Hi,
I am new to posting on this board. I have a 10 year old son currently in an grade 5 LD Program. He has an auditory processing disorder his IQ is in the top 95 percentile, he has no problems with comprehension or verbal communication. We are having a number of problems.
1) He hates his teacher. He went to school the first day happy to be going back and looking forward to it. He came home in tears (not usual). This is not a warm friendly person. She tends to be very disipline oriented. He went ahead on work one day as she was helping another student - when she discovered this she told
him she was going to rip the pages out and he would have to do them again - under his breath he told her to piss off, unfortunately it wasn’t as under his breath as he thought and she heard. He was suspended for the day for swearing and disrespectfullness to a person of authority. When I tried to point out that threatening a student with ripping out there work might not be the best way to handle the situation they were only concered with what he said. Now I agree that what he said was not appropriate, but if someone threatened to rip out my work I might be tempted to say the same thing. There are a million stories he has told me about her ie. she calls them stupid, she changes the rules for earning rewards, and so on….
We (my husband and I) have talked to her on numerous occassions but feel we are banging our heads against a brick wall. It seems to make no difference. Basically at this point we have told our son to just do the best he can, show respect, and hopefully she will respond in kind.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how we could turn this situation around? Unless something changes at the school she will be his teacher next year as well.
2) The IEP has been changed and no notice was given to us. Last year he was doing everything except his reading at grade level and was intergrated for math, science, french, gym, music, art, social studies. THis year he is intergrated for french and music we have asked for more intergration on numerous occassions and
been told that they were working out how to put it in his schedual. With the reports given out last week we discovered that not only is he not intergrated (which we knew) but that she is teaching him at a grade 2 level in almost all subjects (our understanding was that he was at grade level). Now I understand why he was coming home with very little homework and telling me he could get all his work done for the day in an hour. Leaving him with lots of time to think up trouble!
The other thing I have noticed about his IEP is that it is very generic is that the norm? There is nothing on it specific to teaching stratagies for auditory processing disorder, nothing in it about giving him tools to work with and around his disability, it is more like a list of good teaching practises.
We have asked for a team meeting, any other suggestions?
His report at the end of the school year last year said he was reading at a mid grade 3 level, over the summer we worked with reading reflex program and earobics. He was making great progress and now unfortunately I can’t get him to even look at a book. He has become totally disinterested and very negative on himself.
Any suggestions for building self esteme, and reinteresting him in reading?
I should probably mention I am very involved at the school - secretary on school council, volunteer, fill in for lunchroom supervior, etc… So they know I am very interested in making both the school and my child successfull.
Any help/suggestions anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Lauren
(I have posted this same message on the teaching reading board and the teaching LD Board)
Re: Teacher/School relationships
With regard to #1- can you pull him out of this class? You really may not be able to change the teacher’s behavior and it sounds like your son would be better elsewhere. Failing that- communicate with her in writing with a copy to her administrator. It is their job to see that she does her job. They sometimes need to be given the opportunity to do that.:)
#2 This is illegal. They are in pretty flagrant violation of the law when they amend an IEP without you unless you have made it absolutely crystal clear that you do not care to be there. Call another IEP meeting and call them on it. Do it in writing and from here on in all your communication with the school should be in writing- including your communication with the classroom teacher- wioth copies to whatever administrators seem appropriate to you. I am sure that socks or Andy or someone will jump in with other suggestions but the important thing to remember is to document document document. Keep copies of all communications - even the pleasant ones and document some more. Sometimes the paper trail is all it takes.
Robin
Re: Teacher/School relationships
Dear Lauren,
I am a Sp Ed teacher who also has a 10 year old son who is LD. He also has ADD. I can relate to the problems you are having. First, your son’s IEP cannot be changed (not one word) without you’re approval,and you must be present when it happens.If they have been changed then your son’s rights have been violated and you have good grounds for a law suit.This includes the amount of time your son is in SP Ed. Secondly, your son’s teacher has to make modifications for your son that are specified in his IEP. Check and see what modofications are listed. These can also be changed at your request as necessary. Just request another IEP meeting.Also, if the teacher is not doing the modifications that are in your son’s IEP then, you can sue her for that, too.
As for getting along with the teacher, nothing will help that unless you really make your son respect her in a kind way. Making the remark at her that he made did not help at all. If you son misbehaves a lot perhaps he should be evaluated for a behavior disorder. A lot of LD kids are also behavior disordered. If he has a lot of referrals to the office or discipline slips, I’d certainly check it out. Does your son keep a planner where each teacher can write down any unfinished assignments, behavior problems, test reminders, spelling words, etc, that you need at home so you know what to work on? This helped us tremendously!!!!! I also had the teachers to write down their phone numbers so I could reach them if necessary. We have the phone number of a good study buddy so we can get spelling words if we forget them or lose them. I hope I have helped you!!!!! Good luck!
Hi, Lauren:
Your description sadden me! Parents are essential part of the IEP team, you should have more say on your son’s placement. With your son’s IQ, he should be able to adapt, compensate and be integrated in most of the classes. My son also has exceptional IQ and has auditory processing disorder. Before we knew he has LD, we kept on giving him books at his reading level and the told me he felt stupid reading. Our experience is that these kids need to be exposed to books at their intellectual levels; books that fascinated them. Read together, read to him, use book on tapes, etc, get him to appreciate books. When we first started rading together, he read a sentence and I read a page to him. Now, 4 years later, he is completely independent in reading and tested well above grade level.
From your description, the teacher in the LD program seems to me is not a good teacher. If it is my son, I would pull him out right away. A teacher like that can do more harm than good.
I have to run right now, I’ll try to contact you again.