Failure

[Crankin]

Well, I had access to all of those. I did not work in a rich district, either. Sure, MA has more acronyms than anywhere for all of those services! Here, it's special needs and we have various types of teachers, called various things. Our aides are called assistants or paraprofessionals. I think this started when the word "aides" had other connotations. I don't have an issue with that. When I moved here and was interviewing (I was still a spec. ed. teacher then), someone asked me what my "prototypes" were. I was like, huh? I figured out it just meant what was my caseload...
What I really meant by saying that having access to other adults like I mentioned above, is that the #1 thing that alleviates teacher stress and burnout is collaboration with other adults. I am not saying this as a pie in the sky academic. I taught for 31 years and I know this is true.
One thing that saved me is that I was a middle school teacher for most of those years. Middle school teachers work in teams. We eat together and have a team meeting time together to discuss issues and plan things. Yes, I was very lucky at my last school that this team time was in addition to my prep period. But even when our planning time was the same as our prep time, there was still a brief time we could talk. Elementary and high school teachers are extremely isolated. This leads to a culture of distrust in most places. I have worked in all 3 settings and the differences are quite amazing.
In my last school we shared our school psych. with the HS. But, we had 2 school counselors for 450 kids. Every team had a special ed. (inclusion) teacher and 1-2 assistants. One team was attached to the resource room, with more severely disabled kids. We also had a more separate program for PDD/ behavior disordered kids. A few of those came to my LA classes with a 1:1 assistant. Before that, I worked in a 1-5 school in a different district. We had our own school psych and 2 inclusion teachers, who each worked with 2 grades. Each grade had 2 assistants.
I think this just shows how much schools vary from place to place. I really feel for you all. Just having difficult kids is bad enough, but not having the support to deal with them is not fair.

[Veronica]

Our schools are tremendously underfunded.

We have no resources like that here. I am very lucky to work with two other great teachers at 5th grade. We don't have a common planning time other than our lunch. The three of us all have tough classes this year. Mine is acknolwledged as the worst of the bunch. Well that is until one of the others got a kid expelled from another school in the district. We're constantly perusing each others' test scores and sharing ideas. But I do see that lack of trust at other grade levels in my school. That's one reason why I stick it out at 5th grade.

Our kids only get to see a counselor if it is in their IEP. My resource kids aren't the ones who need the counselors.

Veronica

[salsabike]

Those resources vary not only state by state and district by district, but even school by school in my district (school psych here). The poorer elementary schools get at least some resources for pre-special ed interventions, like Title I math and reading specialists. The wealthier elementary schools have much less, weirdly. So your fate as a kid in my district depends to some degree on which school you go to. The wealthier elementary schools start pushing to have kids labeled disabled when they're, like, six months below grade level in reading. The poorer schools---I'm at one of those and I love the place---will do their best to give extra help to kids until it becomes clear it's not working and there might be a genuine, serious disability.

The fate of a kid should not depend on caprice like this. It drives me crazy to know that whether a kid is labeled disabled or not will change from school to school in my district. It shouldn't be that way.

My district also decided about a decade ago to have a full time counselor in every elementary school. They have breached that a couple of times, and I worry about what funding cuts will do to that now--but so far, I have the world's most wonderful counselor in my elementary school. I can't imagine the school without her.

[Flybye]

Salsa and Veronica, I can't imagine teaching some of the kids that the teachers in our district teach after I hear their stories. How do we expect kids to come to school ready to learn when they have been molested the night before or had a table thrown at them by a parent that morning? Or the girl that was abandoned by her mother and feels like no one wants her and is contemplating suicide. It is terrible, but I am concerned that the school Counselors will be taken out of the school picture if funding gets cut.
I admire you both for working with so much diversity in a classroom. It is a bigger endeavor than most would be willing to take on!

[Irulan]

salsa bike,Washington has pretty darn good public school funding, especially when compared to CA where Veronica teaches. I moved up here from teh Bay Area when my kids were still in preschool.I remember even then, 20 years ago, there were 30 kids to a class, no art, PE or language, or buses.

Prop 13 really shafted the public schools in CA. Any time anyone brings up property tax freezes up here, I let them know what could really happen.

I was flabbergasted when we moved up here and my kids got attend a brand new elementary school, with buses, PE and art; both GATE and special ed programs, plus a new computer lab; counselor and more. And, 22 kids to the room.

[salsabike]

Irulan, that sounds great. It's definitely not like that in my district, but even so I think my district is in better shape than many. (no 22-kid classrooms, though, that's for sure. My three 1st grades this year have 28-29 kids).

It's a wonder, with the stuff that some of our kids live with, that many of them manage to turn out to be pretty nice kids. In my school we have a band of about 30-40% of families who are in pretty bad shape, and maybe about 10% who are truly non, not dys, but really non functional. We have one kid whose mom has huge mental health and substance abuse problems. She has no fixed address and you can't get her on any phone. She will not talk to CPS. The kid lives with maternal grandma (who drinks) and some other kids. Mom bops in and out of their lives at random. They were living in one of the terrible local motels. Now moved to an actual house. We cannot get grandma to give us either the street address (bus stop is at a corner) or any phone. We can't get either mom or grandma to come to any meetings. They did show up at the winter concert, however, late, and yelled at various people about various things.

I am very worried about how this kid lives and what is going to happen to him. I do not think he's going to be one of the kids I mentioned above, who will come through somehow okay. I don't think he will.

On the other hand, there's the kid from an almost as chaotic home who has kept some of his curiosity about the world and enjoyment and some sweetness to boot. How he does that, I don't know, but it's nice to see.

Sorry. I'll shut up now.

[salsabike]

PS I think states like California and Oregon, that passed big tax cut/control measures, have had their schools absolutely devastated.