Out with the Old, In with the DUH...

Today I participated in a 6-hour training for the new IEP program our district is planning on rolling out on Monday. And all I can say is that the training itself was a waste of time and money.

To start off, I could have spent the day in my classroom actually doing something productive and catching up on the work that's stacked up because I was out sick for a week and a half and because I have an incompetent instructional aide (but that's another blog post altogether). Many of our district's special education teachers opted out of coming today - because this "voluntary" training violates our union contract in about 10 different ways. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to stay behind and work, I couldn't because I am not yet tenured with the district. And I am POSITIVE that our special education director would have seen my absence as non-compliance and not asked me to return next fall despite exemplary evaluations from my site administrator.

So, I was bitter about attending this whole training from the get-go.

On top of that, though, the district failed to offer any sort of waiver for those teachers who are tech-savvy and/or have advanced degrees in technology (like myself) that would allow for us to figure out the program on our own. By not doing so, the district is basically paying me to sit in a computer lab for 6 hours and chat on Facebook or pin new ideas on Pinterest. Now that's being fiscally conscientious!

I was hoping that this training would be beneficial. It wasn't. 

Every piece of information that was presented was something I could have figured out independently or by looking up in the program manual. It was a waste of time.

It really upsets me that with all these budget issues happening within the school districts, administrators and program directors aren't doing everything possible to save the district money. Like paying for one trainer instead of three and only training those teachers who feel they really need the training in order to be successful? There's an idea!

Or giving a 3-hour training instead of a 6-hour training, because, really...it could have been done in two.

Now while the technicalities of the training flat out sucked...I do like the new program that the district is using. It really streamlines the information and eliminates the amount of paperwork that is processed in special education. It is very user-friendly and will hopefully eliminate some of the errors the district has faced in the past with IEPs.

Pointing Fingers

I know I haven't posted in almost 20 days and I'm sorry! With all the drama that's been going on in my classroom, I haven't had the time - and even less motivation - to talk about the things that are going right.

So, to give y'all a brief recap of the "challenges" (and that's putting it nicely!) I have been having in my classroom...I had a parent complain to my principal that my classroom staff and I - and the school as a whole - were not implementing and following her child's IEP or BSP. In short, she made some pretty hefty (and false) allegations about the classroom. She then proceeded to pull her child out of school and was requesting a non-public school (NPS) for her child because she felt the district was not doing an adequate enough job. 

We ended up having an IEP meeting with my administrator, the mother, an aunt, our school psychologist, the speech and language assistant, an advocate from the Regional Center, along with the special education director, program administrator, and myself. What usually is a one or two hour meeting turned into a four-hour ordeal - just to give you a scope of how long and tedious this meeting was.

To sum up the meeting, the aunt went on a wild, inappropriate tangent multiple times during the meeting and completely detracted the team from focusing on a resolution to the situation rather than just blaming someone (and when I say someone, I mean me). She even had the audacity to question my credentials as a special education teacher. 

And here's the kicker - the mother didn't even sign the amendment meeting paperwork. 

Now, I am - apart from my students' parents - my students' top advocate for the education they receive from our school district and for any additional services or resources that I think that the child may benefit from. However, a NPS - in this particular case - is not the answer...nor is a more restrictive environment. (To be honest, I don't think the mother even knows what a NPS is and how they are usually reserved for the more "severe" students.) 

The meeting really upset me because - despite what they thought they were trying to accomplish - the family is doing a disservice for the child by requesting services that are completely inappropriate for him and will detract from the progress he has already made in the two and a half months he has been in my classroom. I was also really upset about some of the family's disillusions about how I should run my classroom (i.e. the mother wants to monitor the books I read in class, eliminate time-out for all the students, and do away with my behavior clip chart) - but I can deal with some highly opinionated parental bullsh*t. 

Anyway, the meeting is over and while I should be spending my Thanksgiving week-off break celebrating with my family and indulging in some much needed time off, I get the stress and anxiety of wondering if the mother is going to decide to send her child back to school come Monday or not (and all the stress that entails). 

My heart really breaks for my student. Because ultimately his education is what's at risk here and the parent can't see past her misconceptions about what my classroom should be like (in her opinion) to realize that he's already in an environment that is nurturing, professional, and uniquely tailored to his individual needs as a student and a child.