Reply to feeling like teacher is blaming me

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "feeling like teacher is blaming me"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP again - I guess I should add that I don't have a warm rapport with DD's teacher.  She is pretty blunt and doesn't seem to want to engage more than necessary.  I've read other emails of hers and wondered about the wording.  I think we just have really different styles.  I don't know if this is going to change this year.  DD's reading teacher is much more open and chatty and has mentioned several concerns by name (even though she probably isn't supposed to).  Its actually kind of helpful to know what she is thinking though.  I can't get a feel if DD's main teacher is thinking the same things or not.  Actually looking forward to the next EMT meeting to see where things stand.

This is all new to me and its been confusing and overwhelming.  [b]Doesn't help that other parents and MY parent of course pipe in and say things like they don't think there are any problems[/b].  Or if I could just change my/our behavior (be more organized, consistent) - that everything would be fine.  My mother even stated that if DD got glasses that would solve everything.  Well, we have the glasses (yep she did need them) and it hasn't been a cure all....  [/quote]

You can address the lack of organization in the IEP.  Request an evaluation from the school.  They have to do it within 60 days if you are in MoCo, FCPS.  90 in DC.  It'll be faster than waiting for the appointment with Children's and KKI.  You can always add the private evaluation findings later when you get the results.  Your kid needs help with organization - like a checklist - she can get one with a 504 or IEP.  I would start the process now rather than later.

I had a giggle from the bolded.  My parents said the same thing bc my mother most likely has the same diagnosis as my DS but a whole lot worse and admitting that there is something "off" with DS would be acknowledging that my mother also has a problem.[/quote]

+1 on requesting an IEP.  MCPS is notorious for shunting problems off into the EMT process where they have no legal responsibility to respond in any specific way or timeline.  If you write a letter and specifically request an evaluation for an IEP based on your daughter's organizational difficulties, the school will be forced to comply with the 30+60=90 timeline for IEP screening, evaluation and determination.

The only reason NOT to request the IEP is if you have decided that you do not want the school to evaluate and would rather go into the meeting with your own private evaluations (which usually means MCPS, in the interest of preserving their own time and money, will do only it's own minimal evaluation and your evals will, practically speaking be more determinative than if they were competing with MCPS evals that showed something different).

Either way, start documenting.  Did the teacher make the comment orally?  Write an email back saying something like, "Dear Teacher, thank you for mentioning to me that DD needs to work on her organizational skills.  We certainly notice that DD often comes home without required papers and wonder whether she is having difficulty properly packing her papers at the end of the school day.  We notice that DD often fails to turn in homework or papers despite having taken them to school int eh morning.  We notice that DD often comes home with papers that are blank or unfinished.  I would like to meet with you to better understand how DD's lack of organizational skills is impacting her in the classroom and how we can better support her and work on these items at home.  Thanks for your support."   After the P/T meeting, document again with an email, "Thank you so much for meeting you.  It was very helpful to hear X about DD's problems.  I agree that it would be helpful if you did Y to help DD at school and if I did Z at home...."

In this way you have documented the "educational impact" at home, documented that the teacher thinks there is an "educational impact" at school, and documented that you are trying "interventions" at home (which may or may not help) and requested the teacher to provide interventions at school.

"Educational impact" is one of the three prongs of the IEP test (the other 2 being "disorder" and "need for specialized instruction".  Educational impact is often hard to document at a young age for ADHD kids because the school tries to stick to grades and test scores as markers of "educational impact" and there is very little of that prior to grade 3, plus kids typically aren't that far behind prior to grade 3 and schools try to dismiss below average performance as normal variations in the developmental range.

My DS was shunted off into this EMT process for an entire school year.  It wasn't until the end of the school year that I said that I thought my DS needed a specialized reading program like Wilson that the EMT chair perked up and said, OK, you have requested specialized instruction so we have to have an IEP meeting.  It was like I stumbled across the magic words, "Open Sesame" because I had done something that indicated I wanted an IEP even though I didn't use precisely that phrasing (and I thought that is what I had been asking for all along when I said DS "needed help" in the classroom".) It took another 6 months to finally get it.  My DS had MANY different kinds of specialized instruction and accommodations for ADHD in the goals.

Sadly, I thought getting the IEP would fix everything, but then the battle became getting the teacher to actually implement the IEP, and getting the Sped teacher to deliver specialized instruction in a way that was more than repeated prompts and tossing graphic organizers at DS.  
[/quote]

Wow this is so helpful - thank you!! We do have a neuro-psych scheduled with CNMC because in all honestly MCPS wasn't moving fast enough for me. Hey its my kid and I want to know whats going on so I can help her as soon as I can!!   In light of this - would you still push for MCPS to evaluate?  Based on what I've seen so far - I'm not sure I even trust them to do it well.  (I could be very wrong in that - but so far I have not been impressed....)

-OP [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics