Thursday, July 19, 2007

Karma

Hopefully, I earned some karma this afternoon.

It was my last day to do my home teaching assignment; I was planning on having A. try out a label maker (his writing, which was always slow, laborious, large, and difficult to read, is probably the area that has suffered the most with him being out of school -- pretty much ONLY his name is legible now, and that's iffy) to ease some of the back to school stress (in other words, practice writing some of the time but not to his "that's it; I'm over this" stage), and assess him on his IEP goals.

I got in the car to leave, and I got a text message saying they wouldn't be there.  Technically, all I had to do was fill out his IEP pages and mail them, but I offered to stop by and assess him personally one day next week.

Why?

Well -- assuming he makes it back to school in the fall, it will be only a matter of time before there's Drama.  He's just that kind of kid.  He will also have a new aide and a new inclusion support teacher -- and the latter won't be at school everyday.  This means I will be first on mom's hit list if something goes sour.

So I figure that the more goodwill I can build up with her now, the better for me later.

In other news, 3rd-grade A. (the one with the Mighty Mo) had his first real meltdown of the summer.  I got up to move him away from the table and he grinned -- he grinned! -- and started to move his chair.

Oh, no, buster, no way is that going to work.  

So I spent a few minutes getting punched in the arm (and drooled on a bit -- he was trying to spit at me -- he has been watching R get moved aside or ignored for it, but R is doing it for attention, not escape) but doesn't have the oral motor skills to do so...heh heh).  Once he saw that he'd done no more than drool on my leg, he tried to tell me I needed to go home to change clothes.

I'll give him credit for creativity, at least.

And in other news, our summer school office manager is convinced that Miss T. -- who was out today; I suspect due to registration issues she was talking about yesterday -- just likes to take Thursdays off.  Not that it really matters since she'll probably not be working for the district by next summer (she plans to student teach in the spring), but I defended her anyway.

4 comments:

Lady Hermione said...

Good call with A.

Can't go with out the other A melting down, the cosmos would have become a black hole if it didnt happen.

One more day of this BS and, well, you are off to vacation, me more work but it will be over!

Note: There will be some sort of inclusion specilist, but they arent called that any more. The RSP person (ms. J) is also in charge of all that crap... come visit and may be able to tell you what it is... LOL!

SpooWriter said...

Actually, I spoke with SBS on the phone today and A. is one of the few kids in the district who will still receive actual inclusion support services from an inclusion support person, not the...err...whatever they're calling the other thing.

Technically, all kids taking CAPA will still get inclusion support from an actual inclusion support person -- SBS used that term specifically, and said I'd like her -- but it must be a case-by-case thing, as she said that E. will not (since, although she needs the curriculum heavily modified, she is a low-maintenance kinda kid).

J. may or may not be in charge of her, but I doubt it, from the way SBS was talking today. She said the inclusion person will have 7 kids -- all at different schools.

My favorite part of the other A's meltdown was when he told me to go home and change clothes. I guess he figured if I wouldn't let him escape, maybe HE could banish ME! :-)

Lady Hermione said...

So in other words we are basically F****d no matter what we do with the kids who go to general education. Lovely! Guess the district didnt think it thru

SpooWriter said...

Ummm...huh?

I actually view this as a good thing -- the district was being so insistent that only kids who could meet grade level standards qualified for inclusion (which is ridiculous) that M's caseload was 99% the kids that will fall under the new system.

Kids like, say, N., who -- while he has Issues -- was on grade level.

Doing it this way frees up inclusion facilitators' caseloads to spend more time on kids that truly need curricular modifications and intense support.

Yeah, it sucks that she has 7 different schools, but with a caseload of only 7 kids, she'll have more time to really do inclusion, the way it should be.

Blurring the line between resource and inclusion may not be the best thing going (I think a lot of kids who are included will end up in pull-out programs like kids getting resource services) but really recognizing that there are kids like A. who are fully included in the old sense of the term is a positive sign that inclusion will still -- at least in a few cases with vocal enough parents -- really be inclusion.