Her excuse takes the cake

[Shari]

I emailed principal and asked why Wee was not allowed the recess he earned. Her response.

Wee had a hard time following directions on the playground and after recess. A short time later, he threw a pillow at Mr Para/Teacher and called him a name when he erased the board Wee was working on.

Since he had a previous incident less than one hour prior on the playground that resulted in these two incidents, I felt it was best that he not return to the playground that triggered the incidents.

O.
M.
G.

 

[Marguerite]

Shari, you've already explained tat Wee is slow to copy off the board and gets upset if the board is erased too quickly. This new para/teacher is good, but still learning this. But this is known - I want to know, though - how could an incident earlier, be a cause for Wee getting angry because the board is erased before he's ready?

And "Wee had a hard time following directions" - please explain? What happened? WHy? How? The statement "he had a hard time following directions" tells absolutely nothing. What kind of report is this?

I'm with you. She's in CYA mode.

I was actually discussing this today in the car with easy child 2/difficult child 2 (studying to be an early childhood teacher). She was incensed on your/Wee's behalf. I barely got the story out before she exploded.

Marg

 

[DaisyFace]

Sounds like she had time to think about this before she said it...

What a convoluted sense of logic!

I wonder if the bulk of the IEP adherance problem can be attributed to this one person?

 

[TerryJ2]

This sounds a bit like difficult child's private school ... sometimes they just don't get it. And then they make it worse.
So sorry. How frustrating.

 

[Farmwife]

O
M
F'in
G

Want me to go punch her in the face?

Like, I totally get the concept that she has singled out your difficult child as a problem but does she really need to take it so personally and wage some crusade to make his life miserable? He is a little kid who needs help and she is presumably supposed to be an adult and a professional. It makes complete sense to make an example of a child to fit some b.s. agenda. NOT!

Forget an ounce of compassion or sincerity, right? Maybe she should shift gears and become a prison warden where she can rule over real problem "children" and pick the wings off of flies for her amusement. I mean, enough already!

*grits teeth*

 

[Shari]

Marg, I don't have the sped teacher's email in front of me, so this is not verbatim, but, the incident on the playground was some kids were teasing him, so he crawled into a small space under the play structure and didn't hear the whislte when it was time to come in, so he was rushing to get lined up to come in on time, and got frustrated. He is supposed to go to the mainistream classroom after recess, but he asked to go to sped room instead. To my knowledge, there was nothing more that happened other than some cool-down time. Sped and Mr Para/Teacher told him they were proud of him for handling the situation as he had.

Instead of going back to mainstream, then, he stayed in the sped room and worked on math with mr para/teacher. Mr para/teacher thought he was done, so he started to erase the board. Wee was not done and hit mr para/teacher with a pillow and called him a dork. Mr para/teacher apologized, Wee apologized, and they went on about finishing his math work.

 

[Shari]

Oh, and yes, I think she's the biggest road block. If this *ahem* person.....(that is NOT the word I want to use)...would let the sped teacher do her thing, I think we might have a shot at making this work!

Sped teacher has been working with his aids...first the paras, and now mr para/teacher, and sped teacher gets it. Last night, she relayed a bit to me from yesterday. WEe got mad and Mr para/teacher, trying to help, was talking to him. Wee growled "don't talk to me" at mr para/teacher. Sped teacher, from scross the room, just said "wee, please ask nicely, and mr para/teacher, he's telling you what he needs right now, please respect it."

So Wee growled "please don't talk to me" and mr para/teacher said "Sure" and walked away. He sat with sped teacher who explained if he had tried to continue engaging Wee, Wee would have exploded and explained how he just takes a little time to regroup, but he'll come out fine in a few minutes. Which, he did. Incident avoided. So I think, if she were allowed to do her job, we'd have something to work with here.

 

[AnnieO]

Swear some of the administration in schools need time in solitary. And not in a school.

GRRRRRRRR!

If Para/Teach is listening to SpEd, it's working. This principal needs to be drawn and quartered... Along with Mr. A at Jett's school...

 

[shellyd67]

ARRRGH ! Teachers sometimes expect kids to control their emotions like an adult should. I am a 42 years old and I have trouble on occasion. I hope things get better for Wee.

 

[DammitJanet]

I really wonder if this lady is the principal Cory had in elementary school. Could her twin. Woman simply hated him and went all out to show it. Refused to allow him to have his name up on a star where kids had their names if they got all A's and B's on their report cards because he got a Needs Improvement in Conduct! This when he had a diagnosis of ADHD and ODD! I told her "everyone needs improvement in their conduct". Talk about crushing his self esteem.

Then there was the time he told me, in front of the IEP team and him, that his only problem was he came to school smelling of Pee. Or the time she let her HS aged son drag Cory across a gravel road by his shirt collar. I was livid. Im surprised I didnt get arrested that day. She went to pick up the phone and I knocked it off her desk.

 

[Shari]

Janet, I've been telling husband he needs to make sure he can get to bail money at all times. LOL

I blew a gasket Friday. Thankfully I did it at home, but it resulted in me having to mop 3 rooms after a soda bottle exploded. I am proud to say, tho, that this is the first time I've blown. And I blew.

 

[Marguerite]

Instead of going back to mainstream, then, he stayed in the sped room and worked on math with mr para/teacher. Mr para/teacher thought he was done, so he started to erase the board. Wee was not done and hit mr para/teacher with a pillow and called him a dork. Mr para/teacher apologized, Wee apologized, and they went on about finishing his math work.

So, problems resolved in class, there was fault on both sides, meltdown avoided - the principal should not be involved at all. Absolutely stay out of it.

Does the principal have SpEd training? If so, has the principal been fully updated on her training? If either answer is no, then the principal needs to be publicly told at IEP meeting, and from higher up, to shut up and stay out of the tinkering of Wee's day. Principal should, in this, be guided by her staff who ARE able to make things work.

And YOU are labelled the one who is being obstructive and uncooperative?

My blood boils. If that had been me, it would have been more than one bottle of soda...

Marg

 

[Wiped Out]

The principal needs some major training on how to deal with children. I don't know how you deal with all of this-I hope you are documenting everything! Gentle hugs.

 

[susiestar]

WHY is the principal so involved in Wee's day??? At one point didn't she tell you she had 300 other students to worry about and couldn't spend all day handling Wee? If so, how in Hades does she have time to micromanage Wee?

She SOOOO reminds me of the teacher Wiz had for 1st grade - the one who "mentored' his 2nd grade teacher (her niece, by the way) - and was the main person who drove him to attempt suicide at 7yo!! She only liked kids who sat still, didn't fidget, and only spoke when she asked a question and called on them. Wiz, who was much smarter than she was even in first grade, couldn't do that. MUCH of what he did that was a problem at school was stuff little boys do. He laughed when kids farted. The whole class did, but Wiz lost recess and had to go sit outside the office for an hour. We clashed a LOT. She got super nasty after the 3rd gr teacher who had as much seniority as she did arranged to have Wiz spend language arts in her room since he could do spelling, grammar, comprehension, etc... on a much higher level than anyone else in the school. That was in 1st gr.

You need to let this principal know that it is OK for her to spend her time on the other kids as the sped teacher and mr para seem to be doing well on their own.

I cannot see anything Wee did that was a big deal. And when did "dork" become a bad work? Mr para learned to back off rather than to escalate wee, and it seemed to be his natural response when wee growled at him to stop. I know college professors who act that way when someone erases a board they are working on before they are done.

Can this principal truly not see a difference between how Wee behaved today and how he behaved in the past? for crying out loud, would it kill her to give the kid some PRAISE for not having a rage today, rather than punishing him for some things that are so terribly minor?

It makes me want to go and yank her vocal cords out, then she can see how fun it is to not be able to communicate well because you have a handicap and get frustrated!!! I bet if I pulled them out through her ear she would have some other problems too, and THEN maybe she could empathize just a teensy bit with Wee, and give him some praise instead of always picking on him!!!!!!!!!

 

[susiestar]

Why does Wee not have a para during recess with the other kids? This is prime time for him to be bullied and there will be one kid who thinks it is funny to watch wee get angry and explode. Seems like there always is. Times like lunch and recess and waiting for a bus are when a para is needed most. Can sp ed teacher and para trade off watching him at lunch and recess so they each get a break and time to eat?

 

[Shari]

Wee has a para during lunch and recess but they don't tend to hover. And I also know in the past, when things go well, those paras are the first to go. But, that said, social time, historically, is not when Wee loses it. I imagine that will be changing in the future, tho, because his social skills are lacking and the children are getting of an age to be much less forgiving than they have been...you are exactly right. Mallory, in the classroom last year, just loved to watch Wee blow.

Yes, I am documenting all of this. I was not able to contact the attorney today, but it is priority 1 for tomorrow.

ANd no, principal has no sped training. One of my ideas when talking to attorney is to offer a "deal". Take her out of Wee's chain of command, demand compliance with the IEP (either train the staff or hire staff to do so) and I'll back off. Refuse either of those, and I'll do as the supervisor at the department of ed suggested...due process, child complaint, AND litigation.