Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in elementary school. She was born here. But Indian origin.
She is smart kid and wants to learn.
However she is always put on table where her back is against the board. Every time the teacher changes their place. She always get her back facing the board. She tried to tell teacher but the teacher said she will try next time she changes again.
I feel that the teacher is only paying attention to white kids.
I spoke to my husband and he said to not think like that otherwise every time we will be thinking like that.
We just need to make our kids work twice harder.
So I asked my husband why? He said that how it is and in the long run she will come out to be the best and to ignore everything else.
Am I thinking too much?

You are overthinking.
My child always had the worst seat in elementary like always. Always with the seat facing away from the board or next to the disruptive child or at the table with the children struggling to read. Well behaved smart white child who does not create any trouble and gets along well with everyone. We once asked a teacher why this was the case and she explained that this is exactly the type of kid who gets the worst seats because they do not need the better ones. DD never really cared.

+1. My kid is a good student, and very engaged in class/on task most of the time. She always gets seated near the disruptive kids. She'll complain that one kid pokes her all the time; she asks to be moved and gets seated next to a kid who makes noises throughout the class. Etc. Teachers always put the non-distracted kids in bad positions because they figure they're the most likely to overcome the challenge. (In your case, another kid might not bother to turn to copy the spelling words, or might work even more slowly and therefore fall farther behind from that inconvenience.

I agree with the PP who asked if she can move her desk when there is the need for facing forward. Or if she could ask to move temporarily to the side of the classroom (away from her desk) while the lecture is going on so she can see better? It would help her out and even if the teacher says no, it will push the teacher to re-think seating kids in this way).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids with IEPs and 504s get the best seats.

Another option is to buy a diagnosis for a 504. That's how a lot of parents solve this. It's pretty easy to get an ADHD diagnosis.

NO. Stop spreading lies. No psychologist or developmental pediatrician worth their years of training will do a fake assessment to give a fake diagnosis.

You are hurting all the children with special needs and their families by suggesting their disabilities are fake.

SHAME ON YOU.

Shame on YOU.

PP's use of "buy" was a bit rude, but the unfortunate truth is that MCPS lets kids slip through the cracks, and a private diagnosis can fill those cracks. You have no right to gatekeep disabilities of kids you have never met. Every child deserves a chance to be evaluated and accomodated if they can't thrive in the standard default setup.

NP. The “Buy a diagnosis. It’s Easy.” poster was clearly implying that the system could be gamed by anyone with resources because all it takes is money to get a diagnosis. The “SHAME ON YOU” poster was not “gatekeeping” who can get diagnosed. She was saying that that it’s offensive to imply that there are a significant number of kids who don’t actually have ADHD, but got a diagnosis because their parents knew how to game the system.

Unfortunately, you are correct that among the kids who have ADHD, the ones whose parents can afford private testing are more likely to be tested and receive a diagnosis — but that’s a different issue from buying a diagnosis for a kid who doesn’t actually have ADHD, just so they can have preferential seating or extra time on tests. One of those situations is economic inequality and the other is fraud.

In lower elementary, my kid was considered "a good kid" and got placed at table groupings with children whp had negative behaviors all the time that distriacted my child -- it was awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids with IEPs and 504s get the best seats.

Another option is to buy a diagnosis for a 504. That's how a lot of parents solve this. It's pretty easy to get an ADHD diagnosis.

NO. Stop spreading lies. No psychologist or developmental pediatrician worth their years of training will do a fake assessment to give a fake diagnosis.

You are hurting all the children with special needs and their families by suggesting their disabilities are fake.

SHAME ON YOU.

Shame on YOU.

PP's use of "buy" was a bit rude, but the unfortunate truth is that MCPS lets kids slip through the cracks, and a private diagnosis can fill those cracks. You have no right to gatekeep disabilities of kids you have never met. Every child deserves a chance to be evaluated and accomodated if they can't thrive in the standard default setup.

I never said any of that. My child with several disabilities was diagnosed at Stixrud's - 8 hours of evaluation costing nearly $4K (and now today it's 5K). Schools CANNOT diagnose children. These are complex psychiatric and developmental issues we're talking about. They need developmental pediatricians or psychologists with PhDs to evaluate them, and the school psychologists do not have that anywhere near that training. Never allow the school to assess your child if you can afford a real assessment! The school obviously has a conflict of interest.

Do you understand that this is different from what PP implied? The first poster implied that parents were paying dishonest experts to create false diagnoses for their children, so that they could have services and accommodations at school to help them get preferred seats or extra time or whatever. I have spent 17 years in the special needs community, I have volunteered extensively at my son's schools, and I can tell you that this practically never happens. IEP teams aren't stupid. The school is going to push back on giving accommodations to students who do not appear to need them. The immense majority of SN kids with IEPs and 504s really do need their accommodations!

Thus, SHAME to that poster for suggesting that parents game the system. And I don't know what your problem is. You seem to be very confused about the entire process. Educate yourself before going off on people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids with IEPs and 504s get the best seats.

Another option is to buy a diagnosis for a 504. That's how a lot of parents solve this. It's pretty easy to get an ADHD diagnosis.

NO. Stop spreading lies. No psychologist or developmental pediatrician worth their years of training will do a fake assessment to give a fake diagnosis.

You are hurting all the children with special needs and their families by suggesting their disabilities are fake.

SHAME ON YOU.

Shame on YOU.

PP's use of "buy" was a bit rude, but the unfortunate truth is that MCPS lets kids slip through the cracks, and a private diagnosis can fill those cracks. You have no right to gatekeep disabilities of kids you have never met. Every child deserves a chance to be evaluated and accomodated if they can't thrive in the standard default setup.

No, middle schools also have pods for group work.

Neither of the middle schools we were in used "creative seating." All desks faced to the front of the room. Same with high school. Is this only an elementary problem?

Anonymous wrote:The teacher is not very up to date on classroom configurations. Nobody should have their back to the board or to the teacher.

Agree with this. Table/desk pods need to be arranged to that all kids are perpendicular to the front of class/board/teacher. Those with preferential seating can be at the pods in the front, but all should be sideways to the teacher.

OP, have you been in the classroom? Need to elevate this re a best practice seating design.

Anonymous wrote:Kids with IEPs and 504s get the best seats.

HA! Not always. My IEP kid's seat was in the office most days in elementary school!