Did I offend my sons teacher?

Your son’s teacher is running a pretty free classroom which doesn’t work for all kids. Does his IEP require preferential seating (near teacher)? If so, she isn’t following that. He needs to have a more structured setting apart from anything else. Maybe you need to call an IEP meeting and hash out how he is going to succeed this year. Perhaps his attention is an issue but I think a lot of kids couldn’t handle what she is doing.

Beth

Thankyou for your reply Having him sit near the teacher I thought was understood we did discuss it at our last IEP meeting but this teacher did not even know he had an IEP because the last phone call I got at home about my son not paying attention she sugested a core evaluation and I was shocked because He has been on an IEP for three years. I just believe she is new to teaching and maybe dosn’t know to much about special ed but I thought that was a requirement in school to get your degree, or maybe not I don’t know, Im just very worried that my son is going to suffer because she dosn’t know what to do. I have spoken with the principal and his special ed advisor and that day they moved his seat and also ended the free time but now Im afraid she will hold a grudge because they changed her class and underminded her abilities. I did ask her to move his desk but she brushed it off thats why I went over her head and she also keeps pushing the issue of having him seen by a Neuro Dr.Ive told her twice he just did in April of this year but I did schedule another one for this Dec. just because I dont want her to say Im not doing all I can.
Hopefuly she is a profesional and will not take this out on my son.

Thakyou
Kim
Momof2

Well, a kid with border line ADHD is going to have a lot more trouble in a class like hers. That, to me, is the bottom line.

I always meet with my son’s teachers the second week of school and discuss how we can work together to help him suceed. This year I didn’t call his spanish teacher (he is in fifth grade and has spanish once a week) and by the time she contacted me, he was flunking. He now has a D-, after a lot of work on my part! Anyway, it is always easier to get off on the right foot to start with than to fix things afterwards.

The other thing I do is write the principal a letter each year which details out what has been successful for my son and what he needs next year. This helps avoid the kind of situation you are talking about.

She may be irritated that you went over her head. I had a resource teacher once who gave my son hours of math homework. I tried talking to her, I wrote her a letter, I finally brought up homework time at an IEP meeting. Her colleagues told her it was too much and guess what, she was obviously mad and never gave him any homework again!

Sometimes you don’t have any choice. Fortunately, my son is more likeable than his advocate mother so that helped.

Beth

That is basically where the ball got dropped which means that the main case carrier for your son should have met with your son’s teacher before school started and gave her the heads up.

That evidently was never done and really isn’t the teachers fault it is the Case Carrier for your son’s IEP who should be the one who gets chewed out for not following through.

I am not sure what his qualifying condition is because that would determine who is the case carrier. If it was speech and language impairment then it is the speech path, if it was specific learning disability then that would be the Resource Teacher.

. Am I out of line telling a teacher how to run her class, they did end free time after every assignment and they just have it before they go home and my son now sits in front of her desk. I also found out this is her first class, she was a student teacher for the past 2 years in a 5th grade class, I’m afraid I offended her and she even treats me diffrent now. Should I have gone about this diffrent?[/quote]

There’s no good way to go about these things especially with a new and young teacher. Of course we’re out of line if we directly tell a teacher how to run a class - did you do that? Or did you make suggestions/requests regarding your own son?

her answer to you was a defensive one - ‘3rd graders need to be taking responsibillity for themselves? - does that mean she doesn’t have to take any as a teacher??? Clearly your son’s seating wasn’t working out for him and he would learn how to take responsibility better with better direction from her. Is it sink or swim or do we teach them how to swim before turning them loose?

She’ll have to get over it or not - You could try apologizing for going over her head to the principal but it wouldn’t likely soothe her ruffled feathers.
Your first concern has to be your son - next time you’re met with this kind of situation ask them - ‘do you mind if I consult with Mr. Jones, the principal and the assistant principal? I’d like to get their perspective as well”.

Good luck.

I am a high school special education teacher. I think that if you went to your son’s teacher and talked to her in a calm and professional manner then there is no reason why she should be upset. This is her first year teaching, and her classroom management is probably still a little shaky, (as with most first year teachers), but she should know that a child who is struggling and has trouble paying attention needs to be seated by the teacher’s desk or in the front row. He might also feel emberressed by asking questions about math, becuase he feels that everyone else knows it but him. The issue with letting students have free time after they finish their work is alright with me, but the teacher is doing her students no justice by letting them just turn in anything and expect to get credit for it. If my students turn in an assignment and there are any wrong answers, then I circle the number of the question and they have to complete it right, before they are allowed to have any sort of free time. Now my students try to do thier work right the first time, because they already know that they will just have to re-do it anyway. You might want to also mention giving the students educational crossword puzzles or seek and finds when they get done that reenforces what they have already learned instead of just letting them do whatever they want. I hope this helps!! Good luck
Katie

First of all, I am a recent college graduate. I have a degree in Elementary Education as well as K-12 Special Education. I can tell you that in my Elementary Education classes, there was virtually no mention of Special Education laws, or services. I always wondered what my fellow classmates would do in a situation like this. I used to tell them all the time that they WILL have LD, BD, and maybe even MR students in their classes. Noone seemed to care too much. While student teaching, they would get bent out of shape about a student who talked out without raising their hands, and I would think….. oh my god! I student taught in a resource room in a very inner city school, where I had a girl who used to cut her wrists, and I would tell them these type of things, and they would never believe me. I think it is just a harsh reality for some new teachers (that there will be students who deviate from the norm.) However, I do not think you should have went to the principal. Maybe you should have tried to educate her more on your son’s disability (research articles, things that work at home, etc.) I do think that kids need to take more responsibility for their behaviors. If your son can not do that yet, and doesn’t learn how, in middle school he may find himself in a self contained class. I know I am going to get a lot of reaction from that last line. Please believe me though…it is true! I have not been teaching that long, but I have seen many things!

First of all, I am a recent college graduate. I have a degree in Elementary Education as well as K-12 Special Education. I can tell you that in my Elementary Education classes, there was virtually no mention of Special Education laws, or services. I always wondered what my fellow classmates would do in a situation like this. I used to tell them all the time that they WILL have LD, BD, and maybe even MR students in their classes. Noone seemed to care too much. While student teaching, they would get bent out of shape about a student who talked out without raising their hands, and I would think….. oh my god! I student taught in a resource room in a very inner city school, where I had a girl who used to cut her wrists, and I would tell them these type of things, and they would never believe me. I think it is just a harsh reality for some new teachers (that there will be students who deviate from the norm.) However, I do not think you should have went to the principal. Maybe you should have tried to educate her more on your son’s disability (research articles, things that work at home, etc.) I do think that kids need to take more responsibility for their behaviors. If your son can not do that yet, and doesn’t learn how, in middle school he may find himself in a self contained class. I know I am going to get a lot of reaction from that last line. Please believe me though…it is true! I have not been teaching that long, but I have seen many things!

Momof2,

It seems as if you did offend the teacher. However, you need to advocate for your child since it seems that the teacher wasn’t changing her style to help your child “learn” the responsibility she wants him to have. Some children need to be taught responsibility in small steps. Especially when they are struggling to acquire the information they are being presented.

I believe you needed to work up the chain in this case, but it may have been better to call an IEP meeting since you child already had an IEP. The principal should be there, the case worker, and his teacher.

I also agree that you should meet with the teacher about two weeks after school starts. You get a good read on the teacher when discussing the issues of your child. It is a good way to set expectations about what you expect from her regarding issues with your child.

Good luck smoothing things over with this teacher. If you apologize and she continues to treat you poorly, it shows that she still needs to mature and needs to become more professional.

Now to the quote by Julianna that will cause some uproar,
“I do think that kids need to take more responsibility for their behaviors. If your son can not do that yet, and doesn’t learn how, in middle school he may find himself in a self contained class. ”

This may be a true statement, but it is not at all helpful for Momof2. She knows there is a problem. She is trying to work with the school to resolve this problem. However, it seems the ball was dropped for her son at his present school. The statement just causes undue anxiety for someone who is trying to help her child. If she was a slacker parent, she wouldn’t be using this forum. It is sad that a parent can’t assume that the case worker would inform the teacher of the IEP or the teacher was going to follow it.

I had a seasoned teacher tell me this in similar words regarding my son’s quantity and quality of writing, which is his most severe disability. He has an IEP and they were supposed to be teaching him these skills. The teacher’s comment was made while the resource teacher was not in the room. It was something similar to, “If you son doesn’t improve, he is never going to make it.” It is a cruel thing to tell a parent of a learning disabled child. I’m not saying it is not a true statement, but it gives the parent the impression that it is not the teacher’s responsibility to help your child get there - just the child’s. It is also not a helpful statement. It does not address what is being done to get the child where the child needs to be. It does not address what else can be tried. Her opinion was that he just wasn’t trying hard enough, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to help. If the teacher’s statement was followed up with suggestions and if the teacher was open to my suggestions (which, BTW, helped him), it would have been a statement that could have been tolerated.

I understand your reaction to my comment, and I agree that he needs to be taught responsibility in small steps. This should not be the first year that he is required to take responsibility. He should have been taught this since the begining of his educational experience, which seems to be since age 18 months.
As a toddler-if you don’t clean up your toys, then you can not play next time
As a 4-5 year old-if you have emotional outbursts, then you must apoloogize to the person afterwards….and on and on and on and on.
I do have sympathy for this mother, but I am only being honest. If he can not accept responsibility due to his disability, then this is probably the road he is headed down. By the way, I never saw a mention of what the mother expected the son to do, only the teacher.

I had major problems with my sixth grade teacher when I was in elementary school. She is the main reason why I needed to have an IEP. She let the students sit wherever they wanted and of course not knowing how important my education was I would sit next to my friends. I had to have it put in an IEP that I was to sit in the very front of the class and that that year I was to only have a half an hour of homework for each subject due to the fact that I was getting about 5 to 6 hours of homework a night. I dont get that much now that I’m in college. I also had to have it in my IEP that I didn’t have to write in cursive. If it is taking your child a long time to do simple homework such as answering questions from the book and the teacher is requiring him/her to write in cursive have that changed put it in the IEP where while your child will write in cursive for cursive lessons during class and and for whatever homework is given for that lesson otherwise it maybe easier for your child to write in print and may cut some of the time out of doing homework. hope this helps. If you have anymore questions email me at [email protected]

A couple of things satnd out in the original post. 2 hours of homework with a lot of fighting and crying? First of all he should have 30 minutes or less of home work for a child that age. What your child is going through is mental torture. He is distracted in school because he hate school and particualarly his third grade class.

Is you boy ADHD? Probably not but if you take him for an evaluation he will get the ADHD lable because his avoidance strategies mimmic the already much to broad ADHD criteria.

His teacher sounds like a real menace. I would see if you can get him in a class with another teacher.

Also I think he needs some “placebo” type homework assignments that he can easily master so that he won’t dread doing it so much.

Do other kids in his class need to spend 2 hours on their homework? If so that teacher is way out of line but she is probably too ignorant to know that.

Well I don’t have much in the way of suggestions. If I did, I guess my grade two sone wouldn’t be having the struggle and frustration he does in school. The only class he says he likes is gym.(although I think thats common for alot of kids!) All I really wanted to say is that I’m glad I’m not the only one having to endure hysterics. We usually have half an hour of stomping, crying, screaming and hollering about how dumb he is and that this is too hard for him. All of this is generally to get him to write one or two sentences, or read a ten page book. After he is done if I ask him if it was too hard and worth all the fuss he says no. It’s like he is convinced that no matter what it is he’s not capable of accomplishing anything.

I hope you get everthing worked out for your son. My son’s teachers are supposed to be preparing an IEP for grade three for him. I’m not sure what too expect. TAMMIE

I’m a fifth grade teacher. I’ve also taught fourth. Before I finished my master’s degree, I homeschooled my three kids for seven years…

I tell my parents NOT to work on homework longer than an hour at the maximum. A third grader does not need to work longer than 30 minutes.
After thirty minutes, stop the homework. (Do not include the time spent on stomping, arguing, etc.) Perhaps you could start a timer as soon as the child calms down. Tell him as soon as he gets started on the homework, we’ll start the timer, get started on homework, and get it done. Afterwards, reward the child by reading aloud a chapter of a book he likes (for about 10 minutes). Make this time a calm, soothing, pleasant time — away from the television and other siblings. Children crave individual attention, of course, so this might be a good motivator. I admit, it wouldn’t work for every child, but you could try it.

Also — ask the teacher if she checks, rewards, or grades homework. If she does none of these, I would not worry about doing the homework! Why stress the kid if the teacher is not even going to look at it? Don’t tell her this is why you were asking though!

Another idea: Write the teacher a note that you worked with the child for 30 minutes on the homework and this is how much was accomplished. Then leave the rest of it blank.

I hope one of these suggestions helps.

I don’t think you were out of line for going over the teacher’s head. It probably did offend her, but you are responsible for advocating for your child. My child’s first week in kindergarten, I noticed some issues and spoke with his teacher. She had so much attitude and defensiveness, I ended my conversation with her politely and went right to the principal. Meanwhile, my child continued to act out in her class, and he was diagnosed with ADHD. There was so much defensiveness and resistence and negativity, I HAD to go over her head, request another teacher (more than once) and even go over the principal’s head. I felt the school was trying to hurry an ADHD diagnosis, push for an IEP (instead of a 504 plan) and have him moved to a school set up for children with behavioral IEPs. All within the first two months of kindergarten. We’re talking two suspensions, practically forcing us to medicate him, strongly trying to convince us to agree to a modified school day, blaming us for not doing enough, etc. My experience with the public school where I live has been so frustrating and negative. I think my child’s self-esteem has taken a blow. I’ll keep fighting for him, and I will try to work with his teachers as professionally and politely as possible. But if I get attitude and lots of resistance, then I’ll go right over their heads in a minute! By the way, my son’s current teacher is nice enough, but I’ve had enough of the school at this point. It’s like some teachers and certainly the administrators are inflexible, think one style of teaching works for every kid, and they’re ready for a fight. Sorry, but I’m on vent mode!