Steph, a couple of things.
First, I told you some of difficult child 1's story, to show you that writing a letter AND following through is worth the effort; but sometimes you just need to throw in the towel, if you're running out of time (as we were - difficult child 1 at that time was only two months away from his final high school exams and his notes were in the same state as your difficult child - I kid you not. With THAT, he was expected to pass? BUT (and that's a big one, not unlike mine - ha ha) - with what we put in place instead, he not only passed his final exams (although he took another two years to do so, but this is perfectly OK in our schooling system) but he got his confidence back. He slowly matured, he has slowly made progress and is turning into a really decent, loving, caring human being. He's been on a disability pension since he was 16, is currently trying to get a paying job which will automatically stop the pension. He's at two job interviews, as I type this.
difficult child 1 is, in my opinion, a success story - first, because I fought for him in the school system and then was able to support him through correspondence. The day he was suspended, I pulled him out. The issues surrounding the suspension told me this VP would stop at nothing to get him out of her school, or failing that, make his life a misery. The VP then tried to bully ME and say that it was too late to transfer to correspondence and they wouldn't take him anyway - while sitting in her office, correspondence school rang to tell me his enrolment was confirmed. Very sweet indeed. Then she got upset - because the school was going to have to hand back six months worth of support funding.
So take heart - our kids can recover, they can do more than the school sometimes lets them.
Your aim now - to help difficult child do as well as she can, within her limitations. If the most she will be able to learn is how to read and write her own name, then so be it. But if she's secretly capable of nuclear physics - those doors need to be open and available to her.
Do not be afraid of what the school will think, of if the school will take their resentment out on your child. If you suspect this is happening then it is time to REALLY make the school afraid.
I actually did say to the local school where easy child & difficult child 1 were enrolled, "You know I was able to lobby my parliamentarian to get special permission for easy child 2/difficult child 2 to be accelerated into school. So you know I have the ability to make things happen. I am very happy to use this to the school's benefit, if you ask me to. But please be aware - you have also claimed that in my family we are emotionally unstable. Therefore feel free to believe that I am a very paranoid person. If I even suspect that either of my children enrolled here is being victimised simply because of my actions then I will react and use every political influence I have to make sure my children are not victimised again. I will always assume my child is right and you are wrong, because that is what mentally unstable, paranoid people do. So the safest course for you is to guard my other children enrolled here as if they are made of glass. You treat my kids right, we all will get on fine."
I know I was being a bully, but I was really concerned that my political activism would rebound on my other kids. And it never did.
Now, to other things in your message - you have a really great wish list there. Use it. Every skerrick, every iota, do your darndest to put it in the IEP. difficult child needs it. And frankly, the teachers will benefit. If difficult child has work at a level she can handle, with support in place, the teacher will find things much more uneventful in the classroom.
As for difficult child's head banging into the door - I'm going to get really nasty here. Remember my alleged paranoia? Time to use it as a weapon.
That child was in the custody of the school. They have a fiduciary duty of care to ensure she is not damaged in any way while in their custody. because the law says the child must attend school, the school then is a de-facto parent during school hours. A parent turning up to the emergency room stating that the child deliberately banged her head into the door frame just as the parent was muscling the child through - that parent would be rapidly talking to CPS.
Let's say difficult child DID bang her head deliberately. Why did the VP and the teacher allow this? There were TWO teachers present, not one. And one of those teachers actually had their hands on that child. How could the child have succeeded in banging her head?
Now let's say difficult child did not do this deliberately. When you are muscling someone through a door, you are trying to control not only where your own body is going, but where the other (often resistant) body is going. It COULD have been an accident. But even so, the VP is responsible, because she did not take enough care.
Now let's sat the VP was so frustrated that she momentarily lost her commonsense and deliberately banged difficult child's head into the door frame. Yes, it can happen. You're trying to deal with a struggling kid, you're feeling she is slipping from your grasp (in more ways than one) and the door frame is handy and it is SO satisfying... and the class teacher may have heard the thump and heard the VP say, "You did that to yourself, you silly girl!"
Who is going to say otherwise?
Regardless of what you privately believe, I don't think you can come out and say, "VP did this on purpose." But you CAN come out and say, "This happened in VP's care, and she should have prevented. Besides, I do not believe difficult child would have done this on purpose. If she did, she must have been worked up into such a state - and who is responsible for that too, if not the VP?"
Whichever way the VP tries to argue it, you should be able to throw it back at her. She took on the responsibility, she has to wear it. And the more you press on this, I suspect that at first she will try to REALLY blame difficult child and even maybe say, "difficult child made me hurt my arm/head/leg too," but difficult child is not responsible for VP, it's the other way around. Then VP is going to try the following: "Well, it's all over now, we'll agree to forget about it, shall we? I will agree to not punish her for banging her head deliberately, if you agree to drop the matter and let us move on to more productive issues."
Don't let her get away with that one either. Think about the trigger in the first place - difficult child was standing behind her chair and refusing to work. Why was this? Why has nobody even explored this? If there was a problem unaddressed which needed to be dealt with before she would work, then it should have been dealt with. To try to first move the chair, and then remove the child, is using force which could well have been totally inappropriate. In letting things get out of hand this way, the problems can escalate to the point where the original issue is totally lost. To punish for something that has occurred due to mishandling of a situation is wrong. It needs to be backtracked and worked on from the point of origin.
If a building is on fire and the firemen come to put it out, they will not succeed if there is, somewhere deep in the building, an active source of combustion still burning fiercely. A good fireman will investigate to determine what is the origin of the combustion (chemical? electrical?) and use appropriate mans to first shut off the initial combustion, and THEN deal with the rest of the fire more effectively. Otherwise it's like trying to hose down an oil well fire, without trying to cap the well.
This VP, from what you have indicated, has not been doing her job correctly. Feel free to be the outraged parent, extremely distressed because your child was hurt on school time and in the hands of the VP. Use this as extra leverage to get the cooperation you need in other areas. Scare them.
Try to not enjoy it too much, power corrupts.
Now, to the Alphasmart - they're easy to use. Very easy. She would need to know how to type, and would need some capability with computer files and "don't save over a saved file unless you want to erase it" type of savvy, but I think the issue here is, she shouldn't be taking her own notes at all. An Alphasmart instead of writing TASKS - yep, good idea. difficult child 3's school bought one for us, it came out of his funding. It technically belongs to the Dept of Ed and they will get it back when difficult child 3 is no longer a Dept of Ed student.
With teacher support especially in the beginning, difficult child should be able to handle an Alphasmart. But I don't think it's the answer here, she needs a heck of a lot more support than that. I like your list. Go get it.
Never worry about the school and what they will think of you. If you behave appropriately and do not make wild threats or rip your clothes off and run through the corridors, your behaviour as a parent putting her child first should be seen as natural and understandable. Anybody who refuses to recognise this does not have an opinion worthy of your notice.
And I say this as someone who has to live in the same very small village, as teachers I have dealt with in this way. And we get on fine, we stop and chat about the kids, about their work and all sorts of things. Teachers worth caring about will understand. The teachers who will resent you are the ones who are doing the wrong thing anyway, and you have called them on it.
If you let this pass unchallenged, it will happen again. Eventually, difficult child will stop telling you about it because what's the point? I know, because this is what happened with difficult child trying to tell teachers.
And before teachers on this site get upset at me, please realise that you are the exception to the rule. If this VP were not so determined to get rid of a problem child, there wouldn't be any issue here. If you were VP instead, I doubt Steph would have any issues with you.
There are good teachers. Often they're lurking in schools where senior staff are control freaks. Adults can be bullied too.
Marg
