On February 18th, 2012, I had the opportunity to speak before the Terrell County ISD Board Members.
I wish to again thank them in allowing me a few minutes of their time.
I was not there with any hopes of anything changing, nor was I there due to some personal agenda or personality conflict I might have had with anyone within the school system. I know for a fact that the problems that I and a fellow parent addressed are historical in nature: The parental withdrawal of children in 4rth and 5th grade to be home schooled until their 6th grade year, as well as the removal of Learning Disabled children to be home schooled or enrolled in other school districts until they graduate, has been a necessity and frequent practice of far too many residents of this county for years. I was there simply because I was asked to bring my grievance before the board and to give my child, and others like him, a voice.
The fact is, a Terrell County ISD teacher and the Terrell County ISD Superintendent failed my child. They were negligent in their duties to complete necessary paperwork to have my child tested by 588 Co-Op for learning disabilities, recommendations and placement in a prompt and timely manner. The teacher knew he had problems; his grades proved it and her own aide admitted that he had learning disabilities before the board. While I know that the process of completing those papers and forms is long and arduous, and must pass through many hands before anything can be done, I also know that from late October to February 5th significant strides should have been made. They were not and this is the reason that I withdrew my child from school on that date.
Enough was enough. He had struggled and suffered enough, and I wanted my happy, confident, outgoing child back.
As to the two women who stood up and defended the teacher, let me clarify a few things since I was not allowed the opportunity at the time.
I had absolutely no personality conflict with the teacher. Anyone who has ever known me can and will state that I am easy to get along with and do not actively seek out trouble. However, they will also tell you that if you mistreat my children or grandchildren, and treat them unfairly in any way, I will bring you trouble and I will be anything but easy to get along with. So the assumption that I might have had a personality conflict with the teacher was not only wrong, but totally based in ignorance of who I am.
My husband and I have had children in the public school system since 1986 and to date, not a single time have we failed to keep a parent teacher conference. We have always maintained an open, consistent and frequent line of communication with all of our 5 children’s teachers from the time they each entered school in Kindergarten and through the senior years of the older children. If anything, I have been more of a habitual annoyance than an absentee parent. Unfortunately, this line of communication failed during this present school year as I have had many calls in to the teacher that were never acknowledged or returned. I, dear ladies, was not the one who was not communicating.
As for the mention before the board of mid day and after school tutorials that are offered to students who are struggling? I was led to believe that my child was ’sometimes’ taking part in mid-day tutorials, but not once was an after school tutorial ever mentioned to me. One would think that the teacher would have mentioned this in light of the pitiful grades my child was making and my inquiries as to if any such tutorials existed. There was never, to me, a mention of such.
Addressing the defense that the teacher is very strict and this upsets some parents: all I can say is…Give me a break! I bought into that defense at first, because I am a strong believer in discipline in a classroom. However, I have observed that there is a marked difference between being strict and being tyrannical. Being strict produces organization, strengthens character and causes a person to accept responsibility for his/her own actions. Being tyrannical tears a person’s self esteem apart, leads to a loss of self confidence and causes a person to grasp as coping mechanisms that may not always be positive. I have witnessed the latter in my child.
To the parent’s of the second child I mentioned: I offer my most sincere apologies for doing so. My only excuse is that in my state of nervousness and emotion, I simply did not think before I spoke and I regret that slip of my tongue. As the mother of your child, as well as being a teacher within this district, you absolutely know your child much better than anyone else, especially someone whom you have never met before and who does not know your child. I had no right to mention him or make a single observation that you deemed ludicrous and shocking. Again, I offer my apologies. By the way, just in case you are wondering who I am, I have been working as a scout leader of your son’s pack weekly since right after school started. But, didn‘t you already know that?
In conclusion, I want to say that I have met many wonderful, dedicated and devoted teachers and faculty with the Terrell County ISD. As a resident of this county I wish to extend my thanks and appreciation to all of these fine and hardworking people. You are a blessing and a marked asset to this community and in the lives of our children. While I have lost faith in the public school system as a whole and within a single teacher and superintendent, I have not lost faith in the majority of Terrell County educators. For this reason, it causes me great sadness that my child will not be able to experience your instruction, your guidance and your care in the years to come. Because of the failure of a system as a whole and the negligence of two individuals who hold power within that system, not only will my child miss out on benefiting from you positive influence in his life, but you will miss out ever knowing this brilliant, funny and wonderful young man that I call my son.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Chandler
Sanderson & Dryden, Texas
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Terrell County ISD, Sanderson, Texas
My name is Jennifer Chandler and from March of 2012 until February 5, 2013, I had a child enrolled in a Terrell County ISD, Sanderson, Texas.
First of all, let me set something straight.
I am not a liar. I am not a bored housewife with nothing better to do with my time than create and stir up trouble. I am not a gossip, nor do I believe gossip that I hear. I do not judge people by what other people have said, regardless if what they said came as petty gossip or a dire warning. I give most everyone a chance to prove themselves to me before I make a judgment on their character or their behavior. And this is exactly what I did as soon as I moved here. I heard rumors; some of which were horrific in nature & content. I was warned repeatedly by various members of this community about what would happen, yet I filed those warnings away and waited to make my own determination. Sadly, for my child and my own peace of mind, I should have listened to the community.
I am angry that this school has failed my child. I am angry that on more than one occasion I was spoken to in a patronizing, condescending and accusatory tone when all I was doing was what any parent would and should do when we see our children struggling in school and rapidly declining in academics, as well as emotional & physical wellbeing.
I know for a fact that Terrell County ISD has many wonderful, dedicated and devoted educators & faculty who are both competent and resourceful in their skills. I have witnessed kindness and care to both students and parents which is not always found in larger school districts. I know this because for the past 25 years I have had children in schools which range from a total district enrollment of less than 100 students, to a district with well over 500 students per grade.
In March of 2012 I bought a house in Sanderson & moved my family here. The deciding factor was the school and the assurance from school officials that my child’s needs as a student would be addressed and taken care of.
I had home schooled him for 18 months prior after another district had failed him repeatedly and refused to address the needs that they themselves had discovered. That former school went so far as to claim that they had never diagnostically discovered his issues, when in fact they had. Unfortunately, their diagnostic department was in-house and not affiliated with any type of outside agency or co-op, so there was nothing that I could do but withdraw him & try to help him as best I could.
He was placed in 3rd grade, though he tested below 3rd grade Math and his handwriting was poor.
And even though he struggled, he loved being back at school and making friends. His teacher took great strides in doing everything within her power to help and educate him. He suddenly enjoyed reading, something he had previously fought me on. He was happy & looked forward to going to school every morning.
But I worried, as did his teacher, because his Math was not improving, no matter how much I helped him at home or his teacher helped him at school. He simply did not comprehend the subject. His handwriting, while improving, was still not good. Unfortunately, writing causes him actual physical pain and this leads him to become frustrated very quickly.
While he was in school, I begin to research learning disabilities beyond dyslexia and found my child to have many traits of those with dyscalculia and dysgraphia. Until recently, these two learning disabilities were little known and most often not addressed in public school settings. These learning disabilities do tend to effect more boys than girls, as well as not showing up until a child is often around the ages of 8 or 9, and in 3rd and 4rth grades, or later.
I felt much guilt due to the fact that I had for a long time thought my child was being stubborn, lazy and difficult. I knew that he had been diagnosed with a ‘form’ of dyslexia in the spring of 2010 by the former school district & told that this related to his reading, but until I researched on my own, I did not realize that his form of dyslexia was most likely dyscalculia and dysgraphia.
Well, I shared all of this with school officials here on more than one occasion.
Last spring I was told that since it was so late in the year, there wasn’t time to get the paperwork ready for him to be tested and we would try this in the fall.
I understood this and had no problem waiting…Until early fall, that is.
Before school resumed in the fall, I spoke with school officials about my concerns with my child’s apparent learning disabilities and how far behind my child was. I was promised that his needs would be addressed and that he would be helped.
When I said I wondered if he should be back in 3rd, even though it was not something I liked due to his advanced age, I was told that because of his age & size, parents of little girls coming into the 3rd grade would be upset with his being in there. This school official even gave me the name of another school official who would be upset since the aforementioned school official had a daughter going into 3rd grade. It was also discussed that holding him back, yet again, would cause him to be in his early 20’s when he finally did graduate.
I understood this. However, I also understood that my child was in serious academic trouble and he needed help quickly. Again, I was assured and promised that his needs would be addressed and met.
But once in 4rth grade, his needs were not addressed or met. In fact, I feel that I was lied to & mislead repeatedly.
His grades were terrible & continued to fall, and he fell farther and farther behind. This was blamed on him. The teacher said he was not turning his homework in, she said he was not completing his work in class, so on and so forth. It was always his fault.
When I asked what kind of help he was getting, I never once got a straight answer, other than he was not doing his work.
I mentioned testing to her on more than one occasion.
Nothing was done.
Not only did his grades fall, but so did his behavior. He withdrew & begin to exhibit behavior that alarmed me as it was of a self-destructive nature. He also begin having chronic stomach aches and an old physical ailment that had put his life in serious jeopardy years before, suddenly reappeared. He also had small unexplained bruises on his arms, back and legs. If I asked him where they were from, he would say he fell off the swing or on rocks at PE.
I knew the signs & I immediately called the school & asked if the teacher could keep her eyes out to see if anyone was bullying or mistreating my child in any way. I also told the school that my child would deny it because he did not want retaliation, but I knew that something was going on because we’d been down this road before.
Later I was called and told that there was nothing going on because my child had been called into the office and questioned repeatedly and my child supposedly denied any problems. Based on the tone of the official who spoke with me, I feel that the school considered me an overprotective parent & as far as they were concerned, the case was closed.
The teacher would later tell me that my child got along great with everyone and everyone got along great with him. This teacher told me that there were no problems at all.
But just a few days ago I was informed by a large group of children that I had, in fact, been right all along! My child had been picked on, teased, called names…basically bullied…while in that class. I was told by this group of children that it was only after the teacher told the class that there had been reports of bullying that things eased up on my son.
The thing that angers me is that I asked the school to WATCH and SEE what, if anything, was going on. But instead, my child was pulled out of class and into the office to be drilled about a problem that was not his fault. As anyone who has ever been bullied knows, if you ‘tell’ the mistreatment will get worse, so you keep your mouth shut and hope it goes away. But I was told that everything was great, when in fact it was not.
As his grades & mood continued to decline, and after I saw that the school was not going to take any action, on October 19th, 2012, I called the 588 Co-Op in Alpine & requested that my child be tested. I soon received a call from a school official informing me that the Co-Op had called and said that I had called them. I felt that this official wasn’t particularly happy that I had contacted the Co-Op personally, and I even felt that this official thought I was trying to ’go behind the school’s back’.
The fact is, I am neither a patient woman, nor a woman without resources, especially when it comes to my children. I do not suffer fools at all and I had given the school four and a half months of in-session time to do something to address my son’s issues and they had foolishly done absolutely NOTHING!
Oh, my child was given a ‘stress ball’ to hold in his hand while he worked Math because he became so nervous at these times. But this was due to the fact that he did not know what he was doing!
He was given a Math Rap CD & a booklet that covered the times tables to be used at home.
He was loaned an oversized solar calculator for him to practice his multiplication on at home.
Problem was & is: this child struggles with double digit addition and can barely do single digit subtraction, therefore how on earth can he be expected to learn multiplication or do division if he doesn’t even know how to add or subtract to much degree?
Back in January he came home one Monday afternoon with a multiplication problem and a division problem. He was lost, so I sat down with him and though he wrote the problems, I showed him every step of the way. The answers were correct, yet the next day in class he received a ‘0’. He was given NO explanation or correction. That night, I did the problem myself and had him copy it onto his own paper. It, too, was correct. The next day he made something like a 26. No explanation or correction given. That night, my older son helped him and after they were done, we double checked the answers and they, too, were correct. He received a grade of around 38. Again, no explanation. I wrote the teacher a heated note, demanding an explanation. My child, knowing that I was angry, did not give the teacher the note, but a few days later I saw her in a store and inquired. She said that had she gotten the note she would have told me what I had done wrong.
And while that was real kind of her, I wasn’t the one she was supposed to be teaching.
This leads me back to the Co-Op testing…Within days of me calling them on October 19th, they had the papers at the school for the teacher to begin filling out. In approximately the early part of December the teacher called me one afternoon and told me that she had signed the papers for my child to be tested. I immediately called the Co-Op the following school day and was told they were at Sanderson Elementary. I then spoke with the Co-Op official while she was at the school & told her what the teacher had told me. A few days later the Co-Op called me back to say that the teacher had no papers signed or ready and asked if I might have misunderstood. I told her that all I knew is what I had been told which was exactly what I had passed on to her.
In January I called the school repeatedly requesting a Parent Teacher conference and to also ask about the Co-Op papers. I heard nothing. Finally, on about the 24rth I received a message from the teacher that she was unable to fill the papers out because my child wasn’t turning in his homework & she had to have that homework to complete the papers. The next morning I called the Co-Op and was told that no homework papers are needed for a teacher to fill out the paperwork and the bearing homework has in and on the process is miniscule at best.
I very recently spoke with a Special Ed teacher in a district outside of Terrell County. She told me that while it does take a while to complete all the paperwork requesting testing with ARD/IEP, in a classroom as small as Sanderson’s, especially with the presence of an aide, there is no reason why it should take over a couple of months tops to complete.
In the latter part of January I received my child’s progress report and it was terrible. He had an ‘8’ in Math. Upon seeing that grade, I knew that something had to be done and it was going to have to be done by me because the school was not going to do anything.
But still I held on, hoping.
On January 31rst while at the school for an extracurricular meeting, and just days after I had posted on Facebook my consideration of home schooling my child once again, the teacher came in and asked if I could meet with her. I followed her to the classroom where she begin telling me how well my child was doing in school. She told me how well he was getting along with all the kids and that he was turning his homework in every day. She acted so excited and I was dumbfounded, to say the least. I asked her how on earth he could be doing so well in school when his progress report showed an ‘8’ average in Math. At that point, she waved her hand in the air and said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to that!”
SHE gave my child an ‘8’ on his progress report, the school in turn mailed it to me and yet, I am not supposed to pay any attention to it? Either it matters and the teacher was giving me a line of B.S., or it doesn’t matter & the school is wasting precious resources by mailing unimportant progress reports out to parents.
When she was bragging on his turning in his homework in every day, I asked how that was possible since he wasn’t doing homework every night to turn in the next day. She shrugged and said, “Well, maybe he’s doing it at school.”
As we had our meeting I felt that the teacher was telling me everything she thought I wanted to hear…because I knew that a lot of what she was saying wasn’t true. It was at that meeting that she loaned my child the oversized calculator to practice his multiplication on at home. She also showed me a huge stack of papers that she said she had to fill out for the Co-Op. What I saw were ‘examples’ of how the paperwork was to be filled out. I saw no papers that she was actually working on. She gave no estimate of when she might complete them, though she did say that she had three other students aside from mine that she had to fill the papers out on.
When I left the classroom that day I knew that my child was not going to get the help he desperately needed. I knew that regardless what I said or did from that point forward, the only thing I was ever going to get was an act of appeasement to hopefully shut me up, excuse after excuse and most likely my child would suffer the blame just as he had been doing.
On February 5th, 2013 I withdrew my child from Sanderson Elementary. A tiny part of the reason is that my husband works away from home & we do not get to see him often during the school year. I like the freedom to visit him on a whim without the threat of truancy. However, the driving force behind my decision is that my child was not receiving the education or the help that we had been promised and an ‘8’ in any grade on a progress report proved that. While I do not possess a teacher’s certificate, as I said earlier, I am a resourceful woman and I am intelligent enough to know what isn’t working and figure out what does and will. And on top of it all, I care about & know my child better than anyone else.
At this point, I have truly given up on Terrell County ISD. While it is a historical fact that many parents withdraw their children from the 4rth & 5th grades due to the teacher, and re-enroll them at the beginning of their 6th grade year, at this point I have absolutely no desire to ever again subject my child to such careless incompetence perpetrated by a system that is horribly flawed at best…especially when dealing with children who possess marked learning issues.
It is my hope, however, that at some point in time the good and just people of this board render decisions that will put a stop to this historical necessity of removing children from the 4rth & 5th grades. And, my hope is that you also render decisions that will stop the necessity of parents removing children in higher grades and having to either send these children to live elsewhere, or moving the entire family, just so the child can receive a fair and unbiased education.
The very fact that this continues year after year is not only saddening, but it is embarrassing for this community as well.
It is my hope and my prayer that this school board act in an honorable way to make it possible for students, as well as their parents, to experience an education that is not only uninterrupted and consistent year after year, but does exactly what it was originally designed to do…educate, encourage and equip these children to be happy, healthy, successful adults.
When a school district knowingly allows school officials to bully and intimidate students, parents and other school officials, then the fault lies with YOU, the school board.
I pray, for the children & parents of this community, that these issues be addressed promptly and renew this community’s faith in our school district, our school officials and our school teachers.
Thank you!
First of all, let me set something straight.
I am not a liar. I am not a bored housewife with nothing better to do with my time than create and stir up trouble. I am not a gossip, nor do I believe gossip that I hear. I do not judge people by what other people have said, regardless if what they said came as petty gossip or a dire warning. I give most everyone a chance to prove themselves to me before I make a judgment on their character or their behavior. And this is exactly what I did as soon as I moved here. I heard rumors; some of which were horrific in nature & content. I was warned repeatedly by various members of this community about what would happen, yet I filed those warnings away and waited to make my own determination. Sadly, for my child and my own peace of mind, I should have listened to the community.
I am angry that this school has failed my child. I am angry that on more than one occasion I was spoken to in a patronizing, condescending and accusatory tone when all I was doing was what any parent would and should do when we see our children struggling in school and rapidly declining in academics, as well as emotional & physical wellbeing.
I know for a fact that Terrell County ISD has many wonderful, dedicated and devoted educators & faculty who are both competent and resourceful in their skills. I have witnessed kindness and care to both students and parents which is not always found in larger school districts. I know this because for the past 25 years I have had children in schools which range from a total district enrollment of less than 100 students, to a district with well over 500 students per grade.
In March of 2012 I bought a house in Sanderson & moved my family here. The deciding factor was the school and the assurance from school officials that my child’s needs as a student would be addressed and taken care of.
I had home schooled him for 18 months prior after another district had failed him repeatedly and refused to address the needs that they themselves had discovered. That former school went so far as to claim that they had never diagnostically discovered his issues, when in fact they had. Unfortunately, their diagnostic department was in-house and not affiliated with any type of outside agency or co-op, so there was nothing that I could do but withdraw him & try to help him as best I could.
He was placed in 3rd grade, though he tested below 3rd grade Math and his handwriting was poor.
And even though he struggled, he loved being back at school and making friends. His teacher took great strides in doing everything within her power to help and educate him. He suddenly enjoyed reading, something he had previously fought me on. He was happy & looked forward to going to school every morning.
But I worried, as did his teacher, because his Math was not improving, no matter how much I helped him at home or his teacher helped him at school. He simply did not comprehend the subject. His handwriting, while improving, was still not good. Unfortunately, writing causes him actual physical pain and this leads him to become frustrated very quickly.
While he was in school, I begin to research learning disabilities beyond dyslexia and found my child to have many traits of those with dyscalculia and dysgraphia. Until recently, these two learning disabilities were little known and most often not addressed in public school settings. These learning disabilities do tend to effect more boys than girls, as well as not showing up until a child is often around the ages of 8 or 9, and in 3rd and 4rth grades, or later.
I felt much guilt due to the fact that I had for a long time thought my child was being stubborn, lazy and difficult. I knew that he had been diagnosed with a ‘form’ of dyslexia in the spring of 2010 by the former school district & told that this related to his reading, but until I researched on my own, I did not realize that his form of dyslexia was most likely dyscalculia and dysgraphia.
Well, I shared all of this with school officials here on more than one occasion.
Last spring I was told that since it was so late in the year, there wasn’t time to get the paperwork ready for him to be tested and we would try this in the fall.
I understood this and had no problem waiting…Until early fall, that is.
Before school resumed in the fall, I spoke with school officials about my concerns with my child’s apparent learning disabilities and how far behind my child was. I was promised that his needs would be addressed and that he would be helped.
When I said I wondered if he should be back in 3rd, even though it was not something I liked due to his advanced age, I was told that because of his age & size, parents of little girls coming into the 3rd grade would be upset with his being in there. This school official even gave me the name of another school official who would be upset since the aforementioned school official had a daughter going into 3rd grade. It was also discussed that holding him back, yet again, would cause him to be in his early 20’s when he finally did graduate.
I understood this. However, I also understood that my child was in serious academic trouble and he needed help quickly. Again, I was assured and promised that his needs would be addressed and met.
But once in 4rth grade, his needs were not addressed or met. In fact, I feel that I was lied to & mislead repeatedly.
His grades were terrible & continued to fall, and he fell farther and farther behind. This was blamed on him. The teacher said he was not turning his homework in, she said he was not completing his work in class, so on and so forth. It was always his fault.
When I asked what kind of help he was getting, I never once got a straight answer, other than he was not doing his work.
I mentioned testing to her on more than one occasion.
Nothing was done.
Not only did his grades fall, but so did his behavior. He withdrew & begin to exhibit behavior that alarmed me as it was of a self-destructive nature. He also begin having chronic stomach aches and an old physical ailment that had put his life in serious jeopardy years before, suddenly reappeared. He also had small unexplained bruises on his arms, back and legs. If I asked him where they were from, he would say he fell off the swing or on rocks at PE.
I knew the signs & I immediately called the school & asked if the teacher could keep her eyes out to see if anyone was bullying or mistreating my child in any way. I also told the school that my child would deny it because he did not want retaliation, but I knew that something was going on because we’d been down this road before.
Later I was called and told that there was nothing going on because my child had been called into the office and questioned repeatedly and my child supposedly denied any problems. Based on the tone of the official who spoke with me, I feel that the school considered me an overprotective parent & as far as they were concerned, the case was closed.
The teacher would later tell me that my child got along great with everyone and everyone got along great with him. This teacher told me that there were no problems at all.
But just a few days ago I was informed by a large group of children that I had, in fact, been right all along! My child had been picked on, teased, called names…basically bullied…while in that class. I was told by this group of children that it was only after the teacher told the class that there had been reports of bullying that things eased up on my son.
The thing that angers me is that I asked the school to WATCH and SEE what, if anything, was going on. But instead, my child was pulled out of class and into the office to be drilled about a problem that was not his fault. As anyone who has ever been bullied knows, if you ‘tell’ the mistreatment will get worse, so you keep your mouth shut and hope it goes away. But I was told that everything was great, when in fact it was not.
As his grades & mood continued to decline, and after I saw that the school was not going to take any action, on October 19th, 2012, I called the 588 Co-Op in Alpine & requested that my child be tested. I soon received a call from a school official informing me that the Co-Op had called and said that I had called them. I felt that this official wasn’t particularly happy that I had contacted the Co-Op personally, and I even felt that this official thought I was trying to ’go behind the school’s back’.
The fact is, I am neither a patient woman, nor a woman without resources, especially when it comes to my children. I do not suffer fools at all and I had given the school four and a half months of in-session time to do something to address my son’s issues and they had foolishly done absolutely NOTHING!
Oh, my child was given a ‘stress ball’ to hold in his hand while he worked Math because he became so nervous at these times. But this was due to the fact that he did not know what he was doing!
He was given a Math Rap CD & a booklet that covered the times tables to be used at home.
He was loaned an oversized solar calculator for him to practice his multiplication on at home.
Problem was & is: this child struggles with double digit addition and can barely do single digit subtraction, therefore how on earth can he be expected to learn multiplication or do division if he doesn’t even know how to add or subtract to much degree?
Back in January he came home one Monday afternoon with a multiplication problem and a division problem. He was lost, so I sat down with him and though he wrote the problems, I showed him every step of the way. The answers were correct, yet the next day in class he received a ‘0’. He was given NO explanation or correction. That night, I did the problem myself and had him copy it onto his own paper. It, too, was correct. The next day he made something like a 26. No explanation or correction given. That night, my older son helped him and after they were done, we double checked the answers and they, too, were correct. He received a grade of around 38. Again, no explanation. I wrote the teacher a heated note, demanding an explanation. My child, knowing that I was angry, did not give the teacher the note, but a few days later I saw her in a store and inquired. She said that had she gotten the note she would have told me what I had done wrong.
And while that was real kind of her, I wasn’t the one she was supposed to be teaching.
This leads me back to the Co-Op testing…Within days of me calling them on October 19th, they had the papers at the school for the teacher to begin filling out. In approximately the early part of December the teacher called me one afternoon and told me that she had signed the papers for my child to be tested. I immediately called the Co-Op the following school day and was told they were at Sanderson Elementary. I then spoke with the Co-Op official while she was at the school & told her what the teacher had told me. A few days later the Co-Op called me back to say that the teacher had no papers signed or ready and asked if I might have misunderstood. I told her that all I knew is what I had been told which was exactly what I had passed on to her.
In January I called the school repeatedly requesting a Parent Teacher conference and to also ask about the Co-Op papers. I heard nothing. Finally, on about the 24rth I received a message from the teacher that she was unable to fill the papers out because my child wasn’t turning in his homework & she had to have that homework to complete the papers. The next morning I called the Co-Op and was told that no homework papers are needed for a teacher to fill out the paperwork and the bearing homework has in and on the process is miniscule at best.
I very recently spoke with a Special Ed teacher in a district outside of Terrell County. She told me that while it does take a while to complete all the paperwork requesting testing with ARD/IEP, in a classroom as small as Sanderson’s, especially with the presence of an aide, there is no reason why it should take over a couple of months tops to complete.
In the latter part of January I received my child’s progress report and it was terrible. He had an ‘8’ in Math. Upon seeing that grade, I knew that something had to be done and it was going to have to be done by me because the school was not going to do anything.
But still I held on, hoping.
On January 31rst while at the school for an extracurricular meeting, and just days after I had posted on Facebook my consideration of home schooling my child once again, the teacher came in and asked if I could meet with her. I followed her to the classroom where she begin telling me how well my child was doing in school. She told me how well he was getting along with all the kids and that he was turning his homework in every day. She acted so excited and I was dumbfounded, to say the least. I asked her how on earth he could be doing so well in school when his progress report showed an ‘8’ average in Math. At that point, she waved her hand in the air and said, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to that!”
SHE gave my child an ‘8’ on his progress report, the school in turn mailed it to me and yet, I am not supposed to pay any attention to it? Either it matters and the teacher was giving me a line of B.S., or it doesn’t matter & the school is wasting precious resources by mailing unimportant progress reports out to parents.
When she was bragging on his turning in his homework in every day, I asked how that was possible since he wasn’t doing homework every night to turn in the next day. She shrugged and said, “Well, maybe he’s doing it at school.”
As we had our meeting I felt that the teacher was telling me everything she thought I wanted to hear…because I knew that a lot of what she was saying wasn’t true. It was at that meeting that she loaned my child the oversized calculator to practice his multiplication on at home. She also showed me a huge stack of papers that she said she had to fill out for the Co-Op. What I saw were ‘examples’ of how the paperwork was to be filled out. I saw no papers that she was actually working on. She gave no estimate of when she might complete them, though she did say that she had three other students aside from mine that she had to fill the papers out on.
When I left the classroom that day I knew that my child was not going to get the help he desperately needed. I knew that regardless what I said or did from that point forward, the only thing I was ever going to get was an act of appeasement to hopefully shut me up, excuse after excuse and most likely my child would suffer the blame just as he had been doing.
On February 5th, 2013 I withdrew my child from Sanderson Elementary. A tiny part of the reason is that my husband works away from home & we do not get to see him often during the school year. I like the freedom to visit him on a whim without the threat of truancy. However, the driving force behind my decision is that my child was not receiving the education or the help that we had been promised and an ‘8’ in any grade on a progress report proved that. While I do not possess a teacher’s certificate, as I said earlier, I am a resourceful woman and I am intelligent enough to know what isn’t working and figure out what does and will. And on top of it all, I care about & know my child better than anyone else.
At this point, I have truly given up on Terrell County ISD. While it is a historical fact that many parents withdraw their children from the 4rth & 5th grades due to the teacher, and re-enroll them at the beginning of their 6th grade year, at this point I have absolutely no desire to ever again subject my child to such careless incompetence perpetrated by a system that is horribly flawed at best…especially when dealing with children who possess marked learning issues.
It is my hope, however, that at some point in time the good and just people of this board render decisions that will put a stop to this historical necessity of removing children from the 4rth & 5th grades. And, my hope is that you also render decisions that will stop the necessity of parents removing children in higher grades and having to either send these children to live elsewhere, or moving the entire family, just so the child can receive a fair and unbiased education.
The very fact that this continues year after year is not only saddening, but it is embarrassing for this community as well.
It is my hope and my prayer that this school board act in an honorable way to make it possible for students, as well as their parents, to experience an education that is not only uninterrupted and consistent year after year, but does exactly what it was originally designed to do…educate, encourage and equip these children to be happy, healthy, successful adults.
When a school district knowingly allows school officials to bully and intimidate students, parents and other school officials, then the fault lies with YOU, the school board.
I pray, for the children & parents of this community, that these issues be addressed promptly and renew this community’s faith in our school district, our school officials and our school teachers.
Thank you!
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