Holy cow-the Supreme Court got it right!

I was parusing through the local paper this morning online and came across an article about how the supreme court ruled in favor of a set of parents who wanted reimbursement for a private education for their special education son.

I’m elated.

First off, the supreme court got it right-this is not for parents who deem the program that their child is pegged for to be inapropriate. For that, you still need to take the course of action described in the parent rights literature. This is for parents who are completely ignored by the school district, have not received a free, appropriate education for their child and have had to take their child elsewhere.

This is for the parents who have had the crap school psychs, teachers who ignore them and a system that is so broken that they had to pull their child to fix it.

In this specific case, the student was tested and the conclusion was that the child did not have a disability. Upon using their second opinion clause from the parent rights, the testing that the school had done was proven wrong, and the student was pulled to a private school for their education.

So, the parents sued for the cost of their child’s education, and who can blame them?

When a school district fails so miserably, they should reimburse the parents for the cost of educating their child. Private schools and therapies are NOT cheap, and can drain a parent’s income faster than anything out there.

Will the majority of parents need to use this recourse? I highly doubt it. This is an extreme step, albeit a needed one to keep the school districts in check and doing their job. I will say it’s nice to see that for once, the courts are considering the student and not the bottom line.

 

Umm…yeah…

So, last night, I was talking with constant Sidekick and she brought up Sunday school for the fall. She’s on the committee, as she’s helping out with some of the stuff. She brought up the fact that they were starting to group the kids, and that Isaac was singled out to “experience Sunday school in his own way.”

 

Yeah, that was written into the notes. That was their slang for “we don’t know what to do with him, so instead of calling Laura and ASKING, we’re just going to let him do whatever he wants based on seeing him 2-3 times this year.”

 

Yeah, that went over soooo stinkin well with me.

 

So, I made a phone call today. I had to get to the bottom of this, and I know dang skippy well that they were NOT expecting me to make this call. Well, let’s back this up. I emailed both chairs last night, and the one I called today, well, her email bounced back, so I had to make this phone call, if nothing else, but to tell them that the line in those notes? That’s a kop out. And you’re a teacher? Wow. That’s the worst kind of kop out you can give as a teacher.

 

So, I said “Hi R, this is Laura. I’d like to discuss Sunday School for next year and how Isaac fits in with those plans. “

She immediately told me that they had absolutely no idea what to do with Isaac, and how the few times she observed him (umm..he was there all of 3x, and all of those times, there was really no curriculum….and one of those times, the staff in the room that he was in LOST HIM. He came down the stairs and I intercepted him and the staff had NO IDEA he was even missing. Nice, huh?), he really didn’t “join in.”  I immediately told her that 1) the class was CHAOS and that 2) he was never encouraged to join in. He and 2 other chldren were allowed to run around nutty style and trash the back playroom while the teacher watched.  He was only there 2-3 times, and I reminded her about the time that he escaped…and no one noticed.

I also reminded her that her observations were done almost a year to a year and a half ago. He’s not the same child he was, and if she was to put him where she had planned (WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN!!! WITH THE 2-3 YEAR OLDS AND NOT IN THE PRE-K!!!), he would not be atteneding, as he needs to be with his age appropriate peers. It is NOT ok to drop him into a class of babies because they decided they didn’t want to deal with him in the pre-k class.

I also reminded her that if they were going to have all of these plans for my son, they needed to have them for other children in the church wtih management needs.

 

Then, I played the teacher card. She’s a teacher, I’m a teacher (ok, not going to be that way for much longer, but I’ve still got the smarts in my head..)-so I said to her…

 

“Well, as a teacher, I find it highly alarming that you would even attempt to group my child in the most restrictive environment possible by putting him in wtih younger children and basing your choice of this on extremely outdated observations. As a teacher yourself, you can see the problems inherent in this way of grouping my child. Also, why has no one contacted me, the parent, your first line of resources, in this matter if you were all so at a loss for what to do with my child?”

She was quite taken aback that I said that. But, really, it needed to be said. It really did. She apologized profusely and said “well, maybe we should have called…”

Maybe? Come on. Give me a stinkin break. DEFINATELY you should have called.

They have never given my circle time loving, NASCAR addicted, silly, highly distractable, yacking a mile a minute boy a chance to show them what he can do. I swear. It’s like fighting for him to be in the integrated class ALL OVER AGAIN. I hate this fight. I really do. I hate where people have preconcieved notions about my child that they don’t even give him a chance to break free of.

Right now, at school, everyone who said he couldn’t handle the integrated class is chawing down on their words, while I bite my tongue and hold hte “I told you so’s” back.

 

I really am waitng to say “I told you so” to these people as well, who have pidgeonholed my child, and the sidekick of mine who hasn’t learned to say the famous words “Yeah, why don’t you call Laura…”

So, we’ll see. We’ll really see if I keep him in Sunday school or not…we’ll see if they keep their promises to me and impliment all of my suggestions for Isaac  and evaluate things and really address the concerns I had about last year…and listen this year…and allow my child to show them what he can do.

 

Soapbox over.

 

Weekend vacation pictures tomorrow. Need to offload my camera.

 

What the…

Yesterday, one of my favorite bloggers, Dooce, was on the Today show. Her appearance was around 10:30 eastern, and unfortunately for poor Heather, she was on with Kathy Me Gifford, talking about Mom Blogging.

During the interview, Hoda Kotb , the other hostess, could not get a word in edgewise. Kathy Me monopolized the 6 minute interview with Heather. She went on and on and on about how she couldn’t even really use a computer and how horrified it made her to hear of people blogging, putting their lives out there, and not protect their children.

 

Umm..can we say hypocritical?

 

When she was on wtih Regis, we heard all about her two kids and everything they went through…from burps to potty training to all sorts of photos of her kids. We knew every intimate portion of her kids’ lives.

Oh, she’s concerned. Whatever.

What’s even worse here is that she turned a great, amazing woman that could have given a KILLER interview into a eyebrow raising, host alienating 6 minutes.

Kathy Lee-Haven’t you heard the old addage “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” Come on. you were tossed off national TV for a reason. You haven’t worked in years for a reason. The world is better off without your idiotic banter and your self-righteous drivel. You are costing the today show viewers!

Moron.

Plain and simple. Moron.

 

What, is he DELUSIONAL?

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of President Bush. Really. I’m not. The man won a rigged election (which happened to be a great teaching point for my students at the time…and banked one of my favorite teaching moments EVER…but I’ll talk about that another time.) and sent the country spiraling into a serious economic decline. He took a place where things were nice and even kiel, and sunk the ship. Nice, huh?

WELL, today now marks 5 years of the Iraq war. Yeah. 5 years. AND THE MAN THINKS THAT THIS HAS GONE WELL!!!

Yes, I swear he’s delusional..

If his thought process of “Going well” means countless soldiers dead, stop loss-ing soldiers so they can’t get out when their time is up, suicide rates climbing among military who have been over in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as many, many American families being left without a beloved family member…then, it IS going well.

And since we have so much money as a nation to spend on this war, why can’t we spend it on health care for everyone…increasing programs to get people on their feet because of the mess this has caused…finding ways other than checks to make the economy better. No one is going to run out and spend their checks…ok, most people won’t, most people will pay off their bills and go from there. We’ve already got plans for ours, and that doesn’t include going and blowing it.

I rarely espouse my political views here, other than encouranging people to have a voice in their government by excercising their right to vote and write their elected officials, but here’s my once in a blue moon thing…

1) we need to be out of Iraq. We no longer belong there. We don’t need to send more troops, we need to pull the ones we have out of there and make them come home safely.

2) Whichever candidate wins the election is going to inherit a raving disaster, and will most likely be a one term president. This is not for the sake of being a “good” or “bad” president, it’s the simple fact that they are inheriting a war, an economic mess and a seriously disillusioned country, to the point where so many people are apothetic about this whole thing. Cripes. I’m apathetic, and ya know, I’m NEVER apathetic about elections. I’m the first one with the map and markers sitting at the table on election night. Ok, maybe the second…only beaten out by Dad.

3)Bush has expressed no real reason to keep us in Iraq. So, can I now agree with Michael Moore who said that this is a false war?

4)We still need to vote, apathy or not. This needs to be a large voter turnout so that the elected officals see the constituancies that they represent and know that there is a voice behind those people. Me and my apathy (and Monkey) will be in line to vote. Monkey likes to flip the levers for me.

So, vote, vote, vote…it’s important.

(because I really don’t want a war, comments are off.)

 

This is the seriously wrong message to send

Child 1: “I got on the honor roll…so I should get a prize!”

Child 2: “No. That’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do! I got a gift because I graduated high school. You did what you’re supposed to do. Get good grades!” 

This evening I was doing my nightly check of Yahoo to see if there was any good celebrity dirt world news before I went to bed and I stumbled upon this.

(takes soapbox out)

Since when did good grades equate minimum wage? And since when did studying become a paying job? Try NEVER. How can Newt Gingrich and his daughter think that this is a good idea? I Im’d the angel forever with this article and she agreed with me…and her JL said a serious truism-”so, it’s if you do well in science/math, we won’t reward you.”

That’s exactly it. When are people going to realize that kids listen to money, not grades. If you have your honors student, they will slack off, get bad grades so that they can enroll in the program and pull their grades up. They won’t enroll in the more difficult classes that are there because they risk not getting their pay out.

THEN, what happens when these students GET to college and they have to PAY for classes and no one’s going to pay them for their 4 hours of study time and maintaining a B in their Math and Science classes?  What are they teaching these children?

Then, look at the funding. This is privately funded. What happens when the donors decide to back out? These students could potentially be left out in the cold mid year. Where does this leave them? What does it teach them? It teaches them that it’s just fine to back out of committments.

There are better ways to bridge the achievement gap. There are proven ways that don’t involve monetary rewards. In all of the education classes that you’ll take out there, they tell new teachers to steer clear of tangible rewards, no matter what they are. You can start with them, but attempt at all times to move the student to the intrinsic rewards. You do not want a classroom full of students depending on extrinsics. This whole pay to study system is giving students extrinsic rewards for basically doing nothing.

Another thing they teach in education courses is to monitor your students’ progress. Constantly assess, formally and informally. We know how it will be formally assessed, with standardized tests, which I hate, but that’s another post alltogether. The big question here is how is this going to be monitored on a day to day level? Are parents expected to sign off? How are the students going to be held accountable for their time studying to make sure they did it? So many people are all for accountability, but I’d like to see them report how this is going to work. They probably have no clue.

Strike one more up for the people who think they know what works to motivate students, but are so far out of touch that they often stick their heads up their rears and make fools of themselves.

This is the wrong, wrong, wrong message to send to students. This sends the message that there is not a reward for doing well without being in academic trouble first, and it also sends the message that the almighty dollar trumps everything else, including the basic knowledge that you need to function in the world society today.

Stupid delusional politicians.

Soapbox over

 

Inexcusable.

I was puttering around on celebrity websites today (just because I was in need of a fix of a few wackjob celebrities that make my crazy life look positively BORING..) and caught an article on Denis Quaid’s twins. I was horrifed to learn that they had been given 10,000 units of heperin instead of 10. At Cedars-Sianai hospital. Supposedly one of the best in Los Angeles.

This all boils down to a simple nursing error. So what a tech stored the vials in the wrong place. So what that the TECH didnt’ do their job…it all boils down to the nurses who give the medications at critical times. These nurses didn’t check the vials, read or even notice that they were pushing a SERIOUS overdose of an anticoagulant into not just the Quaid twins, but another baby in the NICU as well!

 How can a nurse NOT read the vials, just grab and go, especially in a NICU, where children are often so tiny that every little bit could send them over the edge? How can a registered nurse even think of not double checking the vial against orders? How is this completely possible? It’s not even defensible with a devil’s advocate of “well, they were probably tired.” It’s just not. Heperin is DANGEROUS in large quantities! Cripes!

Doug went postal when he heard about this. His line? “I hope whoever did this loses their licence.”

Yeah. Me too darling. Me too.

I don’t talk alot about Isaac’s experience in the NICU, because even now, over 3 years down the road, I really have a hard time. Just know, when my drugged out brain was presented the list of hospitals that were acceptable to my insurance at the time, Cedars-Sianai was on the list. Thank the good lord that was too far to go for us.

soapbox over.

 

wow.

So, today, I was doing some blog reading after working (yep! today was day one!) and I came across a new Disneyland update from Al Lutz over at Miceage.

What got me Ick-ing and wow-ing was the item on page 4, right at the end.

Go and read it. It’s linked above. I’ll wait.

Ok..now…here’s the thing….

I’m all for carrying out your loved one’s last wishes, but man…BIOHAZARD people!!!

When I was working at Disneyland, I never, ever saw this happen personally, but I heard tales from friends who worked Mansion. It was quite the…event…when we all heard about it.

As much as a person loves Disneyland, their favorite rides, ect…DO NOT DUMP THEIR ASHES THERE. JUST DON’T. ICK.

That’s all I have to say about that. Just read Al’s commentary on the subject. He pretty much lines right up with me…

 

Have we gone to far?

So, in going through my stuff for the music and movement class that I’m starting on Tuesday, I found a seriously altered version of “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” I read it, then, I looked at my boss and she said that it deeply disturbed her. I told her that I was scared…

So, everyone knows little bunny foo foo…and his fairy godmother. Here’s where this one goes terribly wrong…

After Bunny pops the field mice on the head, Mommy bunny comes out and says…

“Now Little Bunny foo foo, I know you know better than to treat another animal that way. You go sit by yourself for a while and then think about this.”

yeah…right…

It gets worse.

The second time through, after you sing about the field mice, here’s what comes next…
“Now Bunny Foo Foo, I am very disappointed in your behavior. I know you can think of a nicer way to treat that mouse. You go sit by yourself a while longer and when you think of a nicer way, you let me know.

So, bunny foo foo sits a while longer and finally:

Little bunny foo foo hopping through the forest, scoops up a field mouse and gives him a great big hug.

And his mother says,

Little bunny foo foo, I’m so proud of you! Come into my lap and get a treat big hug.

and the moral of the story is that it is much better to be hugged than hit.”

Yeah. Right.

When did we have to make every childhood song have some sort of agenda? Why do people make the driver on the bus say “move back please?”

There ARE unpleasant situations in life. There are unpleasant people. Why must children sing songs where everyone is nice, kind and not in any way scary? When did it become the norm to shelter children from every little thing in life that may be scary or unpleasant? When did we make it so that all children must win? Isn’t there something like oh, sportsmanship? Being a gracious loser? When did those lessons stop?

I understand the need for non-competition, but competition is inherently human.

As adults, have we gone too far in making things sanitized and safe, and then releasing the floodgates when they hit 18? I feel that we have. Of late, society is more focused on making each child feel special, individual and all of that junk. There’s not really any criticism, so when a teenager gets their first term paper ripped to shreds, they are crushed. For cripe’s sake, grades in the elementary schools have gone from numbers, to letters to E, S, O, NI to numbers. Parents don’t even get this system. They have to hold parent nights to explain the number system for them! In some schools, you can’t even celebrate a birthday, because they do it during one week (where they celebrate everyone’s at once)!

Children need a varied series of situations to make them into well rounded individuals. You learn that people are different, but you accept them just the way they are. I just can’t get into the “sanitized and special” trap that a lot of these kids songs fall into.

and no, I will NOT be using what is billed as the “New and improved” version of Bunny Foo Foo. It disturbs me as much as it disturbs my boss, Kate.

Soapbox over.

 

Stupid, stupid people

So, there was yet another recall announced…

the Bumbo seat was recalled and I’m appaled. This is yet another company doing a CYA maneuver because of user error.

What MORON puts a child, who has limited head control and almost no ability to move itself around and no protective reflexes on a table, in a seat, and then reports that the product is defective when the child falls out of the seat and gets injured? Well, obviously enough that they have to REWORD the instructions. Where is the parental culpability on this? Must every product be recalled because of a user end error? When are companies going to start saying “Look. you’re a moron. You screwed up.” People need to take responsibility for their actions with their children and realize that they DO have some responsibility,a nd not all of it belongs on the heads of the company.

Lead paint in toys, one thing.

Being stupid and oding your children on cough medicine and using a seat incorrectly, completely another.

I never owned one of these, because Isaac tried it, hated it and I thought 40.00 was waaay too much to spend on this thing that he would only use for a few months! What the heck! 

Is there a way we can prevent stupid people (kinda like my cousin…) from getting these when they are put back on the shelves? She’s the kind of idiot that would od her own child on cough meds, because the kid said “they taste good.”

yeah. Morons.

soapbox over.

 

Oh, really?

I was watching 20/20 tonight, and they were discussing when a child is too young to do risky things. They discussed a child bullfighter and a few others…and then it came to Jessica Dubroff. The little 7 year old who wanted to fly a plane solo, and crashed and died. Her mother had the nerve to say that it was NOT a parent’s job to say no. To guide, but never supress.

Oh, really?

I will say no to Isaac and let him know when a risky behavior, no matter HOW talented he is at it is too risky. He is a CHILD. I will not be standing over my child’s coffin when he’s dead at a too young age because I wasn’t strong enough to say no when he chose to do something risky.

 How can a person say that it’s not a parent’s job to say no? Especially one who has lost a beautiful, smart, talented child at age 7?

soapbox over.