Yeah, we all know what they stand for, but, what do they mean? At my school Individual Education Plans mean a student with an IEP has the right to roam the halls at will, molest children, and assault children.
As I drink my morning coffee I see I brought home a suspension slip for a student. This student was touching a girl inappropriately. He did it last year as well. The teacher told me about it because the girl was afraid to complain and did not want him writing a pink slip on the offender. It seems she made the same complaint last year and actions taken only made the matter worse. I have the victim’s older sister in my class. I told her and she told her parents. Her Dad came down and at least got a result for two days.
Another student just runs the halls all day. By the afternoon he is walking in and out of classrooms, knocking on doors, yelling into classrooms. It’s all on film and I’ve pink slipped him eight times in the past ten days.
I could go on and on with examples but that is not the point.
By and large most IEP students are well behaved and easy to work with. But for those exceptions, I have to question why administration is so disinclined to take action. We are told it is because of their legal rights: But regular education students have equal legal rights to a meaningful and safe education. In a case of competing and equal rights why is it necessary for courts or politicians to intervene? Why can’t administrators do their job and insure each child is in the best possible learning environment?
Dangerous behaviors unacceptable by societal standards are not typically manifestations of a child’s learning disability. If violence/aggression is a learning a disability or a manifestation of one, then that individual child cannot be safely integrated into a larger population.
Children in Philadelphia learn the dangers of snitching in schools. Other students learn inappropriate behaviors are O.K. I am told this past Thursday another boy grabbed a girl in a molesting type manner. Reportedly he was told he would be suspended if he does it again.
The hidden curriculum in Philadelphia is dangerous to society and it shows up in our criminal statistics.
December 14, 2008 at 2:38 am |
I must be saying something incendiary, since my comment has suddenly disappeared from my screen twice already!
Again–if the school is not , or cannot “do anything” about the situation, the parents of the victim must press criminal charges, so there is an official, legal record of the behavior. DHS must be alerted, and the victim must have a legal advocate. Our superintendent has publically stated that violent behavior by students would not be tolerated, and the offender would be removed from the school. Is “grabbing and molesting” would violent enough to be considered a serious incident? Must there be broken bones or bloodshed? Is the superintendent even aware of this particular situation?
December 14, 2008 at 9:32 am |
When there is competition in a student’s mind between feer and learning, fear wins.
December 14, 2008 at 5:22 pm |
i’d be interested to know if this school is the norm or the exception. I hope more teachers comment. In Philadelphia, this in my belief is the norm.
December 14, 2008 at 6:35 pm |
I am a philly public school teacher. this is most definitely not the norm in my school. I have a stellar principal despite my school’s reputation
December 14, 2008 at 10:04 pm |
I have long been frustrated by the inaction of administration when “hall walkers,” (those students with I.E.Ps that for whatever reason are allowed to walk the halls without consequences) disrupt my instruction. I’m often compelled to write up or document hall walkers for inappropriate behaviors not conducive to education which wouldn’t occur had they been in class or had previous consequences, if actually given, been effective in squelching the offending conduct. This is another concern that every member of the school deals with on an on-going basis. Sometimes the administration’s hands are tied also. I have to believe that there is a solution which will service the many not the few. Thank you for this forum in which these problematic issues can be grieved and discussed.
December 14, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
It’s interesting how administrators will allow problem kids to roam the halls if they get fed up with them. God forbid any teacher should allow the kid to do that or they would be written up in a heartbeat. Grab a kid and push him into a cabinet like certain school security and you can expect an investigation. As a result kids learn quickly that what they can’t get away with in halls they can do in the classroom. The teacher can’t even break up fights without fear of getting written up and the administration is more concerned about that a parent might go running downtown to complain so they bend over backwards to appease tyrants. This all erodes the power of teachers to maintain discipline in their own rooms. Tack on it the rising dumping of IEP students into rooms without the necessary additional support systems and you have a disaster waiting to happen.
December 15, 2008 at 3:38 pm |
This is scary , I don’t think it is the norm. please join us here, we have about 1600 parents and professionals. Each is benefiting from the dialog. The parents has had a number of issues and barriers removed as a result of posting and or emailing the members that are professional or lay persons with experience with the issue.
A group for Philadelphia parents who have found employment or are now seeking employment through a welfare-to-work program in Philadelphia and want additional information related to helping their kids in school and in the community. Welfare-to-work helps parents get jobs. The Philadelphia Parent Partner list helps parents support their children. Both are needed to insure success in the workplace and the community.
December 15, 2008 at 3:39 pm |
A group for Philadelphia parents who have found employment or are now seeking employment through a welfare-to-work program in Philadelphia and want additional information related to helping their kids in school and in the community. Welfare-to-work helps parents get jobs. The Philadelphia Parent Partner list helps parents support their children. Both are needed to insure success in the workplace and the community.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/parentpartner/
December 15, 2008 at 10:00 pm |
The scariest thing about teaching in Philly is seeing the citizens and power brokers of Philadelphia ignore what teachers have been complaining about for years, and then watching our crime rate grow while Police have difficulty solving crimes due to no snitching.
December 21, 2008 at 9:34 pm |
To ride on this questioned of problem Student; how do teachers who have a large class of students balance time fairly with the other students, if they have special needs students in their class? Most these student require extra attention and known to be disrupted. As an observer I seen special needs students get suspended from school because the teacher could not relate or is not properly trained to handle special need students. How do you tell teachers to stop requesting to dope out a child or as its known to some teachers “take a chill pill” as the only means to quell a child in their classroom? How do you tell a parent even thou your child has special needs. Your child will be placed in a regular classroom with a teacher who has no special Ed training or is not qualified to even teach a special need student? Again, this matter strongly needs to be reviewed and special Ed teachers need to be hired for our schools to teach these students properly. We tell our grown folks that we will provide hope for you, if you put down the dope. But, we say to our children. We know my child, “you can cope” because we will provide you with the dope.
January 1, 2009 at 8:43 pm |
School administrators are political wonks and not advocates for students or teachers. Although it seems reasonable on its face that the school administration should take quick and decisive action in instances where the safety of students or teaches is threatened it won’t happen. Actions by administrators are tracked further up the food chain and the higher it goes the more political becomes the beast. Sweeping things under the carpet, back pedaling away from anything even remotely confrontational in nature, stalling, stone walling, endless memo writing and brain killing meetings are all standard tools of the political animal.
Roz nailed it bang on. What has to happen is that Parents need to take it out of the school’s control and file not only criminal complaints but civil torts as well. What has been described in the initial post is NOT assault; it is battery which is a far more serious offense. Assault is verbalizing a threat of violence; battery is when actual physical contact takes place. If it were my Daughter the school administration would be looking at being on the losing end of a law suit. I wouldn’t even have to “win” the legal action as the school’s attorney would move fast to settle the matter. In the Discovery Phase of a suit everything is pretty much fair game. That means all the dirty laundry comes out and in this instance a school wide call for Parents of Children who have suffered similar attacks on their person with no action being taken by the administration would undoubtedly result in the snow ball effect.
Here’s the thing, and I’m coming at this as someone with over 15 years in the legal profession that has transitioned to teaching, school systems are set up on the bureaucratic model. One of the things that make bureaucracies so attractive to power brokers is that they possess tremendous inertia; once in place they are very difficult to budge off of center. Therefore, if a person pursues recourse in accordance with the avenues of address built into a bureaucracy they are going to be running down blind alleys. In a bureaucratic model “resolution” is defined as the filing party got worn down and finally quit … went away.
The lesson learned is do NOT work within the system for a proper solution. Take it out of their control and have the threat of public exposure sitting in plain sight.
Frank – http://intellteacher.wordpress.com/
January 3, 2009 at 8:41 pm |
Intellteacher has it right. Although there are some decent adminstrators in the trenches, they are few and far between. Teachers are worn down before they change anything and thus things have just gotten increasingly worse! This is why we organized a group called National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse, with the goal being to protect both teachers and children from this bureaucracy, which uses White Chalk Crime to keep things as they are. Parents or teachers who want to protect their children must unite OUTSIDE the system. Join us at EndTeacherAbuse.org. Membership is free. Also, there is a lot of information on the site and books that will help you understand including my recently published book, White Chalk Crime: The REAL Reason Schools Fail. There are more articles at WhiteChalkCrime.com to help you understand just how this works. Once people become educated as to what is going on and join together, this bureacracy cannot stand. It is a danger to all who touch it.
January 4, 2009 at 2:27 pm |
Great blog and great comments. Our little junior high doesn’t allow hall-walkers, but I do have some IEP students whose accomodations “accomodate” angry outbursts and inappropriate comments. The deep problem here is the parents, who have accomodated and in many ways reinforced these inappropriate behaviors. Although certain of these students may dislike me, they do NOT do these bad behaviors in my classes. Sometimes they get so provoked at not being able to get away with things that they transfer out! Most of the time they just settle down and behave. We have to ask, “WHERE are the adults in these students’s lives?” Doesn’t anybody “just say NO”?
March 20, 2009 at 9:24 am |
very intresting
May 21, 2009 at 6:01 am |
can anyone tell me the implications of introducing the IEP in terms of teaching and learning in the mainstream primary school?
September 27, 2009 at 2:12 pm |
I think that it is disturbing when children do not get the discipline they deserve for touching another student inappropriatly. Even if the school is not allowed to punish the child with an I.E.P, some action should take place. There is no excuse for touching another student. The children must be punished.
October 7, 2009 at 4:15 pm |
A student with an IEP is not exempt from punishment. A Manifestion meeting should be held to determine if the offense is a result of the student’s handicapping condition or not. There are more students with IEPs in regular classes now because of the inclusion push. Yet, school districts/principals are not properly staffing the classes, nor are they properly scheduling the students.