So... I work in a district with a terrific inclusion program. The district, my school, the staff and even the students are supportive and I have had students with a broad range of mental and physical disabilities in classroom over the years.

We received a new student this year, and the week before school started, the mom requested a meeting with us. Okay, we had time for that. This student has had severe seizures and as I understand it, only one half of his brain is really functional. He took some time to even feel comfortable coming in to the classes.

We have never been given a clear assessment of what he knows/doesn't know. He can follow requests to put up a chair, clean off a blackboard, get out his agenda to put a sticker in it. I try to include him- having him use some beakers and cylinders to pour liquids but he couldn't grasp anything to do with measurement. I have had him hold a meter stick during a lab while other kids dropped water from various heights, and he helped the first time but refused once we the students got going in earnest.

He has rudimentary spoken language. Yes, no, thank you, time, etc. He has had a "talker" (device that with him, but at least in my class, he has only used it when the para-professional who accompanies him prompts him.

Mom and her entourage of advocates have scheduled 3 additional meetings so far, two of which started at 3:15 and continued well past 4 pm (our contracted day ends at 3:30). The teachers have left at 4 or 4:15 but the meetings continued until 5 or late and the mom is resentful that we are aren't making time for her son. Oh, and two days ago, the mom popped in to the school without asking us if it was okay for her to observe in our classes all day and she took more notes than we get during a formal evaluation. She was not happy that we were leaving before she could ask us all of her questions today.

Mom and her team want us to be teaching him the same things as our reg ed kids. So- here I am teaching the metric system, measurement, scientific practices and processes, and trying get my classes to distinguish between forming a hypothesis, predicting and inferring. Or comparing, classifying and organizing data.

Okay, so maybe he can do some comparing and classifying if he can't do any of the more complex, abstract processes like inferring. I suggested we try an activity for him to compare objects by shape. He could sort rectangular vs. round no problem but not more complicated shapes. He understands "more" but not less. He doesn't understand that one, two, three are not names for individual items but words that mean how many items there are. The math teacher is teaching solving two step equations. And the mom and her advocate got upset when we suggested that the resource department case manager should be developing these materials, not the classroom teachers.

In addition, we had one whole plan time and parts of two other meetings discussing his seizures, and what to do. Yes, that's that's really important. But if he gets a seizure that lasts over 3 minutes, he has to receive a medication that is inserted rectally and the mom wanted all of the classroom teachers as well as the para-pros, nurse etc. to be trained in how to do this. I'm not squeamish but I would have 24-30 other students to handle as well, and my job is to get them away from the situation and let someone else handle the medication issue.

When it was pointed out that teachers were being asked to work outside of their contract hours to attend the meetings that lasted for two hours, the mom said today "I take time even though I'm busy because A_____ is important to me". Well of course he is- he's her son. But we have 115 other kids to worry about and what if we had to spend 8 hours a quarter in meetings with every parent?????

And then the advocate starts asking me in the middle of the meeting- "what are you teaching next week?" And I said we're reviewing abstract concepts for the benchmark. Next quarter we'll do astronomy, that's more concrete. And she starts emailing me resources that still would need adaptation for the kid.

Ok- end of rant. Otherwise, this is probably my best teaching year ever.

I have to say, our team is really not happy about the whole situation. It's not the kid- it's the mom's whole entourage and control issues.