Mental abuse

[jtmommy]

PLEASE GIVE ME SOME GUIDANCE.  The principal at our sons' school needs to be relieved of her duties. She complains our son had 'attention problems' we have taken him to the dr. and for 5 months he has been on adderall.  We have only had communication with his teacher 2x.  The principal says 'she is a first year teacher' and that if we want feedback WE need to write a letter to her every week.  We feel this will only make Jake stand out even more than the norm.  The principal backs the teachers when they call him Lazy, wasteful, ANNOYING and no matter how many students we have tell us the things the teacher says to him, says our SON is lying and the teacher did not mean it the way he took it.  she holds up a star for all the kids to SHUT UP and they are not allowed to eat dessert at lunch unless they raise their hands and ask PERMISSION.  The principal told us we were NOT allowed to take our children out of school for a planned vacation becasue 'they will not get funding if they are not there'.  The is horrible and does not know how to realte to children with disabilities.  We have asked for tutors and for the social services at school to talk to him about him feeling bullied and she tells us she does not know where to get a tutor and doesnt feel social services will help him.  We are so fed up with this public school I dont know who to write to or call, senator? Congressmen?  The superintendent is just as bad and does NOTHING.  PLEASE PLEASE give us some guidance.  Thank you

[mjthewriterdad]

I have a journal article here about how to get an m-team evaluation for EEN in the United States.  It pretty much has the whole process down.  I'm surprized the teacher or principal hasn't made a refferal for an m-team.  If, they don't you can write a refferal request yourself and send it to the spec ed admin office.  When they receive it they have 90 days to comply and do some testing etc.  

If he already is m-teamed and has an active IEP in place,  and the school doesn't follow it, they are in violation of federal IDEA and in deep doo-doo

[Sally44]

Firstly does your child have a diagnosis?  If not then ask for a multi-disciplinary team evaluation through Health.  I understand in the US you can also have evaluations through Education, but these are different(?)  I think the Health diagnosis is better to have from a provision of support point of view.
Once you have the diagnosis the behaviour they describe as wasteful,annoying etc will be better explained to them.  And supports will have to be put in place to address these.
Hopefully a diagnosis will also give you a better idea of the kind of schooling your child needs.  But find out what kinds of school are available to your son and what the entry criteria is.
I agree that you should put your concerns in writing and get written letters back, that is your evidence.  
It is hard navigating your way around the education systems/processes, so try to find out if there is something like a parent advisory dept at your local councils education department who can advise you on what steps you can take.
In the UK, if the school has concerns about a pupil they have to ask for advice from outside agencies.  This usually involves Speech and Language, Educational Psychologist etc.  I would still ask for/let them evaluate your son through the education system, but I think that an evaluation/diagnosis through the Health system carries more weight - if that makes sense!

[mjthewriterdad]

Lazy, wasteful and anoying are not IDEA categories nor medical coonditions last time I checked.  Even first year teachers know this.  Educational psychology 101 teaches that these kind of assesments are not nurturing.

Do you have an arbitration procedure?  Try going to arbitration with the principal.  I't easy to just write a letter to an arbitration agency (a third party) stating who you have a problem with and what is the problem and they schedule a mediator (referee) and a time and neutral place and then the two parties duke it out.

If arbitration doesn't work, go to the State Education agency and file a complaint (SEA).  It's usually called the State Department of public instruction or dept of education or something like that.  They are suposed to have a ombuds-person for these kind of complaints.  If that doesn't work, you can file a request for due process hearing.  Due pprocess is heavy-duty stuff and can be a long process that strikes fear into any local school district administrator.

If that principal is worried about losing funding with vacation time, she should be shaking in her heels when a due process decision, puts state and federal funding at risk for the entire school district. by non compliance with federal IDEA law!  The Federal dept of education office of special eduaction programs (OSEP)  the state dept of education.  

Writing letters weekly is not a bad idea.  You can make copies of them and use this as CYA evidence.  Your concerns are out there and in front of them.   Yep, maybe cc them to higher ups, too.  The squuky wheel gets the grease.

[888mom]

Some states have school choice and vouchers, though there are only a few.  Moving probably not an option for you.  Florida has some really good voucher programs for special education (I think anyone with a diagnosis of certain things including autism and as long as they've been in the school system for a year with their IEP).  Teacher unions hate the school choice and school voucher movement.  If you can't afford private school, can you afford to stay home and homeschool?  It's so expensive to afford a house and car and gas these days, so not many people can stay home with their kids, like they could 30 years ago.  I know some states have free choice... where if you hate your school your kids go to, you can pick another school if they have enrollment space and drive them to that school instead.  You could look into if your state has anything special like that.  Chances are it doesn't.  Teacher unions try to block all the free choice between schools and school voucher programs.  What state do you live in?  

Wouldn't hurt to call your congressman.  If they're up for re-election, maybe they'll be more helpful than if they weren't.  They can at least point you for who to call and who to talk to.  They have staff who seem to want to help out with all those sorts of things.  I am not sure if going in in person would help out or not.  I went to my congressman several years back when I was having problems with COBRA and the healthplan kept messing up the billing and I was 8 months pregnant and was too emotional and upset to make the phone calls myself, having just recently moved to a different state.  I went down in person, and sobbed my little eyes out, and looked pathetic, and was very pleading saying that I needed help.  The congressmen offices usually like to help out people in need, the elderly, etc.  Those people are the people who elect them, so if they can hook you up to the right people... well, they'll do it for your vote.  If the superintendent isn't helping out... you gotta have someone helping you out to fight for your rights and to advocate.  And I don't know who would be above the superintendent.  Good luck.