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Heartbroken and Frustrated *Updated**
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 85484" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>There are practical things that can be done. But you will almost certainly have to nag to get what is needed and to fine-tune it until it's working.</p><p></p><p>We have some people on this board who are teachers and who often find what we say hard to accept as really being that bad - the trouble is, the teachers on this boards are the ones we wish were teaching our children. There ARE good teachers out there, but all it takes is a school with a slack attitude high up, and trying to get functional support becomes almost impossible.</p><p></p><p>I just found an old copy of a note I wrote for difficult child 1's old high school (when he was in mainstream). It expresses very similar frustrations to your own concerns, only for us it was at a much more senior level. difficult child 1's personal organisation was so bad that any set work, homework, assignments - were supposed to be written down on a sheet of paper and left for his aide in the school office. For a lot of his teachers, this was literally only steps away from their own offices, and yet it was clearly too difficult for them. I told them that if THEY couldn't do their homework, then difficult child 1 should not be penalised for the inability of both his parents and his aide to support him with his poor organisation skills. On top of that, difficult child 1 was told he could do his final matriculation part-time - he could drop this subject, or that, and pick it up the following year. The trouble was, NONE of the teachers talked to each other and so ALL his teachers were telling difficult child 1 to drop the subject they were teaching. The end result would have been difficult child 1 having dropped everything - which I think the school wanted.</p><p></p><p>We tried out best to help him get organised, but were badly let down by the school's inability to make the slightest concession. Finally a teacher was appointed to replace the aide, and to personally go round to every teacher difficult child 1 had, to get copies of all the notes and assignments he should have. And even though she worked in the place full-time, even SHE had trouble getting the material! And they were her colleagues!</p><p></p><p>And I still was getting no copies posted home; I had to continue making a 1 hour round trip just to CHECK to see if any new work had been put in his folder held at the school office. The quality of what WAS left there - it was virtually useless. One teacher had handwritten, "Do exercises in Ch 6 in the textbook, from 6.22 to 6.49." No date, no teacher name (just a scrawled line and dash as if s/he were a celebrity giving an autograph) and no subject name. difficult child 1 & I went through each subject textbook looking for exercise numbers which matched the numbers on this sheet.</p><p>I was making one of these drop-in visits to check the folder, when I saw difficult child 1 sitting head in hands outside the office - he had just been suspended. He had been sitting there for several hours and I had not been telephoned. He thought I had arrived in response to a phone call and was glad to see me (a suspended kid, glad to see his mother?). For me, it was a clear end result to ongoing, long-term lack of care and support. That was his last day in a mainstream setting. The VP was t he big problem here.</p><p></p><p>I wrote a letter addressed to the principal ("eyes only") and the VP opened it in front of me. In my letter I claimed that difficult child 1 had felt unsupported, he had felt at times harassed by one member of staff in particular (the VP, although I did not name her, I had suspected she would waylay my letter) and that the teacher/aide had done the best job she could, in the face of her colleagues' lack of support and apparent disinterest in exerting the slightest extra energy. First the VP leaned over the desk towering over difficult child 1 and shouted at him, "WHO's been harrassing you?" to which he eventually said in a tiny voice, "nobody," at which she glared triumphantly at me. difficult child 1 at this point was in a fetal position on the chair, almost on the floor. He was 17 years old, terrified of his VP who was clearly bullying him.</p><p>The darling VP then showed my letter to a number of people, especially the teacher aide, with the words, "Look what this ungrateful woman has written about you, after all the help you've given this boy." I was not present for that, but found out when the teacher/aide came up to me and said, "I'm very distressed and disappointed that you would write what you did about me, after all the work I've put in to trying to help your son. You knew just how hard I've been working, too."</p><p>I told her what I HAD written and how I had made a point of saying she had done an amazing job but had been undermined by her colleagues. I explained I had nothing but praise for her and the letter said so. I told her to go read it again, but without the VP telling her what to think and only showing her the negative stuff I'd written about others. She then told me exactly how she'd been told.</p><p>I did meet with her several times over the next few weeks, as she did a very thorough handover for difficult child 1 into his correspondence school. I gave her a thank you gift as well - she had again read the letter and now had no problems. Clearly that VP was poison on progress and morale at that school.</p><p></p><p>Some teachers are less interested in helping individual problem kids, and more interested in keeping the school ticking along smoothly and making them look good enough to keep climbing the promotions ladder. For these teachers, a difficult child rocks the boat. They would rather not put themselves out for a difficult student, they want things back to where they were before schools were forced to try to teach the unteachable. The VP had already said at an IEP meeting for difficult child 1, "Why are we coddling this child? If we don't make him do things for himself, he will never be able to cope in the real world when he finishes school."</p><p>I had a representative from Autism Australia with me, who answered that question. "He is autistic. We know he won't cope - yet. One day, with ongoing support, he will."</p><p>Teachers like this VP would rather difficult children went to school somewhere else. So they try to just let things run their course. It's easier to do nothing and eventually the parents of the kid will get the message, and of course the child would be much happier with his own kind. Somewhere his needs can be catered to. Some nice, comfy institution somewhere.</p><p></p><p>Only for us, there ARE no such places.</p><p></p><p>When we were testing the local high school to see if difficult child 3 would be a good fit there, the VP there was very similar. He finally said, "I don't think this boy is suited to our school. Why are you trying to send him here, and not somewhere more suitable?"</p><p>I explained that I valued his honesty - better to find out this view BEFORE enrolment. And that no alternative placement existed. This VP went on to make a number of suggestions which were very sensible (although designed to keep the VP's problems and involvement down) but which I had been told were simply not possible - suggestions such as partial attendance. Again, I thanked him for his input and asked him to share this with the education authorities who do not permit these options.</p><p></p><p>Steph, I don't know if your daughter is at a school like difficult child 1's, or a school which wants to help but just doesn't know how, yet. I would suggest you follow the ideas you've been given, try and get them into an IEP but also plan in some extra meetings for 'tweaking' the plan into something that difficult child can work with. Keep nagging if you must; keep working WITH the teachers if you can. You have the chance to turn this into something that can help not only difficult child, but the teachers too, so they have a better idea of how to help other difficult children that come through their doors, and not simply try to squeeze them out of the system.</p><p></p><p>And no books!??! In our area we are constantly being asked to raise n=money to buy schoolbooks to be sent to third world countries. So if third world country's schools see books as a high standard, then what is wrong with your state?</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 85484, member: 1991"] There are practical things that can be done. But you will almost certainly have to nag to get what is needed and to fine-tune it until it's working. We have some people on this board who are teachers and who often find what we say hard to accept as really being that bad - the trouble is, the teachers on this boards are the ones we wish were teaching our children. There ARE good teachers out there, but all it takes is a school with a slack attitude high up, and trying to get functional support becomes almost impossible. I just found an old copy of a note I wrote for difficult child 1's old high school (when he was in mainstream). It expresses very similar frustrations to your own concerns, only for us it was at a much more senior level. difficult child 1's personal organisation was so bad that any set work, homework, assignments - were supposed to be written down on a sheet of paper and left for his aide in the school office. For a lot of his teachers, this was literally only steps away from their own offices, and yet it was clearly too difficult for them. I told them that if THEY couldn't do their homework, then difficult child 1 should not be penalised for the inability of both his parents and his aide to support him with his poor organisation skills. On top of that, difficult child 1 was told he could do his final matriculation part-time - he could drop this subject, or that, and pick it up the following year. The trouble was, NONE of the teachers talked to each other and so ALL his teachers were telling difficult child 1 to drop the subject they were teaching. The end result would have been difficult child 1 having dropped everything - which I think the school wanted. We tried out best to help him get organised, but were badly let down by the school's inability to make the slightest concession. Finally a teacher was appointed to replace the aide, and to personally go round to every teacher difficult child 1 had, to get copies of all the notes and assignments he should have. And even though she worked in the place full-time, even SHE had trouble getting the material! And they were her colleagues! And I still was getting no copies posted home; I had to continue making a 1 hour round trip just to CHECK to see if any new work had been put in his folder held at the school office. The quality of what WAS left there - it was virtually useless. One teacher had handwritten, "Do exercises in Ch 6 in the textbook, from 6.22 to 6.49." No date, no teacher name (just a scrawled line and dash as if s/he were a celebrity giving an autograph) and no subject name. difficult child 1 & I went through each subject textbook looking for exercise numbers which matched the numbers on this sheet. I was making one of these drop-in visits to check the folder, when I saw difficult child 1 sitting head in hands outside the office - he had just been suspended. He had been sitting there for several hours and I had not been telephoned. He thought I had arrived in response to a phone call and was glad to see me (a suspended kid, glad to see his mother?). For me, it was a clear end result to ongoing, long-term lack of care and support. That was his last day in a mainstream setting. The VP was t he big problem here. I wrote a letter addressed to the principal ("eyes only") and the VP opened it in front of me. In my letter I claimed that difficult child 1 had felt unsupported, he had felt at times harassed by one member of staff in particular (the VP, although I did not name her, I had suspected she would waylay my letter) and that the teacher/aide had done the best job she could, in the face of her colleagues' lack of support and apparent disinterest in exerting the slightest extra energy. First the VP leaned over the desk towering over difficult child 1 and shouted at him, "WHO's been harrassing you?" to which he eventually said in a tiny voice, "nobody," at which she glared triumphantly at me. difficult child 1 at this point was in a fetal position on the chair, almost on the floor. He was 17 years old, terrified of his VP who was clearly bullying him. The darling VP then showed my letter to a number of people, especially the teacher aide, with the words, "Look what this ungrateful woman has written about you, after all the help you've given this boy." I was not present for that, but found out when the teacher/aide came up to me and said, "I'm very distressed and disappointed that you would write what you did about me, after all the work I've put in to trying to help your son. You knew just how hard I've been working, too." I told her what I HAD written and how I had made a point of saying she had done an amazing job but had been undermined by her colleagues. I explained I had nothing but praise for her and the letter said so. I told her to go read it again, but without the VP telling her what to think and only showing her the negative stuff I'd written about others. She then told me exactly how she'd been told. I did meet with her several times over the next few weeks, as she did a very thorough handover for difficult child 1 into his correspondence school. I gave her a thank you gift as well - she had again read the letter and now had no problems. Clearly that VP was poison on progress and morale at that school. Some teachers are less interested in helping individual problem kids, and more interested in keeping the school ticking along smoothly and making them look good enough to keep climbing the promotions ladder. For these teachers, a difficult child rocks the boat. They would rather not put themselves out for a difficult student, they want things back to where they were before schools were forced to try to teach the unteachable. The VP had already said at an IEP meeting for difficult child 1, "Why are we coddling this child? If we don't make him do things for himself, he will never be able to cope in the real world when he finishes school." I had a representative from Autism Australia with me, who answered that question. "He is autistic. We know he won't cope - yet. One day, with ongoing support, he will." Teachers like this VP would rather difficult children went to school somewhere else. So they try to just let things run their course. It's easier to do nothing and eventually the parents of the kid will get the message, and of course the child would be much happier with his own kind. Somewhere his needs can be catered to. Some nice, comfy institution somewhere. Only for us, there ARE no such places. When we were testing the local high school to see if difficult child 3 would be a good fit there, the VP there was very similar. He finally said, "I don't think this boy is suited to our school. Why are you trying to send him here, and not somewhere more suitable?" I explained that I valued his honesty - better to find out this view BEFORE enrolment. And that no alternative placement existed. This VP went on to make a number of suggestions which were very sensible (although designed to keep the VP's problems and involvement down) but which I had been told were simply not possible - suggestions such as partial attendance. Again, I thanked him for his input and asked him to share this with the education authorities who do not permit these options. Steph, I don't know if your daughter is at a school like difficult child 1's, or a school which wants to help but just doesn't know how, yet. I would suggest you follow the ideas you've been given, try and get them into an IEP but also plan in some extra meetings for 'tweaking' the plan into something that difficult child can work with. Keep nagging if you must; keep working WITH the teachers if you can. You have the chance to turn this into something that can help not only difficult child, but the teachers too, so they have a better idea of how to help other difficult children that come through their doors, and not simply try to squeeze them out of the system. And no books!??! In our area we are constantly being asked to raise n=money to buy schoolbooks to be sent to third world countries. So if third world country's schools see books as a high standard, then what is wrong with your state? Marg [/QUOTE]
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