I won't bore you with all of the details. Due to certain covid restrictions, my P thinks we should have RtI/MTSS meetings with no classroom teacher. I don't mean like a gen ed teacher as a regular part of the team, I mean the classroom teacher who is bringing up the child of concern.
We've proposed a multitude of ideas and she's shot down every one of them. She thinks we can just do whatever and say "because covid." My sped director is no help. She says there is technically no "law" but there is "best practice guidance" and keeps referring us to that like we're stupid. She doesn't answer the question directly.
I get things need to be different because of covid but this seems super sketchy to me. So we're supposed to meet with a parent, look at data for a child we've likely never met, make an intervention plan just based on the data that due to covid will be heavily dependent on the classroom teacher, all with 0 input from the person who actually teaches the child?
Am I crazy? Is this just one of these things that you chalk up to "it's a crazy world now" or is this too far? Trying to decide how much I want to push back on this.
That's pretty weird. Are the classroom teachers pushing back on attending meetings? If it's a covid thing, why can't they be done virtually? Frankly, I'd be really irked if folks were meeting to create interventions and plans for my students without me.
The meetings would be held via zoom, as covid rules state no parents in buildings. P doesn't want subs in classrooms, even though we actually do have subs in the building who are willing to go into classrooms. Every other building in the district has always done meetings during the teacher's plan time, while we have had a roving sub. I get that it sucks losing plan time, but this would be 30 minutes, maximum 1 time per month (plan time is 50 minutes). In pre-covid days, P took TONS of teacher plan time with PLC, coaching meetings, data meetings, etc. It was 2-3 days per week, minimum. None of that is happening anymore due to the way the schedule worked out and other covid restrictions.
P said we had covid money, so I suggested that to take the sting out of losing the plan time, if the teacher wanted, she could stay after school an extra 30 minutes to plan and get paid for that time. P says yes we could do that, but teachers use plan time to prep materials for the rest of their day and take a break and it's unfair to miss that (again, where is this concern literally any other year??)
We also considered having the meetings after school, as with said covid money we'd all get paid for the time. That idea was quickly taken off the table when it didn't work for the coach/interventionist who is P's favorite.
Then P throws out there that we can have a sub, it just has to be for less than 15 minutes. By the time the teacher gets out of the classroom, walks all the way down to the office to our one empty/private room to zoom from, logs onto zoom, and then leaves enough travel time to get back into the classroom prior to the 15 minute mark, they'd be there for like 7-8 minutes. I'm efficient, but even I can't pull of a meeting in 8 minutes! Other than maybe a 2 minute introduction to the parent about what the meeting is for, who everyone else there is, etc. I don't really see any part of the meeting that it makes sense for the teacher to miss.
But we started off the school year not inviting the special ed teacher to meetings because we were not getting subs. That lasted about two weeks.
Right now we are supposed to tape lessons if we are out. Push in resource will have to just not show up, I guess.
I think they are teaching the vague "guidance" thing at secret Covid administrator school. A couple of times I clarified with people "so the guidance is now this, right?" There answer is well, no, and then they don't follow up.
I would want to be at most meetings. At a previous job the teachers were always thrown under the bus in front of parents. At the very least I would want to know what administrators had promised parents in my absence.
And with referrals or even just the process, I would not want a classroom teacher talking smack because they were not there when services or additional interventions were denied.
We do our meetings before school--30 minutes each; 2 students with who needs to be there. The classroom teacher always part of the meetings as "All students are general education students first." Plus it tends to be teachers who have the concerns first not the specialist.
All meetings have a "meets" option if anyone doesn't what to be in person. We also have once a month RTI/MTSS PLC meetings with grade-level teams during teacher plan as a member of the team and a special education teacher my job is to make sure the process from RTI to testing is seamless.
I think they are teaching the vague "guidance" thing at secret Covid administrator school.
So true . We keep hearing, "Well, they actually just changed that guidance within the past 2 weeks." I get that it would be a lot of work to communicate every time something changes, because it is a lot, but how do we follow it if you don't tell us???
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10-02-2020, 02:54 PM
. We keep hearing, "Well, they actually just changed that guidance within the past 2 weeks." I get that it would be a lot of work to communicate every time something changes, because it is a lot, but how do we follow it if you don't tell us???
