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So, right on the heels of the big brew-ha-ha over the school attempting to take away Ds's writing accommodations (scribing). I find out something else distrubing!

DS often mentions an aid that he doesn't like. Apparently, a lot of children, or at least Ds's friends, do not like her so I never thought too much of it. Yesterday, DS mentions school has been more pleasant without said aid around "criticizing him all of the time." (the exact words he used). When I asked for examples of how the paraprofessional "criticizes" him, he gave me one. He said that aid was scribing for him and, while she was scribing for him, she said to him "Look at Peter! Look at what a good job Peter is doing writing! That is what YOU should be doing, DS." Like I said, she said this while she was scribing him. DS said she makes comments like that to him a lot and that he hates how she makes him feel. I can't say that I blame him. I was only told of this yesterday, otherwise I would have certainly brought it up at the IEP meeting.

So I feel like a pain but I also feel like this also needs to be addressed. So, I email teacher and cc'd principal explaining the situation and ask teacher if she would please talk to said aid about this and also would she please explain to her why my son needs a scribe and should not push himself to write because of neuromuscular condition that results in weak muscle tone and weak joints.

I get an email back from principal that seemed annoyed with me. It said that he would speak to said aid about DS's "perceptions" and if "he decides something needs to be adjusted they will adjust it in the best interest of the child." Should I not have said something? I guess maybe the school has to be careful about not admitting guilt but the tone of the email to me was condescending, I thought... It seemed like he was annoyed and didn't believe DS's account. Principal said things like he has worked for many years with said aid, etc... I wrote back and assured him that it was not a "perception," teacher aid actually said that and that DS was very specific about it. I invited him to ask DS if he has any doubt. I added obviously an adjustment is necessary because such comments should not be made in the first place. My son should be able to access his accommodations without being put down for needing them.

Was I wrong to say anything? I am really getting the impression that people - teachers and paras, etc. REALLY DO NOT LIKE that DS gets a scribe! I am also getting the impression that really do not like me.

The other critisms, I think Polarbear may be able to help with perhaps. The aid, and I have noticed first-hand myself that the administrators like the people in charge of the car-line ect., are constantly yelling at DS for not "moving fast enough." His pace is rather slow and, to him, he is moving quickly and does not realize how slowly he walks up steps or even in general especially if he has to carry something or has his backpack on. Once in the car pick-up line he was walking to our car from the school and the administrator yelled at him with her stupid bull-horn in front of all of his friends, other grades and students and all of our neighbors and parents (in the car-line), "DS! MOVE YOUR LEGS!!!" According to her, he wasn't moving fast enough. I literally cringed (it really was embarassing) and my DS's face turned bright red and immediately clouded over. Quite honestly, there was absolutely no need for that at all. None. Polarbear and others, my DS is similar to a dyspraxic in those ways (he may even have dysparaxia or developemental coordination disorder) - the poor writing and fine motor, but also the slow gross motor, the clumsiness (he is always dropping things), uncoordination, etc. Do people YELL at your kids all of the time for it? To be clear, he is simply slow ... putting his tray up ay lunch, walking, espcially up stairs, etc. if it's becasue he is not doing what he is suppose to be doing that is one thing (like instead of walking he stopped to chat with a friend or look at leaf or something)... but like the car-line incident where he was indeed walking toward me when called, right for me, his pace is just slow (especially since his back-pack was heavy for him).

Anyway, seems like the honeymoon with the school is over. The crux of the matter is - people really do not like that DS gets a scribe... seems like one way or another they want to take that accommodation away - whether it is constantly trying to sneak the scribe accommodation out of the IEP or not folllowing the IEP in the classroom (and then using that as proof DS doesn't need the accommodation) or making DS feel so badly when he access the accommodation that he will do so less and less. So sad.

I'm sorry. There is a horrible aid at my ds9's school but thankfully his teacher is amazing and totally has his back and went to principal and made it clear bad behavior won't be tolerated.

I think the car line is crazy in general--they have done similar to my ds who has Down syndrome (I mean it seems pretty clear to me that they might understand why it takes him a little longer to get in,out of the car. But car line is not pleasant at my son's school . I think this is a school culture thing too, because the experience at my dd5's school car line is not so stressful.

I can't say that people "yell" at DD but they have pointed out her disabilities as a criticism. I respond immediately and strongly. I don't know about your DS but my DD is very, very sensitive so something like this stays with her for a very long time. Just the other day I spent a half hour on the phone with the SW drawing the line from actions and statements last fall that I believe have led to DD's increased anxiety and insistence on being sent home this week.

I had to push hard when they were inconsistent about providing para support and the teacher was disregarding the IEP requirements for support. Once they finally started to provide a substitute she refused to write for DD (not sure just what she thought she was there for...) and called DD - and I kid you not - "lazy" and "disrespectful" for "trying to get out of doing her own school work." DD started crying and refused to work with her anymore. To the school's credit they made this substitute para apologize to DD but they allowed her to continue working with her for the rest of the day. When she asked for an anxiety break they sent her to take a walk with this woman - the one who triggered the anxiety to begin with. I am not sure but I think during the time alone with DD this woman laid a guilt trip on her because ever since she has been very nervous about getting any of the paras in trouble and won't report anything improper.

At our parent teacher conference last fall the first thing the classroom teacher did was complain that DD "is very slow putting her things away in the morning." I said "You do realize DD is dyspraxic - right? She does everything slowly..." The teacher backed off the comment but it gave me great insight into what is likely going on. We have noticed a pattern that many if not most mornings DD develops some sort of physical complaint during the first minutes of the school day. In my conversation with the SW the other day I pointed out that if the teacher understands the situation so little that she can comment on how slow DD is to put her things away I have to assume that there is something happening at that time that is triggering DD's anxiety. Of course they do not admit to anything happening and this is a school that prohibits any sort of parental involvement. In other words there is no one other than school personnel to rely on for an accurate report of the situation.

Obviously your school does not like this accommodation. It is likely expensive and clumsy to administer. You have also shown yourself to be a parent that will hold their feet to the fire. Too bad. Their annoyance or your willingness to be a hard a** does not get them out of their obligation to meet your son's needs. I would be all over the woman with a megaphone like white on rice. I think you need to have very precise info on what the para is comparing between your ds and Peter. Maybe she was referring to his pencil grip or some other specific thing your ds is supposed to be working on. If it's just that Peter is doing his own writing and your ds is not that is definitely a problem. I'm not really sure how you find that out though...

The whole concept gets my blood boiling enough to wonder if Joe Pesci might do volunteer advocacy work.

Barring that, I've known a couple of people with business cards explaining their disability. Maybe a card with basic info and impacts, a reference to the Individual with Disabilities Act and a link to some state education site offering Disability Sensitivity training?

This.

The thing is with the Peter situation is that she didn't even say it to Peter (not his real name, btw!) Ds said that Peter was a few desks away and didn't even hear her... She said it specifically to DS, apparently to motivate DS to not use a scribe. Ds also reports that Peter also must have some sort of writing disorder like himself b/c Peter's writing is also horrible and he also uses special pencils and paper, etc. and also needs help with writing at times. I have no idea if Peter has a diagnosis or not but what it sounds to me and what DS's take on was that that aid was trying to encourage my DS not use his scribe - to push himself more like Peter does. Basically, I think it's pretty clear that, like you said, she was pointing out to DS that Peter does his own writing, even though it's hard for him, and my DS does not (he takes the easy way out I guess. That was the message my DS got from her. She was intending to make him feel badly for accessing his accommodations, imo.

Oh marytheres, this sounds horrible! I am so sorry your ds is experiencing the taunts in the drop-off line and the things the para has said. Were you wrong to say something? ABSOLUTELY NOT! You *needed* to speak up for your ds and you did.

Our ds hasn't been specifically yelled at (as far as I know), but we've experienced quite a bit of the issue of people at school thinking he's slow just because he's unmotivated or lazy or just slogging along. Can you let us know how your drop-off line works at school (for drop-off and pick-up)? The way I respond might depend on how it's done at your school.

I also am going to think a bit before responding about how I would reply to the para and drop-off situation. I need to let it sit and meditate on it awhile - not sure I have a good answer off the top of my head

I have to be honest, when we ran into these types of situations at ds' first school, we fought and fought and advocated and educated on and on and on and it never really changed much. DS was always very slow at his cubby in the morning and when it was time to get ready for lunch; ds' teacher knew he was dyspraxic, we explained it in meeting after meeting, provided literature, provided extra copies of ds' diagnoses and neuropsych report, emailed emailed emailed, shmoozed, ranted in a pc manner, you get the point. Nothing ever really got through to her that this was something that was a part of who he was and no amount of hurrying him along was going to make him move any faster. Same thing happened with most everything else we either had an issue with or needed to advocate for. Changing schools was like a breath of fresh air - I didn't realize how much the brick walls we were running into were simply a piece and parcel of the school culture where he was attending. I hope that's not the case for you and your ds.

I'll be back later with some ideas.

Sending you and your ds a big hug!

polarbear

ps - YIKES! I just read your update explaining what specifically happened with the scribe... argh!

Yeah that's what I think. Thanks for the encouragement. Ugh people are such a$$es. I did tell the woman with the mega-phone off, she is acting super nice to DS now.

Joining in the parade of "staff can be stupid and insensitive" anecdotes, DD was 7, and a few weeks into the school year, started complaining of chronic back soreness. After it had gone on for enough days to be taken seriously, I started casting about for answers, and weighed her backpack, which turned out to be much too heavy, at nearly 20% of her body weight. Most of the excess weight was coming from liquids, as the drinking water at the school was substandard, and she wouldn't drink it. There were books she brought from home, as well as her lunch and normal homework items. She had to lug this thing to and from the car line, her home room, and a G/T pull-out all day.

We instructed DD to swap out her items to another wheeled backpack she had for traveling. And when she used it at school, she got yelled at to pick it up and carry it, because the wheels squeaked.

No, you weren't wrong to say something.

Your son is experiencing a hostile learning environment.

That's the phrase that pays here, btw.

I think, though, that your approach is perhaps in need of a tweak, advocacy-wise. Be clear and VERY precise in your wording with this kind of thing. Study the examples of "letters of understanding" at Wrightslaw-- and practice writing one of those for this incident.

a) my son has informed me that {X, Y, and Z}.

b) MY understanding is that {A, B, and C},

and
c) Please correct me if DS or I have misunderstood anything in this account. If I do not hear from you by {reasonable amount of time}, I will assume that this narrative is both complete and accurate. Thanks so much for your help.


Because the bottom line is that you do not know that what your DS said is both completely accurate and exactly what happened... you just SUSPECT (probably with good reason) that it is.

You have to give the appearance of impartiality-- or at least objectivity-- as a show of good faith. But communicating things like this in writing also tells them that you've had enough of this nonsense and you're going to put their feet to the fire as of RIGHT NOW.

They are behaving in a retaliatory fashion. Let them know that such a thing-- you know, IF such an unfortunate thing were ever to :cough-cough: take place-- would be illegal, and grounds for a complaint with OCR. How unfortunate if this "misunderstanding" were to escalate.

This is how I am starting to feel and why I am starting to lose my patience. It feels like it never really gets through. Glad I held off giving the school that glowing review I was going to give a few months ago...

They don't NEED to understand.

But they do need to stop what they are doing to make your DS' life even harder than it already is.

(Mean/harsh, but true.)

They are breaking the law-- both in letter and in spirit-- by retaliatory behavior to "punish" your child for accessing his accommodations in the classroom.

Baaad, baaaaaaad juu-juu.

I think this is HUGE. I have said over and over that our principal is a bully and has created an incredibly unhealthy environment in DD's school. Her behavior towards DD was outrageous and it is not surprising that, given the environment in the school, some of this behavior is not only tolerated but likely encouraged.

Oh and yes "hostile learning environment" has recently become one of my go-to phrases.

I feel like I need a shower after reading and writing all of this...

I almost did this with the para comments. I almost threw in there that such comments would be troublesome legally. But I am really trying to hold off on "threatening" because I know people really hate to be threatened. I did let them know casually in the last IEP mtg that I am lawyer and am finding this area of law quite fascinating.... I usually hate to tell anyone I am lawyer so they hadn't known until recently - I let it "slip" because I want to get the point across that lawyers are not at all afraid to take matters into the legal realm and I am no exception. I am hoping that this knowledge will mean they will be more careful about how they behave. Now this area of law is not my area of expertise at all but I can find a good attorney to help me out, I am sure, if I need to start a Complaint. I am taking some CLEs on the subject, too.

I am particularly sensitive about these Paras - that was the problem last year - my poor DS was left with a bitch of a para who also shamed him for not being able to write well or do fine motor activities fast enough or well enough (back then he didn't even have accommodation under his 504). My son was unrecognizable after being left with her. He was a nervous wreck. Similar to your situation, Pemberly, the para was "talked to" and made to apologize but then kept up with the comments under her breath, etc. and anyway I think it was far too late at that point to fix the situation. I had to raise holy hell to get DS away from her and the difference was so drastic the teacher admitted in a 504 meeting and apologized we let it go on so long.

Incidently, this district has been sued before. In 2005 for how they treated a dyslexic student. They ultimately had to pay for the child to go to a private school for LDs (very expensive one) and also had to cover the transportation costs to and from the school, the school also had to reimburse the student for evals and tests, etc. Unfortunately, I never want it to come to that because you could tell from reading the case that poor child just deteriorated year and after year and I am not sure if anything can make up or catch that kid up from that experience. But the school was punished severely.

Please get the book From Emotions to Advocacy.

I was going to approach her myself but then I though about a few things. One, I may get too emotional and then I look like I am attacking some unsuspecting para; two, I thought it was serious enough that this needed to be put in writing to the teacher and the principal - I wanted a record of my complaining about it in rational and proper way to the principal and teacher. Thirdly, para may just roll her eyes when I walk away but if she is called into meet with her boss she will take the situation more seriously. Finally, If the problem really just lies with the policy of training and educating paras then that needs to be addressed for all children like ours that need accommodations.

Deacongirl's advice is very sound. It's so hard to be relatively unemotional when an environment is basically torturing your child-- but that is often exactly what it takes to remediate the situation in a meaningful way.

Okay getting the book amazon... clearly I need it!

So, incidently and a bit off-topic, I also realized today why getting evaluations through the school is just generally not really worth it and not a good idea.

We got DS's progress report and he got all Ss ("strongly in place and exceeds benchmarks" highest grade) and PHs (Highly Proficient" second highest grade) - all of his grades went up if they could. Lots of Ss this time. However, under the "qualities of a learner" he went down in two places: 1) "active listening;" and 2) "listening skills" Last quarter they were both the symbol that was "satisfactory/meets expectations." All last the year same - satisfactory/good. We get a a school psych eval that shows there may be "attention issues" (i.e. NEPSY) and suddenly this semester he is marked under listening skills categories as "needs improvement." My first thought was - well that is so odd - he went up across the board (that is where he could go up and where he was already up he stayed that high) in all his real subjects but his listening skills went down? So, either he doesn't need to listen to understand the subject matter and maybe that's why he is "not listening" or he is listening quite well (after all, he is learning and progressing) and the teachers can't tell?

I think they got the school psych report, saw the comments on attention and started grading accordingly. I guess I am too negative/pessimistic. I will not fuss about it...It's not a "real" grade anyway and I will be taking DS to a neuropsychologist (who appears to have very good skills in detecting when a child has been misdiagnosed with adhd and when a child has it). But even though the school psych was nice- I realize that the school testing really didn't help or give me any real answers and may only be creating bias against DS in some ways.

Howler, Your point about the letter writing is very good. Thank you. I looked up letters of understanding on Wrightslaw and found this: http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/DRAFT_Letters.html Good sample letters - good standard niceties with which to start and end even though you are really registering a complaint, greivance,etc. (even though and when the school doesn't derserve it). I looked over all my old emails and I think mine are still fine. However, I am getting a little too close the "irrate, difficult parent" so once the principal contacts me regarding the resolution of the para comments situation... I will be certain to respond in a pleasant, grateful way that still documents

marytheres, when we were at a similar place with our school and advocacy challenges, I found it was really helpful to be able to ask for feedback from a local parent advocate before I wrote or talked to the school staff. There are advocate groups in several states (at least - I think there is federal $ to fund this type of group available to every state) - I found our local group through the yellow pages link at wrightslaw. Our advocate was very helpful in both helping me understand local school politics as well as being able to give me specific words to use to make my written requests effective.

polarbear

Thanks Polarbear, do they cost money? Or do you just call them up or what?

marytheres, the group in our area provides their services for free - they are funded by Federal Grant $. I have read online about people hiring advocates, and I think that when you have to hire an advocate it has the potential to be expensive.

What I did was look at the yellow pages link on the homepage at wrightslaw.org, it's organized by state, and I found the group there and I called them and asked the questions I had. They also have a website that has a lot of info about their services and who to contact. In our area the person you ask these types of questions to is called a "parent navigator", and even though the group's office is located in my city, they employee parent navigators that cover other areas of our state.

The advocate service truly, truly was THE one thing that was most helpful to me (other than having the neuropsych report) when advocating. I benefited so much and learned so much researching online and talking to local private professionals re specific challenges that ds had, but when it came to advocating at school, having the ability to talk to an advocate who understood the law and who'd worked with other families dealing with similar issues at the very same schools was extremely helpful.

There were other groups I found through wrightslaw that have been helpful also - one is an AT support group that deals primarily with adults who don't have access to AT through school services, but they were very generous in helping us out with advice even though our ds is in school (much more generous and helpful than the school district's AT folks lol), and there is a disability law group which helped with a bit of advice when we hit the proverbial brick wall with our school. So it's worth a quick look just to see what's listed for your area!

polarbear

Is this the type of place you are talking about: http://www.parentednet.org/our-staff ?

They appear to be free. Perhaps, I will try to contact the contact for my county on Monday.

It would be nice to have some help...

Yes! That's exactly the type of place I'm talking about

I hope they are helpful!

pb

Thanks! I wrote the entire sorted tale to Parent Support Coordinator for my area. It was a good practice to just write the entire timeline/chronology of incidents down even though it took hours. I asked for her advice and help in drafting some sort of communication to the school conveying the message that I will not let them continually violate the IEP (and documenting how the iep has been violated quite consistently for the past several months) but do this in a way where I am sure to look polite, respectful and rational. I told her I feel I am coming dangerously close to being “difficult irate parent” and we both know that will not help my son but I need the school to understand that my son must be given his scribing accommodations consistently and respectfully.

Fingers crossed she can help me!

I think that you're taking a really positive step. Sometimes just an external perspective/observer can really be helpful. I hope that you can get it sorted quickly so that your son can access his accommodation!!

I hope they get on board!

I sometimes wish I faced actual hostility instead of what I currently have to deal with - everyone just seeming SO HAPPY AND HELPFUL AND OH YES WE LOVE YOUR DS AND WANT TO HELP HIM, BLAH BLAH BLAH, and then N O T H I N G actually happens. Drives me f-ing bonkers!