I'm irritated with my son's school/district...

I can totally understand your frustrations and feel that when it comes to the schools nowadays they feel they can make decisions and disregard how we feel as parents . They seem to feel that we should have no say in what happens and it is hard to find out anything . When they are in the wrong , they refuse to admit it and everyone else in the school board will back them up for fear of a law suit instead of looking at what is most important for the children . Ok as you can tell I do have a rant about the school . I am still upset about this even though it happened a year and a half ago . My son who was eleven at the time , went to school one day and while his class was waiting in line for the bus , was seriously injured when another child kicked his feet our from under him . It was said afterwards that when his head hit the cement , his head could be heard ringing throughout the halls . Instead of checking to make sure he was alright , he was put on the bus and sent home . It took them appoximately forty five minutes to come home from school on the bus . The bus driver realized there was something wrong with my son as soon as he got on the bus as she said he didn't look good and was as white as a ghost . By the time they got home the busdriver was concerned enough to inform my daughter that she thought there was something wrong with her brother and that maybe she should have me check him over and see what happened . By the time he got in the house , he could barely stand , he was so white , no longer knew when his birthday was ( he still struggles with this today even though it was something he always knew before the fall ) and had hard time figuring out what his name was let alone talking . I rushed him to the hospital to find out his head was split open and he was suffering from a concussion . We spent most of the night in the hospital where I was told to keep a close watch over him for the next couple of weeks and that we had to make sure that he did not get any bumps to the head . Because he had to be watched so closely that he wasn't bumped in the head , he was not allowed to attend gym class , his favorite class at the time and was not allowed to play on the playground at recess for fear that he would be bumped . They had to place to put him because he wasn't allowed outside , so for two weeks he had to stay in the office at recess and noon hour , while the child who did this to him recieved a dention for one day for hurting him . When I spoke to the school and let them know how upset I was they tried to blame my son by saying that he wasn't honest with me when he told me what happened . My son and some of the other children were carrying on in the hall and then this student who wasn't even involved in what they were doing got mad and pulled his feet out from under him . When apparently what happened was this child supposedly poked my son so my son poked him back and this made the student mad so he decided to pull his feet out from under him . Because my son didn't tell me that he poked someone back AFTER they poked him first , they felt he was in the wrong and basically said he deserved what he got . Now this child poked my son first and there is a big differece between poking someone and pulling someone's feet out from under them . This child in my opinion was basically told it was ok to hurt someone else . I wanted an apology made to my son and they didn't even feel this was warranted as they said the child felt bad . The child felt so bad that when he went in the office he was crying but when he got on the bus he was laughing and telling the other children how he had made them feel sorry for him and now he wasn't in trouble and that he was glad he had hurt my son . To this day my son still has problems and has to see doctor's all the time . They are unable to find out what exactly is wrong with him but he seems to go into a trance and loses track of time . He feels the presence of ghosts behind him a ( which they believe is the start of a seizure but not the type you fear of for Epilipsy as this is a seizure that doesn't look like a seizure , it results in my son becoming violent and chanting things he doesn't remember when it is over ) seizure is what they are calling it . They can't confirm if this is what it is or not so I can't say it is the result of the fall with one hundrend percent certainly even though I know in my heart it is as my son became a different person after this fall . He now suffers from anxiety which they know for sure is due to the school and has panic attacks . I lost my son last summer when he became a different child and had many sleepless nights worrying about him . The school refuses to accept any responsibity and say it wasn't that big of a deal and that my son needs to learn to tell the truth . My son who was never in trouble a day in his life as he was so shy he didn't even talk out loud . My son who was always reported to be a good , kind child who got along with all the children . He has done so much better this summer and is more like the child he used to be even though he has a hard time understanding simple commands . He is unable to understand two things at once . For example if you ask him to go to the kitchen and get a dish towel and ask him to put something away , he can't remember what he went to the kitchen for and will bring you back a can of soup and not put away the item you asked him to put away . My son still see's doctors and now see's a psychiartrist and councellors to help him deal with issues that he doesn't understand . My son is being put on a IPP at the school this year to help him because he has to many learning problems which althogh did not start as a result of the fall but became much worse when he started losing time . For example they would be doing math one minute and the next minute they would be doing french and he would have no concept of where they time went . Thankfully he is much more the child he used to be this summer . I am not looking forward to him going back to school as I know longer have faith or trust in the school . He had appoitnents all last year that would take him out of school for part of the day and we would always be late as the school wouldn't tell him I was at the school or his teacher would refuse to send him down until she finished her lesson , resulting in us always being late to see his doctor's . As his mother I am not allowed to go to his classroom which irritates me as I am expected to trust the people that did not watch my son the way they were expected to . If I had hired a babysitter for my children and was not happy with the way they were treating my child , then I could fire them and find someone else but in the case of the school , if you don't like what is happening that is too bad for you as there is only one school to send our children too . We are expected to trust them yet they don't trust us to go to the classroom and get our own children and I don't agree with this one bit . I am sorry this is so lengthly and if you made it this far , I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read my rant .

I just left my job at a school in Feb. I was there for 9 yrs. We had several kids with special needs and I don't know of any problems like this. I live in a small town so that may make a difference. Here if you enroll your kids in school they start that day and ride the bus home that day. You may go visit the classroom any time you want as long as you check in with the office. Here they will not schedule an IEP unless the parents can be there. Sounds like you need to find a better school. GOOD LUCK

oh my God! These are more like horror stories than stories about schools!!! Here is my story: my niece was going to the same high school I went to. They supposedly have a "zero tolerance" policy regarding violence and harassment and such. HA! She was on a golfing field trip and happened to be in gym class with a girl that has been bothering her since 3rd grade or so. They were both in the special needs classes because of learning disabilities but the kids in those classes weren't segregated in gym class. It just happened that this girl happened to be in the same one. They used to fight physically and verbally when they were little but my niece matured a little faster and was just trying to get through high school ignoring this girl. On that day she was bothering my niece as usual and my niece was having some trouble figuring out how to hold the golf club to hit the ball. They were advised early on that if someone had a club and was getting ready to swing that everyone else was to stay back for safety. This girl pushed past my niece trying to show off. She grabbed the club and said something about how she was doing it wrong and before my niece could get out of the way this girl swung the club back and it impacted with my niece's cheekbone. (rumors from later that day were that she had done it on purpose but didn't think it would do much damage) My niece started bleeding everywhere and was in a great deal of pain. And this is what happened next: Whoever was in charge of the trip and the people at the golf course decided that the right course of action would be to call the principal at school. So they called and from there they tried to get ahold of my grandmother who was her custodian. They couldn't get ahold of her so they had my niece driven back to the school until they could get ahold of my grandma. They kept calling (my grandma was mowing the yard at the time) and when they finally got ahold of her they told her what happened and asked that she be picked up from school. My grandma came and got her and realized that she needed medical attention which at this time, none had been given to her. She took her immediately to the emergency room and called my sister (my niece's mom). They took her right away and upon inspecting her face realized that the bone had been shattered and that there was nothing holding up her eye on that side. If she didn't go into surgery right away her eye would basically fall down into the socket. So she went and had the surgery done and had to have a metal plate put in her face. When my sis got there and found out that she hadn't been immediately taken to the hopsital she freaked out. I mean, what is that medical form you fill out at the beginning of school that asks your hospital preference for??? She was neglected for over an hour while she rode the 20-30 minutes from the golf course back to school and while she waited in the school office for my grandmother to show up. They should have called an ambulance as soon as it happened. The girl who did it didn't even get suspended. My niece went to prom with a black eye. The school made it clear that it wasn't their problem in the least and that it needed to be dealt with without them. My niece went through a year of the hospital calling wanting their bills paid. We were left wondering who was going to have to pay for this bill that was over $5,000! Finally after 2 years (with the help of the lawyer my sister hired) it was decided that this was indeed the other girl's fault and that she needed to pay the bills that were incurred. My niece has to deal with this for the rest of her life and this girl gets off with a bill. I cannot believe that the school did NOTHING about this when it had happened during school time!

We had a child in foster care that started kindergarten with us and she had learning disabilities. They not only set up her bus route in advance and took her on the bus to show her what it was like, I got to take her to her classroom, meet her teacher, show her where her desk was, the coatrack, toys, ect. and we got to meet the nurse who would give her the med's she needed at lunchtime. It was really great that they could do all that. I really can't believe the school there is giving you so much trouble. Good luck with it!! AT PEACE WITHIN

You must be talking about the Cincinnati Public School district, because I swear that I am going through the same thing here. My son has global developemental delays, which means that even though he is five years old, his brain functions more like a three year old's. He has been going to special needs preschool at a particular school for the past three years, but he has finally graduated to kindergarten. Myself and the special needs team at the end of the year last school year met to discuss him going to kindergarten. We came to the agreement (or so I thought) that he would be able to attend kindergarten at the same school, transportation provided. However, we got to about two weeks before school started, and I hadn't received any paperwork for the upcoming year. So I started to call around. I found out from the transportation department that he had not been set up to receive what they call "door to door" transportation, and I needed to call the school's psychologist to find out why. So I called, and called, and called. I never got her, only the voice mail, and she would never call back when I left a message. I wanted to ask her what had I done for her to avoid me. Finally I got fed up and contacted student services. They told me that since the previous school wasn't his district school, he would not be able to receive transportation there. Once I explained the situation to them, they said to call this imaginary school psychologist again. Being fed up with the run around, I called the office to see if they could get ahold of her. The lady I talked to did some investigation, and she ended up telling me the same thing, that I would have to transfer him to his district school because of where we live. Gawd, I wish they would have told me this in the first place. I have moved closer to the school since he started going, and now I'm out of district?!? Anyway, we are in the first week of school (Although, due to the heat here, the students were out today and will be tomorrow) and he has not attended class one! To make matters worse, since he is enrolled at the other school, the teacher called me today to ask why he hadn't attended yet. I wanted to yell "Cuz y'all too stingy with the transportation to come get him!!!" The speech pathologist he has been seeing at that school called me too. She says they should be able to transport him to that school, seeing as how he would still require the small bus, which has to be specially registered from the bus company anyway. I repeated what I had been told twenty times over the past week, and she said that is not transportation's decision, it is the recommendation of the special needs team. Then she, again, recommended me to speak with the school psychologist (*Crying* Please not again!!!) At least now I know that she is never in on Mondays and Fridays (lucky her) So now I'm stuck, but I'm going up there to track the psychologist down on Tuesday dammit!!! I have never known for a school not to allow a parent to meet the teacher or to see the classroom. Here in Cincinnati they know that the best way to help a special needs child is to work hand in hand with the parents and the special needs team. I know what type of hassle you have been through, believe me, first hand, but I would transfer him to another school if I wasn't allowed to see the environment where he would be learning.

I'm not really sure why i'm posting on this discussion but anyway. Good Luck in the future to you and your son!!

disgusting on the main guys part, that what i think , but i would still say be nice and smiley to them because this is the enitial period of your sons school and by no chance you want him to be marked, when the school staff can be so irresponsible or insensitive they sure can be vindictive. but dont worry as long as you can just smile and tell them its ok because they know the best. a few days dont matter as long as your son is happy in school later. just what i thought, love and prayers, apple.