05 Jul 2012
“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.” ~George Bernard Shaw
Email, written while livid, earlier today. Actually, at 2:59 to be exact. Sent to the Assistant Superintendent. And yes, this is the same class that suddenly went from starting at 10 to starting at 9.
Pearlsky came home to an empty house today.
Pearlsky arrived at home at 2:55. I have been told that ESY goes until 3:00, how is it possible that she arrives home BEFORE the end of the day?
This is completely unacceptable.
What time does the ESY day end?
Plain and simple, the teacher let it happen. He is responsible for her safety. And, alas, he is a moron.
Let me start with a simple WTF! Even after reading all your entries as well as my own personal experience with my daughter for 13 years I still can NOT wrap my head around this! She got home 5 minutes prior to the end of the school day, so what time did they “decide” to end today? And more importantly WHY. Let alone how dare you not be notified! School bullshit aside this goes beyond their non sense…. complain above them! It is against the law! They endangered your girl! My head is exploding I can’t imagine what yours is doing! Btw glad you are back in cyber space…
How in the HELL do those school staff members not get turned in for child endangerment – or child neglect/abuse?? Please, keep us posted. I don’t see how they can possibly squirm out of this one.
It’s not neglect because the teacher turned the child over to another adult staff member (driver/aide). It is a violation of her IEP because she cannot get all of her educational minutes if she is put on the bus early!
Holy hell.
That goes well beyond the school system’s usual brand of stupidity. They endangered Pearlsky’s life, and no “Sorry SD, we effed up” email is going to cover it. I am truly sorry for what you and your daughter experienced today.
And people wonder why I am terrified of enrolling Monkey in public school…
Is this the same moron she’d had all year?
No … yet a new moron …
Aside from angry, you should be very worried. Wow. I wish you the best of whatever with this situation, and I hope you get an empathetic reply. That’s just inexcusable. It’s a flat out mistake.
Sophie got an F, again, in adaptive physical education class with an Unsatisfactory for work effort. This, despite my plea for her to be excused from the class because it’s first period and her seizures make it impossible for her to get to school on time. Evidently, this is impossible for the school to comprehend.
I think the only answer to any of this is to start our own school district. Now we need to find some fresh blood to do it.
Elizabeth,
Have your neurologist write a note that she may not start school prior to 10:00am (or whatever time works for her). The school cannot override a doctor when he makes a medical ruing.
That was the only thing that worked for us when my daughter had similar issues.
Done that — it’s in her IEP and has been for years. After doing this for nearly eighteen years, I pick my fights and sigh loudly about the rest. The school isn’t over-riding anything; I’m pretty certain they don’t even know that the PE teacher is just entering her as “absent” and therefore a computer generates the F. If the PE teacher is just being hateful, then fuck her. Sorry if that sounds harsh.
I see this is one of those “general frustrations” of yours…
You know, every time I read a post of yours and think, however briefly, “maybe SD is overreacting a LITTLE,” you put up another post that shows that yes, in fact, the nurse/teacher/ whatever is IN FACT A MORON.
When I taught in a public school, with “regular ed” kids (high school — that is, perfectly independent students), I was not allowed to dismiss them early. If I had overestimated the time it would take to finish my lesson, and it ended a couple minutes early, I told the students they could sit at their desks and talk quietly or relax until the bell rings and THEN they can go.
The ONLY time I’ve ever dismissed kids early — able-bodied, grade level teens — is when I’ve been teaching in a teeny tiny private school program where all the kids live in dorms a 2-minute walk from the school, on a closed campus, AND I had a class small enough that I knew they wouldn’t make a lot of noise in the halls on their way out AND I taught last period, so I knew they wouldn’t loiter at their lockers and disturb other classes.
Geez. Moron!
SD I hop you are right now at the school raising holy hell……..if you need back up we are here ; >
Much appreciated … will call if I need! 🙂
I’m wondering what is up with the driver and/or whoever is the aide in charge of the kids on the bus. I’m sure THEY don’t want to have a problem with having to wait around for parents to come home because the kids are dropped off early . . . doesn’t it strike either of THEM as strange that they are leaving so early?
Clearly you are letting other aspects of your life cloud your judgment and this is simply spillover anger. This is not something any normal person would get so worked up over. Maybe you need to watch some cartoons or something?
I had a similar problem this past fall. My son’s school day ends at 3. THe school is a least 10 minutes from the house where he is dropped off (a neighbor because I can’t leave work until 3:15)He was getting dropped off at 3:02. I call and complained. THey said, “well we start getting the kids on at about 2:45 so his bus probably just left a few minutes early.” I made enough of a fuss that it stopped. Fed up with them doesn’t even begin to describe it.
This reminds me of the day I had to cover another teacher’s route (small school for children with emotional issues, all teachers were given a school van and had to drive 4-6 students to/from school.
I pulled in the driveway and the 8 year old got out. He went around the back of the house and I waited and waited for mom to wave out the front window. Finally, I honked the horn and the little boy came back. He was very confused cause the other teacher had just been leaving him alone — no adult, no way into the house, in a Chicago winter. He’d been standing on his back porch for over an hour each day waiting for his mom to get home from work.
Not surprisingly, the other teacher was not fired and I was persona non grata in the lunchroom for a while because I ‘tattled on her’. She should have been fired.
Hopefully, they did not just wheel Pearlsky onto the front porch and driveaway!
The van and aide were there, Pearlsky was in the driveway. No, they did not leave, but that does not make it right, either. Uggh.
No, it does not make it right. But leaving her alone would be criminal.
The teacher and aide at my child’s last school lived for Fridays when they had “therapeutic outings” (i.e. trips to restaurants and movie theaters=less work for teachers). This cost extra money for parents,of course. But, the thing that threatened to send my BP through the roof was the constant attempt to end the school day early that day. I was working early three days a week already because there was no after school program on Fridays so that I could pick my child up at 3:00pm and they would decide on Thursday to ask you to pick your child up at the outing 15 or 30 or 45 minutes earlier. I let them know how impossible this was for me and then they would agree to come back to the school by 3:00pm.But then they would ask about it again a week or so later. It was as if they couldn’t imagine workplace requirements; they lived in an alternate universe, I think.
My favorite coda to this was a memo we received later from admin warning parents about the official times to pick up your child-warning us not to come early!!! Arrrghh!
Wow…I would be pissed! As you are, rightfully so. If you guys decide to go with the open your own district idea, I am a freshly graduated special ed. teacher without a job yet ; ) I will totally teach for you guys!! : ) I am not stupid either, like these folks. It probably helps that I have a special needs kiddo myself, but it really shouldn’t take having a special kiddo to get this stuff. It’s not that hard people…
Sorry people suck so badly. Hope it gets better!
Karen