Questions I Lose Sleep Over

Today is dedicated to questions I have. If anyone can please provide reasonable answers, I would be much obliged.

1. Why is this situation equitable or child centered? In one building we have 5 elementary self contained severe EBD kiddos with two teachers and a parapro. Across town we have 14 children ranging in grades 1-6 with autism on all points of the spectrum, some functioning as two year olds (yep, still in pull ups!), 1 teacher and 2 parapros. 14 kids!! Really? That poor teacher gets up every day, goes to work and does her best...which is pretty damn amazing....but she is basically rendered ineffective due to the above mentioned circumstances.

2. When a transfer student comes to a new district and the IEP states self contained and one-on-one aide, how can New School District administration ignore that and tell receiving teacher there is no money to do it that way...that's against the law!!! So, how can they sleep at night after they direct the receiving teacher to rewrite the IEP so it does not include aide or self containment...and then expect that teacher to pull it off while meeting the needs of the other 13 kids on her caseload per their IEPs?

3. How can districts justify having administrators with no real in-the-trenches expertise? They cannot provide the direct service providers any relevant feedback, guidance or support and yet they still feel they are valuable and necessary to the organization. Huh? No way this would fly in the private sector.

4. Who is really minding the special education store!?! Who knows what is best and why aren't they driving the bus?

5. When are districts going to realize that different evaluation instruments are needed when evaluating special education teachers? Effective evaluations do not come in one size fits all.

6. Why aren't parents more outraged, pounding down doors, calling state departments of education and student advocate groups? Never mind answering this one. I already have that answer. They just don't know better, are relieved that schools will take their kids for 7 hours a day and have no idea what their rights truly are. They are exhausted and overwhelmed.

So am I.