[ethootsgrl]

I don't understand gen ed teachers at all. Last year, I worked with this English teacher. She was great with my kids (who were pretty high functioning). This year she has my lower kids and she keeps saying that I set her up for failure and that my kids are low scores. She has also been talking to my para about me possibly being racist (long story). On Friday, she sent some projects down to my room for my kids to finish. Unfortunately, I already had something planned for my students to do (it's my class...right?) so I had sent the student back down to her room with the projects. She sent the student back to my room to tell me to send them home because they are homework. It is a huge project that is supposed to be really really nice...I can't send that home in backpacks! Plus, my students need significant help so I hesitated to take the papers. I did take them though. Well, the student told this English teacher that I rolled my eyes. So she came busting into my room and yelled at me in front of my students for rolling my eyes. She grabbed the papers and took them back to her room and slammed my door.

I am so irritated. Then she went to talk to my para about me and said that I need to act older than the students I teach. I'm not in the wrong, right? I don't like confrontation at all and I'm nervous about talking to her on Monday.

[mrsh66]

I would skip the back and forth game and get administration involved. We are not babysitters for their projects. If they want to have the students complete a project they need to be responsible for putting the supports in place to make that happen. That means they put in the time to differenitate the product or instruction or they "ask" you to help the students with the project. All of that being said, a huge part of our job is playing the public relations game in order to get the most for out kids. If your not comfortable with confrontation and getting the adminstration involved I would send her an email explaining your concerns. This also creates a nice paper trail if you need further help. I love how she keeps talking to your para, not realizing it's going to get back to you.

[blueheron]

about our roles as inclusion/pullout teachers. As far as I can tell it is completely up to us to clarify our roles, and to do so while doing the public relationships and all the support of students and general education teachers that we do.

I agree that all the back and forth and bickering isn't getting anyone anywhere, but angry. Yes, you do have to work on IEP goals, and have set up to do so in your own pullout room. Your role is also to do whatever you need to do to make whatever part of the general education curriculum that the students you share with that teacher accessible to those students. I am yet to meet a general education teacher who just naturally modifies. I think it is a skill that needs to be practiced. I also would be cooling my heels for a very long time if I waited for general education teachers to give me everything ahead of time so that I could modify at leisure. That is my windy way of saying to look at the project, and figure out how to make it accessible to your students. Explain what you are doing and why.

I'm also going to advise some flexibility in doing work from the general education classes in the pullout room. I set aside a little time to help students complete work in the quiet and relative calm of my classroom, and still teach them whatever I have planned. I have one day that is all topsy turvy anyone with speech and OT and ELL, and that is a perfect day for finishing up odds and ends.

[ethootsgrl]

I am flexible and I usually give a lot of time in my class to complete their work. The problem I had with this project is that it is something they were doing with partners with general education students...who I don't have in my class. Plus, my school is placing a lot of emphasis on state scores (as I am sure every school is) and so I am doing my best to increase my student's abilities by working on math and reading in my class. This is the first year where I haven't always been able to complete whatever assignment or project they throw at me and this was the first time I had been yelled at because of it. I tried to explain but by the end of the day, she wasn't talking to me anymore.

I did e-mail her to tell her why I did what I did and what was going on in my head. She apologized 100% and said she would apologize to my class as well. All is good this morning. I just hate confrontation...

Thanks for the advice!

[spedkidsrock]

special education teacher = homework helper

[teabreak]

special education teacher = homework helper

Yes, and I have had to put my foot down a couple of times. I also have had to be very flexible and know that my being flexible will help my reg ed teachers to be flexible too. It's a give and take Maybe I am just lucky that I don't work with any teachers that are so focused and not willing to work around what needs to be done.

[blueheron]

in your room with the IEP kids to work on the project from time to time. I do that all the time if there is some sort of group work going on. The general education classes tend to get loud during those times, and the kids welcome the chance to work in a calmer environment.