School Districts Say the Darndest Things

It never ceases to amaze me the things that school personnel say at meetings, that parents relate to me, or testify to at hearings, Here are few a choice ones. I will supplement this list as I recall more and I invite readers to post their "darndest statements" in the comments:

• I am a PhD. I do not have to explain anything to you;

• You are a parent you would not understand this report any way;

• Your child is intentionally sleeping and snoring in school (even though they could not rouse him);

• We [the school district] did not pay for the AAC device for 4 years because we were waiting for insurance approval from an administrator who bragged at hearing that he had expertise in insurance matters;

• Your child has "no reading issues in 3rd grade" even though he was still at the pre-primer level and had few decoding skills;

• What do mean by "adverse effects" from a veteran special education teacher when asked at hearing why goals were not developed;

• A totally nonverbal child in 8th grade was able to "get her point across" even though no one including the SLP could understand her one handed sign, and she had no other reliable means of communication;

• At an IEP meeting where all of the school people had the evaluation reports but the parents did not; "those reports are none of your business."

• We could not provide you with the reports before the meeting because the word processors were all broken; curiously stated at every meeting held at a large educational coop;

• A superintendent in written memo instructed his staff prior to an IEP meeting to address serious elopement issues "under no circumstances are you to provide a bus aide for this child."

• In the same case as above involving the child with serious elopement risks, the superintendent bragged at hearing that he specifically refused to authorize the purchase of "good walkie-talkies like we provide to the janitorial staff" justifying the fact that staff did not have the means of supervising the child off premises, and the child nearly died as a result.

It is not just the glare of the moment that allows this statements to dribble out. In some instances, it is arrogance and a practice that is observed by some IEP teams and in some schools (not all) that parents are there to sign their names and get out of the way.

Comments

Thanks for the information you put in your blog. I read it once a week. I am currently in litigation with my school. Now in US district court.

[Sherry Hollis]

1. (district special ed director) Your child doesn't qualify to have this initial eval done because she's not in special ed and not covered by IDEA.
In other words, he's saying 'your child has to ALREADY be in special ed in order to see if she can QUALIFY to be in special ed.

2.Why would you want your child to live at home? The children WANT to live here as residential for socialization. (Blind Academy)

3.Your childs behaviors are causing their learning problems.

4.All children who live out of our district HAVE to live here because they have no transportation provided for them (Blind Academy)

5.You have to provide transportation yourself. We will reimburse you for taking child to school, but not for coming back home. (Blind Academy)

6.We decided for your child to be residential because all other children living in your district are residential here.
(Blind Academy)

7.(district sped director) A screening is the same as an initial evaluation.

8.Our 'early intervention program' is not to help child with their specific problems, it's only to help them pass the state tests.

9.We can't test every child, we don't have enough funds to serve them all.

10. Our SST dept. has found that your child doesn't qualify to have sped eval done, and you can not request it to be done.

11. Teacher- I'm so sorry, the administrators just would not let me help your child.

12.With your childs low grades and test scores, you can't expect her to do any better.

I gotta million of em...

[Kathryn]

It's unbelievable isn't it, what otherwise seemingly normal looking people will say? Is it something in the coffee in the school staff lounge? Sometimes I feel like I am in the twilight zone in similar meetings where they say similar things. It's just plain gross at other times.

Here are some choice ones:
The school psychologist just finished her incredibly inadaquate eval of my daughters abilities in order to assess her for placement in the mainstream preschool. She hefts her bag of tricks over her shoulder and then says this to me in my own house,"Hmph! Well, I can see that she is a lot of work!"

This was her response to my showing her how Ellie and I do pretend play with her Maisy doll, "Well, I can see that her life is just like one big video game."

Do you smell the preconceived notions getting in the way of any meaningful evaluation here?

Here is her response to my telling her and having Ellie demonstrate that at 3 years of age she knew her entire alphabet, colors and shapes, "None of that is important. She needs to learn pretend play." Because knowing real things is bad? God help us all!

[Laura Allen]

1- I,a school person,do not need to evaluate.I know what I am doing.I don't need to and in fact there is no evaluation.

2-The parents have been problematic from the start(testimony from district administrator) Then when asked to recall some incidents that bolstered his testimony,suprisingly(not)he couldn't think of any.

Off topic---Glad you're back,I was wondering--wonderful news!!All our best!!!

[Sherry Hollis]

To Kathryn, I have read on some support boards that parents have in fact found books that 'teach' schools how to say and do all this crap. There is one on amazon.com, but can't remember the name of it.
Someone even told me that they have attended 'seminars' in which they learn these things.
I'm a member of LOTS of boards, groups, etc and it's the same all across the whole country. It just makes me sick.
The thing that I hate the most is that WE are paying THEM to do this!!

To Laura Allen,
It's funny how at first she stated the 'video game' comment about your pretend play.

And then, turned around and said the pretend play is what's most important!

Thank GOD for homeschool!
I wish some kind of school personnel would read this blog, though it would do no good for change.

Did you know that you can request to the person who did the eval to pay for another eval to be done by a dr. YOU choose? This eval will be more complete and will then be used to see what services your child needs. If you need help with this, email me at [email protected]

''Do you smell the preconceived notions getting in the way of any meaningful evaluation here?''

Yep, they start out doing these things to lay a foundation to make sure they have no 'proof' an eval is needed.
But it doesn't matter what they do or say, they HAVE to do an eval when
1.a parent requests it in writing
2.THEY (school) themselves are suppose to actively 'find' and evaluate all kids suspected of having disabilities to see if they qualify for special ed services.
I have NEVER heard of a school doing this, and it is violating federal special ed laws.
Not that they are going to get in trouble for it though.
There is NO ONE to enforce schools to follow the laws, so they never do.
The kids suffer tremendously the rest of their lives at the hands of the very people we are suppose to trust to take care of them.