems that some of the instructors are completely new to the program and may not know what their full responsibilities are. Have all of the IIS teachers had the same training to follow the same best practices???

Hi PP. We went through this several years ago with my DD. It sounds like not much has changed. Have you had a 504 meeting? If not, you need to and the 504 team needs to agree to cut work -- this is called "teaching to the core objective". There is no way a kid with a concussion can make up every single assignment.

Please contact me at zakrit at aol dot com, and I would be happy to share about our experience and strategize with you about how to move forward.

[Anonymous]

Our 504 team was unprepared to talk about the VOLUME of work left to makeup because the counselor hadn't bothered to collect the data PRIOR to the meeting. He has yet to followup and collect the data AFTER the meeting. So the individual teachers have not reduced the workload to get down to the core curriculum and she is struggling to makeup work while doing whatever current assignments she can do. IIS services were discontinued before catching her up with her peers in class. The teachers are now supposed to take over the missed instruction but multiple teachers have said to my daughter they don't have time to teach the missed material to her. I raised these issues at the 504 meeting and the school administrator's response was that we should be happy with the services my daughter got. The school administrator also acknowledged that coming back to school is hard but my daughter should just buckle down and work harder.

[Anonymous]

My child got a concussion at MS caused by another student. The school did a CYA, the nurse mis-diagnosed and it took a teacher calling me directly to let me know there was a serious issue. Afterwards, some teachers were kind and helpful in handling missed work, but others wouldn't even answer emails. One teacher actually just changed his grade from a 9% to a B in a class when I complained to the administration trying to get supports -- again, never emailing me back. We had to hire an outside tutor, but even then couldn't get him caught up and he ended up having to repeat the class the following year, thankfully with a different teacher.

The school never suggested an accommodation plan of any kind. For future, at least I now know from all of you how to handle if this happens again. Sigh. Schools should be more forthcoming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child got a concussion at MS caused by another student. The school did a CYA, the nurse mis-diagnosed and it took a teacher calling me directly to let me know there was a serious issue. Afterwards, some teachers were kind and helpful in handling missed work, but others wouldn't even answer emails. One teacher actually just changed his grade from a 9% to a B in a class when I complained to the administration trying to get supports -- again, never emailing me back. We had to hire an outside tutor, but even then couldn't get him caught up and he ended up having to repeat the class the following year, thankfully with a different teacher.

The school never suggested an accommodation plan of any kind. For future, at least I now know from all of you how to handle if this happens again. Sigh. Schools should be more forthcoming.

With all that is now known about concussions, why doesn't MCPS have a better system in place to handle these situations? For most kids, the cognitive issues lasts for MONTHS. For some kids, there are permanent impairments. Overworking kids and the stress placed on them from the lack of support is detrimental for children's health. The school team should be assembled IMMEDIATELY when they receive documentation that a child has a concussion. They should come up with a plan of what to do in the immediate, what to do to help the child transition back to school, and make sure support is provided to teach the child the core curriculum.

In my opinion, the problem stems from a long standing tradition of denying kids accommodations and services. It's a basic failure of MCPS to identify children who have disabilities that qualify and need such services.

[Anonymous]

To all of you parents pushing for aggressive accommodations, kudos.

My child had a concussion sophomore year in a different school system just before there was realization for either sports or academics this could be a big deal. It happened right before spring break and child was back in school immediately following with zero accommodations.

There was a huge across the board decline that DC never recovered from in terms of academic progress in high school, which he barely made it through. And this was a child in JHU's G&T program.

Following a break after HS, child is now in college an making up for significant amounts of lost time and finally back on track.

It really didn't have to be this way.

[Anonymous]

I was in a car accident with my child in the car. We both had concussions from the accident.

My employer accepted a note from my neurologist and I took one month off of work to recover. My child on the other had no break because there was no relief from the work piling up and no instruction offered for missed classes. No IIS was offered, no support from the school team, and no help in reducing the workload to an appropriate level with the focus on the core curriculum. The school administrators viewed concussions as a "temporary" condition and therefore said it did not qualify my child for support and accommodations. They however, were quick to pull her from school sports but could care less about help needed academically.