accommodations | Simple. I Just Do.

If you are a regular reader, you know we’ve been struggling with The Boy’s new school since day one of this school year. They seem to have precious little experience with autism, or even with IEPs, modifications, and accommodations, which cannot be remotely possible, but here we are. I have felt all along that their hearts are basically in the right place, they are just ignorant… with one exception. The Boy’s social studies teacher has repeatedly demonstrated contempt, if not for The Boy himself, then for the extra effort he requires. She is the type of teacher who follows the textbook as if it were a bible, and pushes those 6th graders as if social studies is their only class, and their one true avocation in life. Her assessments have little to do with the content learned, and seem to have been added as an afterthought, possibly when an administrator asked her to expand her resources to other sources than the textbook.

I received a note home from her in the planner, mid-week, that explained that The Boy had been given a modified test, and even with extra time had completed very little of it. OK, Problem Number One: I looked back in his planner, what is supposed to be our primary method of communication between school and home, and there was no mention of a test. I went on this teacher’s website, and there was no mention of a test, I looked back in my emails, and there was NO MENTION OF A TEST. So I emailed the teacher immediately, pointing out that I had no previous knowledge of a test to be given this week, and was there a review sheet? She emailed back the next day, saying she had looked in The Boy’s planner and it had been written at least four times in the last week that there was a test Wednesday… This was an outright lie! I had made a copy of the current page of the planner, because I like to document these notes of hers (this was not the first) that seem to imply she’s doing everything she can and The Boy is being somehow disobedient by not complying. I emailed back to say that her statement was incorrect, that I had made copies of his planner pages, and there was nothing written in the social studies slot in the planner during the last week. She responded, apologized and blamed it on the 11 year-old girl who helps The Boy write things in his planner, saying she had either written it in the wrong spot or had not copied exactly what was on the board.

Can you feel the anger rising in my throat by now?

We’ll get back to the outright lie in a minute.

Problem Number Two: She explained that there had been no review sheet, that the students were supposed to study from their “chapter work,” and that due to personal issues and being out for a few days the previous week, she hadn’t updated her website. Well, The Boy didn’t have any “Chapter 3 work” to study — it had all been turned in. I had requested review sheets from her starting with the first test (this was their third already), so that I could help him prepare and focus for the test, and again she had disregarded The Boy’s needs.

Problem Number Three: “Extended Time” as an accommodation does not mean an extra ten minutes within the same class period, and I explained this to her. I also explained that he is entitled to take his test in another location, have his test read to him, and all of the other testing accommodations that are in his IEP. I asked her if he could bring it home to take it and she didn’t respond. She just keeps giving it to him every class period and expecting him to complete it.

In my opinion, this has gone beyond a teacher “trying” to provide my son with modifications and accommodations. This is now willful ignorance. She has a history of not communicating with me about upcoming tests. With the first, we had one day’s notice, and with the second and third there was no notice at all. And for all three tests, I have seen one review sheet. She has a history of not providing modifications to his assignments, and when I requested more time for him to study before the first test, she refused. And now, not only did she lie to me about there being four notes about this week’s test in The Boy’s planner, she had The Boy and his helper go back and write in the notes after I told her there was nothing in the planner. She got my email, waited until the next day in class, had them write things in the previous week in his planner, and then claimed they had been written there all along.

I have requested a meeting with the principal about this, even though I am hopeful that we won’t have to deal with this too much longer.

What have I learned?

Document everything. I had a feeling I should copy those planner pages the night I wrote my email. Unfortunately, I only copied one. But at least I have that, and I have every email she has ever written which shows this pattern of a lack of communication and a lack of willingness to accommodate my son’s needs.
Don’t assume every teacher has your child’s best interest at heart. It pains me to say this, and I don’t think this is true for 99% of the teachers out there, but I’ve learned this the hard way.
Don’t avoid confrontation about something like this. I could take the easy way out and just bide my time until we can get out of the school, but I know there are other kids with autism in this teacher’s class, and I can only imagine how they and every other kid with an IEP who has ever been in her class have been treated. It’s not right, and she needs to be called on it.

I had a post drafted for today, but I had to revise it. I’ve mentioned the struggles we’re having with The Boy’s new school, and how little they seem to know about autism, and how to make modifications and accommodations that are necessary for him to thrive within the general education curriculum. His teachers came to his IEP meeting with that deer-in-headlights look, as if they have never seen a creature like my son before, and had no clue about how to assist him in his learning.

As a teacher, I knew that ineffective teaching existed — I just didn’t really witness it. I taught for over 17 years, and rarely did I work or come into contact with colleagues from whom I wouldn’t want my son to learn. There were strict teachers and lax teachers, friendly teachers and more distant teachers, scattered teachers and organized teachers, but essentially they still knew what they were doing. It was even more rare to come across a teacher who was not good with kids. Even teachers who were not warm and fuzzy were still able to form relationships with kids and treat them fairly and professionally.

I guess that’s why I’m having such a hard time with one of The Boy’s teachers in particular. They all seem a little lost in terms of autism, and a few seem a little scattered in terms of general teaching skills. This one in particular has problems communicating, both with me and The Boy. She assigns a crazy amount of work, even for a neurotypical student. She uses rubrics, but they do not seem to assess knowledge of social studies content, rather the processes by which the content is expressed – for example, there is a public speaking rubric for sharing current events, and a writing rubric for a research project. I don’t know for sure, but I can guess that she is not teaching about public speaking and/or writing in her class, so where are the assessments that give her information on what the students have learned from her?

More importantly in our own case is that she seems to dislike having a student in her room that isn’t “normal”. She decided on the second day of school that The Boy should be placed in the resource room rather than go to her class because he wasn’t “doing the work”. She wrote in his planner last week that he wouldn’t “answer” her. She sent me an email today, saying that The Boy had printed off 43 pages from the internet in the computer lab yesterday and that there is a rule against printing without a teacher’s permission. She has made only one modification since the beginning of the year, giving The Boy a modified review sheet and quiz that she had printed off from a “special needs workbook” published by the textbook publisher, and refused to give him extra time to study as I requested, and which is also an accommodation spelled out in his IEP.

When I got the email about computer lab printing rules today, I could hear my pulse quicken, could feel the blood in my veins heat up, saw my hands clenching into fists involuntarily. I took a breath, and reminded myself not to answer immediately (calm down, Mama Bear – Ha!). After a few minutes, I responded that I would reinforce the printing rule with The Boy when he returned home, but also asked her to please remember that he has a hard time asking for help when he needs it.

And then I sat down to write this post.

And this seemed like even more proof that this woman was not nice, would continue to be a source of frustration and obstruction this school year, and was looking for any excuse to prove that my son can’t.

…

And then she responded to my last email, telling me she knew he didn’t do it on purpose, and that he shared his research project in front of the class by sharing his maps while she read his points of interest, and the children clapped for him. She said it was a successful day for everyone.

…

And all of a sudden, my impressions of her became blurred, and a little bit of hope peeked through.

I can only hope that we will all learn a lot this year.