MCPS teachers - what would you tell parents in your class(es) if you could?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would tell parents of students with disabilities to listen to their teacher and special Ed teacher carefully during meetings when we invite central office staff. It is so hard to get them to even show up at the meeting that if they are there, we are trying to communicate about a need we cannot meet within our school resources. We are often advocating highly for your child internally but being silenced by central.

I am always on your child’s side, I know their needs, and I care about their progress. I am also understaffed and overwhelmed. Last year I taught an intervention before school started, worked with a student that was struggling during my lunch, and spent countless hours modifying materials for students before and after school. I was still blamed by two parent when their students didn’t make much progress. I was told I was unethical, heartless, and was breaking the law. I finally got central to show up to one of those student’s fifth meeting of the year to attempt to get more resources. Central and the parent blamed me and nothing changed. This year, I will be taking my planning time and my lunch because no matter what I do, there are parents that will demand more and there is no way for me to actually succeed in this job, at least not in 2023.

Please understand that I am telling you what you need to hear. Stop the whole, “ the law says my kid is the most important”. Of course your child is important to you but all 20 kids (including yours) on my caseload are important to me and their parents. I have taught special Ed for 25 years. I’m good at my job, my kids make progress. There was a time I loved my job. That said, I will quit before a child with small accommodation needs get more hours of my time than the child with significant needs simply because the parent is not advocating. In my building, everyone gets equitable treatment. Unfortunately, that is not how district works and I WILL fail again this year no matter how hard I try. I have submitted paperwork for early retirement and my biggest hope is that we can fill the open positions quickly enough so that I can try to train someone new before leaving.

Our kids with small accommodations may need it just as much or more. It’s sad how Mcps fails these kids.

X Minds is an organization of hundreds of local parents of Neurodivergent kidd. I recommend everyone with an ND kid join and become active within the organization. I realize this doesn't cover every SN but it's a start.
The problem with SN is there are very few organized advocacy groups. Parents are also hesitant to be vocal for fear of "outing" their child.
Most of us know what's going on in the classroom and the office. The lies and the gaslighting. We just don't know what to do about it.

Get involved.

You basically have one option. Seek outside therapies and resources. The tutor me was wonderful to fill in the gaps but of course mcps screams poverty for that.

Neurodivergence is heritable so I look at joining an organization like X Minds as pushing for generational.change in the way ND kids are educated and treated.
On the other hand, they hold free IEP clinics to help parents and have (or had) x minds in mcps night which was an eye opener and full of very helpful break out sessions and a place where I at least heard the names of important people to know involved with special education in mcps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“WAH! Why don’t you say this so I can sue the school?”

You’re absurd.

Honestly? I have kids of my own and a mortgage. Just like everyone else, I am going to protect myself first. Sorry, I am human and my ability to live the rest of my life is simply more important than other people’s kids.

I’m a teacher who posted above. This is why I quit working at one school. I was threatened with legal action even though I calmly and repeatedly explained I can’t perform a task the family required. They may as well have asked me to move a mountain or drain an ocean; I didn’t have the time, ability, or access to resources to do what they wanted.

I quit to protect myself. I knew the demands were going to escalate and no reason or logic on my part was going to make a difference. I loved that school and would have preferred staying, but my health and family have to come first.

Threatened *you* with legal action or threatened MCPS with legal action while talking to you? Almost certainly the latter.

Why would that be bad? The only way MCPS will begin to staff special education appropriately is if they begin to lose lawsuits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“WAH! Why don’t you say this so I can sue the school?”

You’re absurd.

Honestly? I have kids of my own and a mortgage. Just like everyone else, I am going to protect myself first. Sorry, I am human and my ability to live the rest of my life is simply more important than other people’s kids.

I’m a teacher who posted above. This is why I quit working at one school. I was threatened with legal action even though I calmly and repeatedly explained I can’t perform a task the family required. They may as well have asked me to move a mountain or drain an ocean; I didn’t have the time, ability, or access to resources to do what they wanted.

I quit to protect myself. I knew the demands were going to escalate and no reason or logic on my part was going to make a difference. I loved that school and would have preferred staying, but my health and family have to come first.

Threatened *you* with legal action or threatened MCPS with legal action while talking to you? Almost certainly the latter.

Why would that be bad? The only way MCPS will begin to staff special education appropriately is if they begin to lose lawsuits.

Threatened ME.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“WAH! Why don’t you say this so I can sue the school?”

You’re absurd.

Honestly? I have kids of my own and a mortgage. Just like everyone else, I am going to protect myself first. Sorry, I am human and my ability to live the rest of my life is simply more important than other people’s kids.

I’m a teacher who posted above. This is why I quit working at one school. I was threatened with legal action even though I calmly and repeatedly explained I can’t perform a task the family required. They may as well have asked me to move a mountain or drain an ocean; I didn’t have the time, ability, or access to resources to do what they wanted.

I quit to protect myself. I knew the demands were going to escalate and no reason or logic on my part was going to make a difference. I loved that school and would have preferred staying, but my health and family have to come first.

Threatened *you* with legal action or threatened MCPS with legal action while talking to you? Almost certainly the latter.

Why would that be bad? The only way MCPS will begin to staff special education appropriately is if they begin to lose lawsuits.

Because SpecEd teachers don’t just appear out of nowhere. Also, just because a family deems a particular service as necessary/desired doesn’t mean that MCPS readily has a specialist available to be able to provide the service. The number of students getting services and thus the cost has greatly increased over the last 20 years. No one is saying that students shouldn’t be allowed to get services but we do want parents and policy makers to realize that mandating in law the probiotic provide services while not backing it up with adequate funding and persons is a losing situation for all involved.

[Anonymous]

Teachers should tell parents to make sure your kid does their work and punish themnif they come in and regularly harass their teacher. If your teacher gives you the grade you deserve don't try to get them fired by complaining to admin that the big bad teacher gave my child a grade lower than an A and try to passively aggressively ruin a teachers career because you don't know how to parent and you entitled kid doesn't know how to take feedback. Teachers need support not parents fighting them and humiliating them with admin backing infrin of oversized classes.

[Anonymous]

This is school, you are here to learn, stop being an a$$. You are not cute and you are not funny. You are being disruptive to the students that are here to learn. Parents, be a parent and be a part of your kids education. Stop being an a$$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would tell parents of students with disabilities to listen to their teacher and special Ed teacher carefully during meetings when we invite central office staff. It is so hard to get them to even show up at the meeting that if they are there, we are trying to communicate about a need we cannot meet within our school resources. We are often advocating highly for your child internally but being silenced by central.

I am always on your child’s side, I know their needs, and I care about their progress. I am also understaffed and overwhelmed. Last year I taught an intervention before school started, worked with a student that was struggling during my lunch, and spent countless hours modifying materials for students before and after school. I was still blamed by two parent when their students didn’t make much progress. I was told I was unethical, heartless, and was breaking the law. I finally got central to show up to one of those student’s fifth meeting of the year to attempt to get more resources. Central and the parent blamed me and nothing changed. This year, I will be taking my planning time and my lunch because no matter what I do, there are parents that will demand more and there is no way for me to actually succeed in this job, at least not in 2023.

Please understand that I am telling you what you need to hear. Stop the whole, “ the law says my kid is the most important”. Of course your child is important to you but all 20 kids (including yours) on my caseload are important to me and their parents. I have taught special Ed for 25 years. I’m good at my job, my kids make progress. There was a time I loved my job. That said, I will quit before a child with small accommodation needs get more hours of my time than the child with significant needs simply because the parent is not advocating. In my building, everyone gets equitable treatment. Unfortunately, that is not how district works and I WILL fail again this year no matter how hard I try. I have submitted paperwork for early retirement and my biggest hope is that we can fill the open positions quickly enough so that I can try to train someone new before leaving.

Our kids with small accommodations may need it just as much or more. It’s sad how Mcps fails these kids.

X Minds is an organization of hundreds of local parents of Neurodivergent kidd. I recommend everyone with an ND kid join and become active within the organization. I realize this doesn't cover every SN but it's a start.
The problem with SN is there are very few organized advocacy groups. Parents are also hesitant to be vocal for fear of "outing" their child.
Most of us know what's going on in the classroom and the office. The lies and the gaslighting. We just don't know what to do about it.

Get involved.

You basically have one option. Seek outside therapies and resources. The tutor me was wonderful to fill in the gaps but of course mcps screams poverty for that.

Neurodivergence is heritable so I look at joining an organization like X Minds as pushing for generational.change in the way ND kids are educated and treated.
On the other hand, they hold free IEP clinics to help parents and have (or had) x minds in mcps night which was an eye opener and full of very helpful break out sessions and a place where I at least heard the names of important people to know involved with special education in mcps

I'm not sure why you are pushing this organization but zero interest. My only interest was getting my child's needs met, which wasn't going to happen in MCPS. The time and money was better spent privately. It was worth every penny. You cannot fight people who aren't reasonable and don't want to help your child. We asked for very very basic things that were very simple for the teacher to do and they refused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is school, you are here to learn, stop being an a$$. You are not cute and you are not funny. You are being disruptive to the students that are here to learn. Parents, be a parent and be a part of your kids education. Stop being an a$$.

To be a part of our kids education, teacher need to include parents. They need to communicate, let them volunteer and reach out any time there is an issue. And, those of us with SN kids who MCPS fail and have private therapists, to work with them too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“WAH! Why don’t you say this so I can sue the school?”

You’re absurd.

Honestly? I have kids of my own and a mortgage. Just like everyone else, I am going to protect myself first. Sorry, I am human and my ability to live the rest of my life is simply more important than other people’s kids.

I’m a teacher who posted above. This is why I quit working at one school. I was threatened with legal action even though I calmly and repeatedly explained I can’t perform a task the family required. They may as well have asked me to move a mountain or drain an ocean; I didn’t have the time, ability, or access to resources to do what they wanted.

I quit to protect myself. I knew the demands were going to escalate and no reason or logic on my part was going to make a difference. I loved that school and would have preferred staying, but my health and family have to come first.

Threatened *you* with legal action or threatened MCPS with legal action while talking to you? Almost certainly the latter.

Why would that be bad? The only way MCPS will begin to staff special education appropriately is if they begin to lose lawsuits.

Because SpecEd teachers don’t just appear out of nowhere. Also, just because a family deems a particular service as necessary/desired doesn’t mean that MCPS readily has a specialist available to be able to provide the service. The number of students getting services and thus the cost has greatly increased over the last 20 years. No one is saying that students shouldn’t be allowed to get services but we do want parents and policy makers to realize that mandating in law the probiotic provide services while not backing it up with adequate funding and persons is a losing situation for all involved.

Do you realize how much an attorney would cost to sue MCPS? Most of us don't have that kind of money. Do you realize how slow the courts are and in that time, our kids are losing that important window to catch up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

And, this is where parent volunteers could come in and help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

And, this is where parent volunteers could come in and help.

I don't mean this in a rude way, but parent volunteers who are not trained to work with high needs population would not be helpful in anyway, and could end up doing more harm that good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

And, this is where parent volunteers could come in and help.

I don't mean this in a rude way, but parent volunteers who are not trained to work with high needs population would not be helpful in anyway, and could end up doing more harm that good.

+1. Not to mention you are likely greatly over estimating the number of people who want to come in an ms help ona consistent basis.-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

And, this is where parent volunteers could come in and help.

I don't mean this in a rude way, but parent volunteers who are not trained to work with high needs population would not be helpful in anyway, and could end up doing more harm that good.

Parent volunteers chat and socialize with other adults in the room rarely helping with the kids snd modeling that I am to be ignored and talked over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do general education teachers receive any training in how to teach or even how to understand SN children? Are teachers aware of what adhd, autism, etc are? So many are mainstreamed into general Ed that SN teachers aren't even in their lives.

Yes. Every teacher needs to take at least 6 credits of special education classes to be certified. We also receive ongoing PD.

What we don’t receive are a lot of additional resources or support. I’ve had classes in which 1/3 of my students have 504s and IEPs.

This. Plus, there are many students with other special needs among the remaining 2/3. Often 1/3 are English language learners (or in MCPS, Emerging Multilingual Learners), some of whom might have other needs as well: FARMS and EML, IEP and EML, 504 and EML, or GT and EML. I’ve taught triple-coded and even quadruple coded students in classrooms with 10 IEP/504 students without a second adult to assist.

And, this is where parent volunteers could come in and help.

I don't mean this in a rude way, but parent volunteers who are not trained to work with high needs population would not be helpful in anyway, and could end up doing more harm that good.

You realize some of us are trained and some of us have more training than some of the teachers. Don't make assumptions about all parents. What do you think the paraprofessional qualifications are? They do the bulk of the work with the kids. Many don't have college degrees let alone in teaching or a helping profession.