That Sinking Feeling

Well, I popped on while I was at work this morning to make notes for today's post and saw that another person has started following me.  I just wanted to say to her and everyone else: Thank you!

So my first bit of business at the school is to sit in on a meeting with two students (one of which is a student on my caseload), the principal, and the dean of discipline.  The two had a fight on Friday, the students not the principal and dean.  The parent of my student is in as well.  The meeting pretty much comes down to "don't do it again and knock it off" as well as two day's detention for each.  That is about what I expected.  I would have even been okay with a suspension.  I fully support having students in special education, even ones that are behavior disordered, experience the discipline system of the school.  Society is not going to give them a break once they are out of school.

Once I'm back in my office, I begin to feel the cold seep into my bones.  Since it is before the 15th of October, there is no requirement to turn on the heat in the building.  It is hard to believe that a little over a week ago it was still pretty warm out.  It is like the 1st of October came and someone threw a switch.

I try to keep the cold out of my hands by typing up some IEPs for Thursday.  As I do, someone comes into my office and tells me parents are here for their meeting.  Oddly enough the same parents that I just received the meeting RSVP.  I go out and tell them that the meeting is actually scheduled for the 7th.  I also tell them that I would do the meeting right now if I was able to print anything out and if I had the teacher feedback.  They understand and agree to return on Thursday.  At least I know they'll attend.

Once I'm back into the special ed software, I begin to notice something: all the documents that were created before a certain date are just gone.  Letters, IEPs, etc.  Gone.  I also notice something else: when we open a new IEP on a student that has had previous IEPs done in the system, the program pulls a lot of the text from the previous IEP into the new one.  So I see that when I open the new IEP that isn't pulling from the IEP that I see under the archived documents (which is the most recent IEP) but it is pulling from some invisible IEP from the year before that is among the missing documents.  I let out a few expletives and comment on the lineage of this program and how it is related to an ass (the donkey type, not the body part, although I could say that too).  I shoot off an email to the software company and CC our office manager.  Then I continue to work on the IEPs.

Somewhere between the time I start on the IEPs and finish the IEPs, the server for the special ed department goes down like an appropriate simile for how something goes down.  I know it is down because I lose access to my remote desktop and all my calls to the office go straight to voice mail.  I manage to find a workaround to access the special ed program and continue to work on IEPs.  It is amazing how much work you can get done when you don't have access to the internet.

After I finish the IEPs, it is time to go observe a class.  I sit in on a resource class and watch how it goes.  I saw this class a few weeks ago and I notice the teacher has changed the seating arrangements.  It is difficult because it is an English class that is in a science lab classroom.  So instead of desks, there are those large lab tables.  The four kids in the class are so spread out, it is almost like each student is having a separate class.  The class itself is alright and I really can't argue with the content but the atmosphere has lost some of that cohesion.

Follow the observation, I return to my main office.  After lunch, I do a lot of prep work.  I also agree to go to a parent's home for a social history with my office mate.  We are used to home visits because we both did that sort of thing in our previous career.  It isn't something that is normally done in a school district.

I also get some testing stuff prepped and make plans to test a student tomorrow.  I also remind myself to seek out my boss to talk about some office issues.  As I've alluded to, I'm going through some difficult times in my personal life, and I'm getting the feeling that my boss is taking it easy on me when it comes to risk assessments.  I need to speak with her about that because if that is the case, I'm not in agreement with it.  At this point, I know my judgment isn't impaired.  At some point down the road, the stress I'm under may increase and I may need to pull back but now is not the time.  But that discussion will have to wait for tomorrow.