My son has recently been diagnosed with ADHD, along with a mood disorder and depression that he has had for some time. We have our first IEP meeting on January 9th. Our problem is, we do not care for his teacher this year and do not believe he is providing an acceptable educational environment for ANY child in his class, much less one with some extra needs. The information we get from this teacher is unreliable (for example, he can tell us one minute that our son is having a good week, then later in the conversation will say its a bad one) and he has basically refused to work with us in terms of some not-unreasonable requests we have made (such as sending graded work home; he apparently doesn’t believe in that!) Anyway, this man will be part of the IEP and I am very uncomfortable with that, yet powerless to change it. The school also does not believe in changing a child’s teacher once the school year starts. Has anyone else here run into this problem? Can anyone offer any advice? Thank you.
Re: Teacher
This is a hard situation. As you know his opinion to be unreliable, be on the lookout for that and think about the future. What is it you would want ideally from the school? Go into the meeting actively prepared. Are there other parents you know of whose children have had issues addressed by the school? Consider getting in touch with other parents and finding out the ‘inside scoop’ as to what services were provided their children. Don’t hesitate in the meeting when the teacher objects to a suggestion of yours to turn and ask pleasantly, “What would you suggest then to meet this need?”
Keep your ear to the ground on next year’s teachers and plan on making a request for the one you think will suit your son’s needs the best.
Good luck.
Re: Teacher
I totally agree with Sara. Not only might you finally get your sons needs met,but if this teacher is as much a character as he sounds,given enough rope,they will always hang themselves. In other words,not only will saying(and sweetly is defintely the way to do this) “so how will we get my sons needs met”,help force the issue,the more he appears resistent to accomodating him,the more the schools policy about not changing teachers,will seem a much better thing for the school to do.
Choose your battles
Okay, here are my ramblings — Very possible that teh school “Does not believe” in changing teachers because they’ve known for a while everybody would want one teacher and not the other. In that case, generally the only kind of thing that would have a chance of changing that policy would have to also include something they could tell all the other parents that would righteously and rightfully demand to know why they couldn’t switch too. An IEP that said your kid needed something that only happened in the other classroom might provide that, but even that’s probably a long shot.
If you aren’t going to be able to change classes, then you want to cut your losses. When’s this IEP meeting? Have you had meetings with this guy present? Sending work home is pretty standard, so you might want to bring this up at the meeting in a way that would save his face but make him agree to do it — basically establish that there’s a need for good, consistent feedback and ask how you can be kept updated — visibly — on how he’s doing — and not with subjective comments (“good week” or “bad week”) but in a way that you all can really keep track of how things *are* going, and what things are working and what things aren’t, and of course if you see the work itself you can figure out what’s going right and what needs more work.
I’d sit and make a list of the things that are *most* important and focus on them, and focus hard on the kid’s needs and what needs to be done to meet them, really objectively and concretely. That way you’re steering away from the guys refusals, etc. (Who else will be at the meeting? There should be somebody there that this guy has to answer to, right?)
And the *bottom* line is, if you don’t like it, don’t sign it. Even if you’re just not 100% sure, say you’ve just got to think about it, you are sorry, but you just take this too seriously, you aren’t ready to sign it. They teach us the “broken record” technique where you just keep saying the same thing until the other person realizes that no, you aren’t going to change your mind. (It helps to practice :))
And if the environment is bad, don’t be afraid to give the kiddo mental health days.
Re: Choose your battles
You all raise some very good points. We have met with the teacher in the past and stressed how important it is for us to see our son’s schoolwork; especially since one of his “issues” is rushing through assigned work and not taking the time to do a good job. Nothing changed. We also feel our son would be more motiviated to do his work and do a good job on it if he felt the teacher even looked at the work. But handing in work, taking tests, etc don’t do any good if the child never sees the result (kind of like us adults at work when no one ever tells us when we’ve done a good job!) We have spoken to other non-ADD parents in this class, and all have said that their children’s work habits and motivation are going downhill.
Re: Choose your battles
Here is the thing. Maybe I am a little more on the militant side when it comes to my kids rights,but I still want to impress upon you a few things.
It is HIS IEP. Not the teacher’s. You do not have to convince him to do the right thing,he MUST do it if it is decided by the team.
YOU are an equal member of that team,and the only one with a vested interest in your son’s educational progress. I say, teacher tell me what you purpose to do for my son,not what you refuse to do for my son,because you are legally obligated to follow the plan.
Re: Choose your battles
Don’t you realize,that just posting here,makes me part of your IEP team:-)
We are all in this together.
Sounds like the teacher has ADD! Don’t laugh, it happens! Sorry, I can’t offer any advice on how to deal with it. Plenty of people on this board are having the very same difficulties with teachers. Perhaps they have some advice.