I received another note from Jared’s service coordinator:
I wanted to let you know that from today on, Jared will be in Mrs. XXX’s (1st grade) class every day for math. I am in this class with him. This decision was made so that he could be in a team-taught classroom. He will still be in Mrs. YYY’s class for all other subjects. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
Here’s my response, mostly placed here so that I don’t lose it:
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean in your letter. I’m certainly not an educator, so I don’t know what the advantages of a “team-taught classroom” are for Jared. What I do know is that while Jared deals with change better than many autistics, changes like this are usually accompanies by a certain amount of anxiety and stress for him. Considering that his assistant has been changed, does changing his math teacher, his math classroom, his method of instruction and his access to the break-time de-stressors in Mrs. YYY’s class make sense? Also what advantage do we hope to gain by using a team, considering that Jared has such a hard time dealing with more than one person at a time? And the biggest piece of information missing from your letter is why this change needs to take place. Is Jared doing poorly in math? I he doing so well that he needs more advanced lessons? Why is this change worth making him anxious all day? Please understand, I want to support you and the other members of his team, but I feel like your short note was a little too short. If you’d like to expand, you can reach me at…
They’re trying to turn me into one of those crazy parents who fights with the school about everything, they really are. I don’t want to be that guy that turns the IEP meeting into a shouting match. I don’t want to be the father that makes the teachers afraid that he’s lawyering up. I want to be the friendly, jovial parent that the teachers like almost as much as they like his son. But as Jared gets older, that might not be in the cards.
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I talked to the service coordinator, and arrived at the unexplained cause of all this movement: money, personnel and scheduling. Here’s what she told me:
Evidently, the aid who works with Jared is also assigned to monitor the kids on the playground during one of the recess periods. These kids are getting recess when Jared is supposed to be doing math, so Jared’s teacher has nobody to help her with Jared.
Monitoring recess is a pretty easy job, so the school needs to use one of its less expensive employees. And I guess that means that with budgets being as tight as they are, Jared loses his aid.
So the solution is that since the service coordinator is working with another classroom with another teacher at that time, Jared can go to that class and do math with two teachers in the room instead of one. That’s what team-based teaching means: more than one teacher.
Of course, if she’s in this other classroom, it’s probably because there are other kids who could use her help there – meaning that Jared isn’t going to get her full attention and could probably still use some assistance staying on task.
I’m not too up in arms about this because Jared is awfully good at math and I’m confident that he can keep up with his lessons. From what I can tell, he can already do most of the things that are taught in first grade math. So even if he doesn’t do as well in this setting, he’ll probably come out all right.
The people who should be pissed are the parents of the other kids. I’d imagine that Jared is going to be agitated when he gets to the new classroom, then agitated when he gets to his original classroom. And those other kids are going to have to try to learn around his outbursts.
And guess what: Jared had a “yellow” day: he had problems following directions. Worse than that, he made a mess and had to have clothes brought down to the school. I hate saying “I told you so.” Especially when it’s about my kid.
There are legal rights associated with children who have IEPs – namely, enforcing those IEPs. If the school isn’t providing Jared with his needs (i.e. one-on-one) and that’s in his IEP, then you can talk to the school board and make things happen. I have a link for you regarding this stuff somewhere…
The problem isn’t that they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to. It’s that his IEP doesn’t include “We promise not to fuck around with his services and the way that they’re provided in such a way as to sabotage his progress.”
The thing is that I know that everyone (except maybe one person) over there is doing their best to help Jared, but they don’t have the resources or the experience to handle a kid who is both smart and autistic. When I was in school, I always felt like “these people just don’t know what to do with me” and now I feel that way about Jared.
Is someone trying to push their sneakers here… or am I missing something with that last comment?
One thing I thought of when reading this post:
“I don’t want to be the father that makes the teachers afraid that he’s lawyering up.”
Don’t assume you are. My niece has severe learning difficulties, and I’ve learned that teachers are usually on the same side you are. It’s usually *everyone* against the bean counters, not the parents against the teachers and the bean counters. There is no reason to think that’s suddenly going to change as Jared gets older.
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Oh yeah – and that Fisher guy’s blog is very pretty.