Special Education Teachers

[SuperBigFan69]

I'm not the expert in this situation. However, I know several special ed teachers that don't put that many hours in and they love their jobs. Yes, they are in Nebraska.

I guess I have a question in an attempt to learn more.

What is she doing that takes that many hours? You have school roughly from 8:00 am - 3:30 pm during the week. What is she doing outside those hours that takes so much time?

From the ones I see...a lot of sped teachers (especially their first few years) feel like they need to take on much more than they should and it starts to just tear them down. I had a good teaching friend that was sped and he said this..."I treat this job like I would if I worked at a bank...I show up around 7:30 and I leave at 5pm, that is it. I don't bring work home with me because there is always tomorrow"

He loved his job and was very good at it.

I work with many other teachers that are at school until 6 or 630 each night and then go home and work more...they are miserable BUT they almost seem to enjoy being miserable, if that makes sense.

 

[ScottyIce]

When I start interviewing, facebook will have been deactivated for a while. I don't understand why teachers even have accounts. Too much of a distraction, and or gateway for trouble.

Yeah, I can't think of any other distractions other than facebook. Yup, definitely just facebook... Oh yeah, what was I just doing?

 

[Scratchtown]

My wife teaches kids that have learning disabilities and are troubled. She deals with a lot of sh#t on a daily basis from being cussed at and having chairs and desks thrown at her. There are days where she just comes home and unloads on me about how things are run at school and that it is sad that it will probably stay this way. I can tell you that she doesn't get paid what she should for having to deal with the crap that goes on.

Yep. Sounds exactly like our situation. She gets slapped in the face all the time by students, and scissors/pens/pencils are thrown, kids throw things off her desk, run out of the room and then my wife has to chase them down. Then gets ripped by the admin for not letting the plan work. How the hell is the plan suppose to work when a students actions are completely unpredictable. Kids scream all the time. I mean I'm all for having special needs students be in the same building and all that, to be around their peers but at what point do we say enough is enough and send them off? I mean you send off normal students who have behavior issues...why is it that special needs students don't get sent somewhere?

Maybe I'm just frustrated with all that has gone on, but my wife has the heart of an angel and it's dying. It's all about paperwork this and paperwork that, and no focus is ever even put on the kids. For God's sake they changed her schedule 4 times this year and it's not even Christmas break.

She made some picture planners for her kids so that they knew in what time frame they could look at the picture and see that's what they had to do. Spent all weekend making like 6-7 of these things for separate kids. Gets to school Monday and the sped director and principal tell her that they are changing her schedule again, so she has to REMAKE all those planners that they told her to make and never end up using the original.

I'm super bothered by everything special education at the moment, maybe its just the school, but good grief...

 

[HuskerShark]

I'm not the expert in this situation. However, I know several special ed teachers that don't put that many hours in and they love their jobs. Yes, they are in Nebraska.

I guess I have a question in an attempt to learn more.

What is she doing that takes that many hours? You have school roughly from 8:00 am - 3:30 pm during the week. What is she doing outside those hours that takes so much time?

From the ones I see...a lot of sped teachers (especially their first few years) feel like they need to take on much more than they should and it starts to just tear them down. I had a good teaching friend that was sped and he said this..."I treat this job like I would if I worked at a bank...I show up around 7:30 and I leave at 5pm, that is it. I don't bring work home with me because there is always tomorrow"

He loved his job and was very good at it.

I work with many other teachers that are at school until 6 or 630 each night and then go home and work more...they are miserable BUT they almost seem to enjoy being miserable, if that makes sense.

That's my motto as well. Teaching can own your entire life pretty quickly if you let it.

Don't get me wrong, I like working with students (except for the sh#theads) and making a positive difference, but there's a lot more to me than just teaching high school.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

I'm not the expert in this situation. However, I know several special ed teachers that don't put that many hours in and they love their jobs. Yes, they are in Nebraska.

I guess I have a question in an attempt to learn more.

What is she doing that takes that many hours? You have school roughly from 8:00 am - 3:30 pm during the week. What is she doing outside those hours that takes so much time?

From the ones I see...a lot of sped teachers (especially their first few years) feel like they need to take on much more than they should and it starts to just tear them down. I had a good teaching friend that was sped and he said this..."I treat this job like I would if I worked at a bank...I show up around 7:30 and I leave at 5pm, that is it. I don't bring work home with me because there is always tomorrow"
He loved his job and was very good at it.

I work with many other teachers that are at school until 6 or 630 each night and then go home and work more...they are miserable BUT they almost seem to enjoy being miserable, if that makes sense.

That's my motto as well. Teaching can own your entire life pretty quickly if you let it.

Don't get me wrong, I like working with students (except for the sh#theads) and making a positive difference, but there's a lot more to me than just teaching high school.

Yep...I agree 1000%

 

[NUinID]

I'm not the expert in this situation. However, I know several special ed teachers that don't put that many hours in and they love their jobs. Yes, they are in Nebraska.

I guess I have a question in an attempt to learn more.

What is she doing that takes that many hours? You have school roughly from 8:00 am - 3:30 pm during the week. What is she doing outside those hours that takes so much time?

From the ones I see...a lot of sped teachers (especially their first few years) feel like they need to take on much more than they should and it starts to just tear them down. I had a good teaching friend that was sped and he said this..."I treat this job like I would if I worked at a bank...I show up around 7:30 and I leave at 5pm, that is it. I don't bring work home with me because there is always tomorrow"

He loved his job and was very good at it.

I work with many other teachers that are at school until 6 or 630 each night and then go home and work more...they are miserable BUT they almost seem to enjoy being miserable, if that makes sense.

When I taut school that is the way I did things. Very rarely did I bring stuff home to work on. There is always tomorrow. I actually got that advise from my first principle. He said never take any work home.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

When I see my staff bringing stuff home all the time I feel horrible for them...

 

[huKSer]

When my wife was alive I would leave school as quick as I could to take care of her. I brought stuff home to work on then. Since she died, I am finding myself doing more at school. I have also learn a myriad of short cuts on the day to day stuff, but look closely at tests.

As far as tests go - I DESPISE multiple guess tests. Marking the letter B tells me . . . that you can mark the letter B. In a short answer it really doesn't take long - it will make sense or not after the 1st sentence, usually. So I DO take these home.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

When my wife was alive I would leave school as quick as I could to take care of her. I brought stuff home to work on then. Since she died, I am finding myself doing more at school. I have also learn a myriad of short cuts on the day to day stuff, but look closely at tests.

As far as tests go - I DESPISE multiple guess tests. Marking the letter B tells me . . . that you can mark the letter B. In a short answer it really doesn't take long - it will make sense or not after the 1st sentence, usually. So I DO take these home.

Ha...nailed it! That first sentence tells you it all...heck...sometimes the name on the paper tells you it all!

 

[irieboy8]

god bless the Sped teachers..

 

[Stumpy1]

My wife teaches kids that have learning disabilities and are troubled. She deals with a lot of sh#t on a daily basis from being cussed at and having chairs and desks thrown at her. There are days where she just comes home and unloads on me about how things are run at school and that it is sad that it will probably stay this way. I can tell you that she doesn't get paid what she should for having to deal with the crap that goes on.

Yep. Sounds exactly like our situation. She gets slapped in the face all the time by students, and scissors/pens/pencils are thrown, kids throw things off her desk, run out of the room and then my wife has to chase them down. Then gets ripped by the admin for not letting the plan work. How the hell is the plan suppose to work when a students actions are completely unpredictable. Kids scream all the time. I mean I'm all for having special needs students be in the same building and all that, to be around their peers but at what point do we say enough is enough and send them off? I mean you send off normal students who have behavior issues...why is it that special needs students don't get sent somewhere?

It definitely is the same situation.

There is one kid that my wife works with that is constantly a terror. My wife will message me and tell me, " I was called a motherf*cker today and bit " or " He threw a chair at me and tried stabbing me with a pencil today". These are the everyday things that my wife deals with.

This kid is also allowed to be around his peers and he is no better with them. Here about a month ago, my wife was helping him do a project along with the other kids in his grade and he blew up. He tried stabbing my wife with scissors and started kicking her. My daughter, who is in the same grade witnessed this and got upset. They ended up calming the kid down and everyone went about their stuff. It became recess time and when they were out on the play ground, my daughter told this kid to quit being mean to her mom. The kid tackled my daughter, bit her on the arm and started choking her. The teacher got him pulled off but he had left bruises on her neck and she was bleeding from where he bit her. They took the kid and placed him in a room till his parents could come grab him.

All of that took place on a Thursday. The kid was excused from school on Friday but allowed to come back Monday morning. My wife found out when she went in for work and the principle pulled her aside and let her know. She was really upset about it and let me know. I went to the school and had a nice talk with the principle and told him that I will be contacting the school board about it and I will take further actions if needed. How do you continue to let a kid come back to school that assaults teachers and other students? My point got across as the kid has since been removed from the school and is not allowed to return

 

[BigRedBuster]

I'm not the expert in this situation. However, I know several special ed teachers that don't put that many hours in and they love their jobs. Yes, they are in Nebraska.

I guess I have a question in an attempt to learn more.

What is she doing that takes that many hours? You have school roughly from 8:00 am - 3:30 pm during the week. What is she doing outside those hours that takes so much time?

From the ones I see...a lot of sped teachers (especially their first few years) feel like they need to take on much more than they should and it starts to just tear them down. I had a good teaching friend that was sped and he said this..."I treat this job like I would if I worked at a bank...I show up around 7:30 and I leave at 5pm, that is it. I don't bring work home with me because there is always tomorrow"

He loved his job and was very good at it.

I work with many other teachers that are at school until 6 or 630 each night and then go home and work more...they are miserable BUT they almost seem to enjoy being miserable, if that makes sense.

OK....when I first got into sales out of college, I lived and breathed my job. I was working at home in the evening and weekends planning and sometimes even having phone conversations with customers. I was on the road quite a bit so this was on the occasion when I was at home and should have been spending time with my new wife actually living and loving life.

It took me some time to realize there are limits to what you should do and it's just as important to have time away from the job as it is to spend time working hard on the job.

So, what you are describing, isn't just in teaching or in special education teaching. Now, I could see in special education teaching that you get attached to the kids and you feel that you NEED to do all this other stuff that is outside the parameters of the actual job description. I understand that. BUT, you have to have your life and your time away from it all. You are not ultimately responsible for all of these kid's well being and life. You are in charge of that part of life when they are at school. When you are away from them, you are not.

Now, I still work some times in evenings and weekends. I travel still that takes me away from my family and life. But, you have to understand balance. ANY job can consume you if you let it. Do your job to the absolute best you can when you need to be doing it. All the other times, keep your job away from home.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

Nailed it BigRedBuster!

 

[NUinID]

When my wife was alive I would leave school as quick as I could to take care of her. I brought stuff home to work on then. Since she died, I am finding myself doing more at school. I have also learn a myriad of short cuts on the day to day stuff, but look closely at tests.

As far as tests go - I DESPISE multiple guess tests. Marking the letter B tells me . . . that you can mark the letter B. In a short answer it really doesn't take long - it will make sense or not after the 1st sentence, usually. So I DO take these home.

A always had a mixture of things on my tests MC, TF, Matching, Short answer. To give just a MC test is being lazy. What I don't understand is teachers that gave a 20 questions MC test. To me that is not a test that is a quiz. My test were always at least 50 questions long and could go as high as 80 questions. I used to always give the short answer questions to my students the day before the tests. You would be amazed how many still didn't get any of them right.

 

[Eric the Red]

My wife teaches kids that have learning disabilities and are troubled. She deals with a lot of sh#t on a daily basis from being cussed at and having chairs and desks thrown at her. There are days where she just comes home and unloads on me about how things are run at school and that it is sad that it will probably stay this way. I can tell you that she doesn't get paid what she should for having to deal with the crap that goes on.

Yep. Sounds exactly like our situation. She gets slapped in the face all the time by students, and scissors/pens/pencils are thrown, kids throw things off her desk, run out of the room and then my wife has to chase them down. Then gets ripped by the admin for not letting the plan work. How the hell is the plan suppose to work when a students actions are completely unpredictable. Kids scream all the time. I mean I'm all for having special needs students be in the same building and all that, to be around their peers but at what point do we say enough is enough and send them off? I mean you send off normal students who have behavior issues...why is it that special needs students don't get sent somewhere?

It definitely is the same situation.

There is one kid that my wife works with that is constantly a terror. My wife will message me and tell me, " I was called a motherf*cker today and bit " or " He threw a chair at me and tried stabbing me with a pencil today". These are the everyday things that my wife deals with.

This kid is also allowed to be around his peers and he is no better with them. Here about a month ago, my wife was helping him do a project along with the other kids in his grade and he blew up. He tried stabbing my wife with scissors and started kicking her. My daughter, who is in the same grade witnessed this and got upset. They ended up calming the kid down and everyone went about their stuff. It became recess time and when they were out on the play ground, my daughter told this kid to quit being mean to her mom. The kid tackled my daughter, bit her on the arm and started choking her. The teacher got him pulled off but he had left bruises on her neck and she was bleeding from where he bit her. They took the kid and placed him in a room till his parents could come grab him.

All of that took place on a Thursday. The kid was excused from school on Friday but allowed to come back Monday morning. My wife found out when she went in for work and the principle pulled her aside and let her know. She was really upset about it and let me know. I went to the school and had a nice talk with the principle and told him that I will be contacting the school board about it and I will take further actions if needed. How do you continue to let a kid come back to school that assaults teachers and other students? My point got across as the kid has since been removed from the school and is not allowed to return

I'm curious if you are able to tell us what district you work for? If not, no worries.

To hopefully answer some of your questions. Basically patterns of behavior with data has to be established before you can remove a students or make a change of placement. Strategies, poitive behavior plans, etc. need to be attempted. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) protects all students with special needs from simply being removed/moved without plenty of "reasons," due process, etc. Being called names is one thing, but physical aggression can usually move the process along quicker. What you describe is fairly serious. How long has this been going on? According to the data, how often will this type of aggression occur? When it does occur, what's the duration? What triggers the aggression? Questions like that need to asked and answered using data. If a change of placement is made without enough justification, the state can intervene, and if they find a pattern of faulty placements, the district can lose funding. That can be crushing.

None of this, of course, justifies what happened to your daughter. I have a little girl as well and fear does creep into my head. I hope she is ok and and both of you can relax now that this student was removed. Hopefully he can get the help he needs as in most cases home life isn't "average" or "normal." Again, not an excuse for what happened to your daughter.