My son is in his third year at the same school, same autism class with the same teacher and the aide is in her fifth year working with him. You would think that these women would know how to communicate with me.
The aide calls me and leaves messages calling me Mrs. Sawyers, Miss Bonnie and sometimes just Bonnie. My last name is actually Sayers, but everyone seems to want to include the letter w into it. It is not my chosen name, but since my children have this last name I do as well.
I am tired of the aide using different names for me. The teacher never really refers to me by name. The nurse gives the aide notes for me based on incidents at school, yet I cannot even read her writing. I have called to get clarification and suggested she print instead of write, but she does not do that.
The grocery store clerks add the w to my name as well, even when it is clearly not there!
The teacher does not seem to know the difference between he or she, as she constantly refers to my son as a she! When she does this I look at her and ask her who is she talking about - the aide? Each time she looks at me like I am the idiot. I really wish that communication was taught to people who have to deal with the public and that they used correct English.
English is not the first language for any of these people. The spelling in the communication notebook and grammar are laughable. Depending on my mood I will cross out incorrect words and replace them.
Each morning the aides are conversing in Spanish while telling the kids to be quiet and sit still. I am so sick of it. I complain each year quite often that they treat the students rudely making them abide by rules while the rest of the general population is having fun running around the school grounds, yet if you have a disability you cannot even sit at the lunch table and talk amongst yourselves.
I want these people to address me by my name, Bonnie. It is quite simple and my son is a HE, not a she. How can they hire people who cannot figure this out and why is it so hard for people who speak other languages to grasp a he is a boy and a she is a girl??
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Why is it so hard? No idea. I wish I could answer that one for you.. all I can say is that it just is.
But yeah, they could at least get the name right, eh?
YIKES!!
The teacher is Korean I think, aide and most others are Hispanic as we are the minority here in the schools with a small percentage and the nurse is Filipino and her communication is the worst and should be the best as we need to understand and comprehend what she says and writes.
Oh well, I just dont get the he/she thing at all. I correct her but she looks at me as if she is still clueless.
This is really disturbing to hear.
One time I went to school early to pick up my son after lunch and waited for a class to walk by and they were being told what to do in Spanish. I went to the office to complain, yet everyone there was speaking spanish.
I did mention this as a complaint to the Assistant Principal and she said some law says that teachers can speak to kids in their language and I said well none of these kids can speak english? It was a waste of time as I stated earlier look at the ethnic breakdown of the schools in Los Angeles and caucasians are a minority. They are like 2 -10 % and most of the students are english learners. The second grade teacher once told me that when my son did a book report hardly anyone knew the words he used. HE likes to say for example and no one comprehended and his third grade year we sent birthday cards to all students for a bowling party and no one knew what RSVP meant and no one showed up. It really sucks
Write a letter to the teacher and copy the principal and district. Will it help, NO. But it might make you feel better.
Reminds me when I had changed my oldest daughter from a Montessori school to the San Marcos District. I decided to place her in a bi-lingual program as she was bi-lingual in English and Farsi and I could see she was having trouble with phonetics and reading. This was a period when the Whole Word approach was popular.
What a joke. Bi-lingual in Southern California means Spanish. Good thing she already knew all the first grade material because she got no help with phonetics. She did begin to learn Spanish and it helped her in HIgh School. But she did not catch on to spelling until High School.
We kept getting notices in Spanish and calling the school and reminded them that no one spoke Spanish in our home.
Yes she could memorize for a spelling test but she just did not grasp how to put things together when she wrote .... it was like she had no vowels.
I pulled her from that program the next year. I was so glad when we moved to Orange County.
But she was always a top student despite this handicap and went on to the University of California - Davis for a degree in International Relations.
Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, fragile X syndrome and learning disorders are increasingly recognized. It is likely that you know an individual with one of these disorders. At the M.I.N.D. Institute, the "race is on" to identify the causes and develop better treatments, interventions, and preventions for the neurodevelopmental disorders that affect children and families around the world.
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Have you tried writing a requirement into the IEP for an English-language environment as part of his basic academic needs?
I have to keep reminding myself that these people are providing a necessary service. Some even try their best, but most don't care about anything other than billing for their so called services.
The result is what you have experienced. Districts hiring non degree holding, limited english proficiency people.
People willing to take the job for less pay, not interested in teaching just wanting a paycheck.
The answer to this is to fully fund schools. Offer incentives to college students to become teachers. Mentoring new teachers and offer benefits to more experienced teachers to be mentors.
As a society we need to offer respect to anyone in the teaching field. Teaching is considered a "woman's job" thus not paid as well, not respected as professionals.
Not just respect to school based teachers. Start with the teachers that care for your children 8 to 10 hours a day at child care, preschools, Head Start, and other early childhood education venues. Early Childhood Education is one of the lowest paying careers.
How much is your child worth?
How much is your child's education and well being worth?
I don't care what language they speak off the clock, but if they are working with an English-language child who has language skills or speech therapy in their IEP, they had damn well better be working with that child in English or they violating the IEP contract, placing the school district in danger of FAPE violation, and violating the rights of that child's parents to the control and direction of the child's upbringing and education.
What Bonnie is describing is an environment which is utterly inappropriate for her child. In this case, the teachers don't have the right to be offended because they are not doing their jobs. They are wasting not only the taxpayer's money, but an irreplacable window of time with these children.
If these people can't do the job, they should be fired and replaced with those who can and will, because special education is no place for the weak, the stupid, or the selfish.
I only know the English language. The aide is doing a job, there is a major difference between a career in a chosen field and keeping a job within the school district.
Bryan - I see. In that context speaking spanish in the workplace isn't acceptable. I do not think that justifies all of the comments bashing people who cannot speak english as well as those commenting, however.
In this circumstance, as I said above, it is understandable that Bonnie is upset about the placement of her child under the care of a person who is not capable of meeting his needs. But there is a fine line between being upset at the system for creating this situation and the people who don't yet have the capacity to speak english at that level. Stating that a persons first language isn't english, or listing their ethnic origin, says absolutely nothing about that person, merely that the speaker lumps everyone who falls into that category in under the heading of "incompetent english speakers", which generally is not true, though it may be in this case. The system has problems and needs work, not additional bias. If you're going to write to your congresspeople, take up the issue of special education in general and how underfunded it is and how unfit the staff are. I'd really hope that the outcome of this takes the form of a respectful acknowledgment of semantics from all sides and not merely the firing of a few honest and disadvantaged people. After all, they're not the only ones who can't pronounce your name.
You are absolutely right that there are problems with the education system. Not providing children the resources they need is a big one. These teachers might be tremendously qualified to work with Spanish-speaking special needs kids; if that's the case, wonderful! There's obviously a need for people in that capacity.
That's not the case here.
If the situation were reversed with a Spanish-speaking child getting no services in Spanish and the teachers insisted on speaking English when working with that child, would you say that child's needs are being met?
My answer would be the same. That teacher should be removed and replaced with one who is capable of meeting the child's needs.
I would try to get the names of all the people working with the kids. I keep notes of all my contacts with the staff at my daughter's school. I want a paper trail of who I talked to and what we talked about. If they don't volunteer their name, I ask. I've been known to ask people to spell it too, if I'm not sure. I probably go a little overboard on documentation, but if an issue comes up, I want to be prepared. If you have to go to arbitration or court at some point and you can document who, when and what was discussed, it makes an impression.