Not all teachers are good teachers......for OUR children!

I was excited for the new school year to begin! My daughter was going into the 5th grade, marking the end of attending Elementary school. How could she be going into the 5th grade when it was just the other day I was nervous about who her Kindergarten teacher would be!

Since this is my newest blog-baby and the reason I wanted to start this blog about INCLUSION, is because this particular school year was over the top in alot of ways. Things that happened this year are what has motivated me to want to share all in one place all the things that worked or didn't work for both Mariah and I. Mariah has always been FULLY INCLUDED in GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS with the only time she leaves her classroom is when she goes to visit the School Speech Therapist, Mrs. Newman. She has been working with Mariah since she started in the PLACE classroom at 4 years old. Mariah and I both love Mrs. Newman, she makes learning Speech & Language FUN...she gets to play all sorts of GAMES and use pictures when she works 'her craft'. Mariah likes her ST time at school, its FUN!

I have many stories and classroom 'situations' at every grade level she has been in that I could write about. I want to continue to write and share a little about each grade and the different teachers she has had over the years. How each teacher has helped, or not helped in Mariah being fully included and accepted by her classmates over the years.

At our school we have been doing what is called, Departmentalizing. This means our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders would be having 2-3 different teachers and changing classes just like in Middle School. It also means that the teachers are supposed to be teaching to what they are certified in. If a teacher has a Certification in Reading, than that teacher would be the Reading teacher. At first I was uncertain about my girl changing classes, but it really wasn't that big of a deal, the classes were next door or across the hall and she would be moving from class to class with all her classmates and she also had her Para that assisted her for safety concerns.

Mariah was assigned a wonderful Science teacher, Mr. Allagood and Miss Ridhur was her new homeroom teacher. I had been told she was a good teacher. Miss Ridhur the homeroom teacher would be Mariah's Reading, Language Arts and Math teacher. They had a third teacher, Ms. Borrows, she would be teaching Social Studies and also was going to be like a double-dose Reading & Math teacher. My daughter has always had her own Unique Aide or some schools call them Paraprofessionals, to provide individual support and assist her since going into Kindergarten. This year she was assigned a new Unique Aide, her name is Miss Rollings.

Mariah's IEP has always had the support of being able to have daily home notes to provide me with a snap-shot of her school day. Since Mariah's language skills are delayed, she isn't always able to share with me what she did at school each day. Our school has always provided a Daily Planner for every student, starting in the First Grade. I requested and advocated to make sure we had one for my girl when she started back in Kindergarten. So for years teachers and her assigned Para have always provided me good daily communication via the Daily Planner that would come home every day. I was able to provide communication back to the school thru that school planner as well. A spiral notebook would work fine too.

The school year started off great! I was excited for Mariah to be in the 5th grade and anxious for all the 5th grade academics I knew she was going to have to work extra hard this year in order to do well in the 5th Grade. She had a good group of homeroom classmates in the same class with her. There was Osman who over the years has always had a special connection with watching out for and helping Mariah. Just mention Osman's name and Mariah's face lights up! So Mariah was very happy to be back in school and in the 5th grade with all her school friends.

I wanted to make sure I signed up early for a Parent-Teacher Conference so I could get to know her new teacher and be able to discuss with her my expectations for this new school year ahead. My daughters Unique Aide or Paraprofessional was the one that usually wrote in Mariah's Planner to let me know what her homework was or anything that needed to be communicated back home. I would write little notes back to the school using this planner.

What I noticed just after a few weeks of the new school year, was that Mariah's new 5th grade teacher, Miss Ridhur wouldn't really communicate to me when I would ask her something in the planner or even when I emailed her. Mariah seemed to be going along with the demands of being a new 5th grader and was happy to be back in school again with 'her friends'. On the other hand, I was starting to feel like her teacher was avoiding having any conversations with me and wasn't providing me with much feedback and was unwilling to write any daily notes to let me know how things were going in class. I mean after all, I am the parent of the little girl in her classroom that has a significant intellectual disability...she does have student in her class now with Down syndrome. I would think a GOOD TEACHER would want to have at least one substantial conversation with that particular student's parent(s).

It seemed that no matter what small note I wrote in the Daily Planner or what I emailed to her, she wasn't responding or giving me any real feedback. Then when I started seeing Mariah's Math classwork coming home and it was all but the most basic of basic Preschool worksheets, I knew this new teacher didn't have a clue how to TEACH my daughter and that she had her own ideas on what and how she was going to teach her this year!! So began....what I will call: The 5th Grade MATH CLASSWORK WAR! Mariah of course had her Math IEP Goals that were to be worked on regularly, with any one of her three teachers, but mostly her IEP goals were going to be worked on by the 'double-dose' Social Studies teacher, Ms. Borrows. But her homeroom teacher, Miss Ridhur was her Math teacher and she wasn't having Mariah do any 5th grade Math work. Not even the most simple of beginning 5th grade Math classwork! Mariah wasn't very good at Math but she also didn't have to do ALL the 5th Grade Math classwork, but I expected her to be exposed to and participate in some of the 5th Grade classwork and to be able to do a few of the problems with the assistance of her Aide! Listed on Mariah's IEP she gets reduced assignments and extra time.

I had a meeting the week before school started with her entire team of new teachers and some staff and let all of them know of what my expectations of Mariah's INCLUSIVE 5th Grade year to look like and to let it be known that I also wanted Mariah to be able to be provided "a piece of" or "a small portion of" what everybody else was being taught and was learning...and that meant her 5th Grade Math classwork problems!! She needed to do SOME OF her 5th Grade Math CLASSWORK ~ IN CLASS and let her homework be the Math FLUENCY SKILLS work she still needed much help and assistance on. Mariah was still learning basic addition and was struggling with subtraction, let alone had never been taught her multiplication table yet! So now this year she was supposed to know how to dive into doing DIVISION problems and with some pretty big numbers and then there were the WORD PROBLEMS to work on! Without being able to have any regular communication with her Homeroom teacher, Miss Ridhur, it was of course creating a stressful time for sure! She was clearly showing me that she was NOT going to have Mariah do ANY 5th Grade CLASSWORK at school...ever! That she wanted her to do it only for homework with her mommy helping her!

What I saw coming home in my daughters backpack everyday was NOT what I had in mind for a good 5th grade school year!! I needed to have our Parent-Teacher Conference...and FAST! I had signed up for a meeting date during the Open House because all teachers 'free time' and conference appointments get taken up very quickly, so that's why I signed up during Open House time, I wanted to make sure we met sooner than later. When she CANCELLED our first set appointment, I was cool about it...but when she then wouldn't return any of my phone messages or any of my emails and wouldn't write in the Daily Planner and work with me even a tiny bit...the problem was growing harder and harder for me to take! There was not an ounce of COLLABORATION happening between this teacher and me. I had never had a teacher that totally shut me out and wouldn't MEET WITH ME for a Parent-Teacher Conference and kept canceling our dates. This teacher was showing me she was a BAD TEACHER...for MY GIRL!!

My emails became my only way of DOCUMENTING her non-communication and her unwillingness to collaborate with me even a little bit. Not only was I dealing with her homeroom teacher not wanting to talk to me, but her new Paraprofessional/Unique Aide, Miss Rollings wasn't being very cooperative either! I knew she wasn't a very friendly person from seeing her around campus all the years, but she certainly wasn't providing me with MUCH to go by in the Daily Planner either. She would never even have a simple conversation with me if she and I saw each other on campus and she only did the very bare minimum in providing me what my daughter did at school in the Daily Planner. I don't know why people have to be so cold sometimes when it comes to just wanting to know what is going on with our kiddo's while under their care at school, especially when our children have severe language communication and speech delays. Did she NOT want to be my daughter's Para/Unique Aide, did she NOT like my daughter or think she shouldn't be INCLUDED in the Gen. Ed 5th Grade classrooms? I don't know why my daughter had to have a Para/Unique Aide that has a cold shoulder towards me, maybe she's like that with everyone or maybe she doesn't like her particular job anymore. All I know is I HAVE TO TRUST HER...and trust that she is taking good care of my girl and that she is really there to help support and assist Mariah to do well in school, by redirecting her because Mariah gets easily distracted very quickly.

My excitement for my daughter’s school year was becoming a major stressor to me and my whole family now! With her new Aide not being all that friendly to me or ever talking to me, it made me concerned for how she may treat my daughter at school. When people can't or don't or won't make EYE CONTACT with me...it absolutely raises a red flag for me! I am naturally a skeptical person and I don't immediately trust anyone, especially those that can't look at me! Am I now supposed to trust my daughter’s new homeroom teacher and her new Aide when they both can’t even talk and/or look at me? Something wasn't right and something certainly needed to change...and quick!

My daughter needs people to believe in her abilities, not to just see her Down syndrome or to only see her as someone with a disability. Mariah needs FUN, HaPpY people around her that want to help her and enjoy being with Mariah! Those that work with Mariah absolutely need to be able to communicate and collaboratively work with her mom too!

After 6 weeks of much stress over what was turning into a very bad 5th Grade school year with Miss Ridhur and Miss Rollings. As each day passed it was very clear that I wasn't going to have my Parent-Teacher Conference anytime soon either too, (I signed up during the Open House!) so I finally requested to have a CLASSROOM OBSERVATION! Yup, don't know why I didn't do it sooner! After sending many emails and sending them to everybody that was part of Mariah's Educational Team, Miss Ridhur was NEVER going change to have a Collaborative and good working Parent-Teacher relationship with me. I now needed to see how she did things in her classroom!

The day had been set for me to come and observe Miss Ridhur's classroom. She knew the day I was coming and I'm sure she was anxious to have me be there IN HER CLASSROOM! Of course she was nervous, she had been doing her best at avoiding communicating with me for the past 6-7 weeks now, so here I was actually sitting in the corner of her classroom!

Ok so I walk in, I find an empty chair and sat down away from the students over in the corner next to the adjoining door to Mr. Allagood's classroom. I see where my daughter is and I made sure I wasn't near her or any of the students. I came in at the Reading class time and the entire class is taking a Reading test. The classroom was very very quiet because they were all testing. No big deal...but I thought it was a little strange that on a day she agreed to have me come and observe her Math class she is now testing all the students in a Reading or Language Arts TEST! My daughter on the other hand, was NOT taking that same READING TEST, instead was working on her own 'fluency' MATH worksheets! During the 45 MINUTES of her testing the entire class, every so often Miss Ridhur would come over to where Mariah was sitting and whisper to Ms. Rollings what she then wanted Mariah to work on. Mariah was then instructed to start working on something else by Miss Rollings. Mariah started turning her whole body around in her chair so she could read and write all the Spelling Words off the board and then turn back around in her chair again. The spelling list of words on the wall was not all that close to where she was sitting, this is why she kept turning around in her seat. *Mariah has included in her IEP ~ Close Proximity and Preferential Seating. Those Special Ed SUPPORTS & SERVICES on her IEP are on there for a reason!!

Mariah clearly was NOT doing anything that had to do with her being FULLY INCLUDED in the 5th grade GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOM with this teacher!

Mariah had recently turned in the required monthly project; a Social Studies poster that took a small team of helpers to help her complete. It was beautiful when it was completed and turned in. I saw all the other students beautiful posters, some were on the bulletin board out in the hallway, the others were in various locations within the classroom. I looked everywhere for her poster, but couldn't find it anywhere in her classroom. Then I saw that Mariah's poster was COVERED UP and BEHIND another students poster! It was peeking out with only a few 3-4 inches of her beautiful work showing!!!! The amount of work and with all of us that helped Mariah every step of the way work on it and complete her poster and it took several 'homework' sessions to finish it. It was very disappointing to see that this teacher wouldn't even display it like all the other student's posters had been. Seems this teacher really didn’t care that Mariah's HARD WORK needed to be displayed or seen by anyone, especially Mariah! Mariah worked hard on her West Virginia poster and she was PROUD of it and wanted everyone to SEE IT! This teacher didn't give Mariah any respect that she deserved for turning her monthly project in ON TIME and with following all the rules of the monthly project. Why?? Seeing that Mariah's poster was 'hidden' behind another students poster...none of the others were 'hidden' behind any...just Mariah's was. Being IN this teachers classroom was my time as a parent to see my daughter's class and to see HER POSTER displayed like all of them had been....absolutely upsetting! I can only imagine how it made my daughter FEEL! Thanks!

Where I was sitting in the back corner of the classroom, I was able to also see lots of other things in her classroom that maybe Miss Ridhur didn't realize that I was there to OBSERVE HER & HER CLASSROOM! When I couldn't find her monthly project poster displayed within the classroom anywhere, I started looking around the room for all sorts of other things and what I found was a list of all the students’ progress with reading their AR books. Accelerated Reader books that each student read they would get a sticker for every book they read. Looking at this list, I am reading all the students names, I read the list two or three times looking for Mariah's name. Mariah's name was nowhere to be found and absolutely was NOT on the classroom AR LIST!!

I was so sad and upset and my heart was broken because all along I thought I was doing right by my daughter by having her be FULLY INCLUDED in all GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS and yet, here I am seeing with my own eyes right here in her 5th grade homeroom classroom that she is actually being EXCLUDED and SEGREGATED within her General Education classroom because why?...because she has Down syndrome! Mariah had a teacher that didn't care!

As soon as my ONE HOUR CLASSROOM OBSERVATION was up...that was the only time Miss Ridhur looked up and at me and made any eye contact with me! She even spoke to me, saying, "Mrs. Harris, your observation time is up!" I smiled at her and I said, "Thank you" as I left her classroom.

The Principal had been near-by and on-hand during the entire hour observation, going between Miss Ridhur's classroom and the Science teacher, Mr. Allagood's classroom next door. He escorted me out of the class and down the stairs. It was in that stairwell that I let my favorite principal, Mr. Cashew know that I was not happy with that teacher and that it was very obvious she didn't have a clue about INCLUSION and that I didn't want my daughter to spend another day in her classroom and that Mariah needed to be in the Science teacher, Mr. Allagood's class starting Monday!

I will never forget the Parent-Teacher Conference I was finally able to have with Miss Ridhur and Mariah's other two teachers the very next day and how disgusted I was at her total lack or desire to be a GOOD TEACHER for my daughter! I was fed up with trying to make things work out with this teacher when it was very clear she had no desire to have a COLLABORATIVE & working partnership with me. My daughter was being treated LESS THAN, my daughter wasn't being praised to success. Mariah didn't get to have her homework displayed in the classroom like the other posters. Mariah wasn't being provided an opportunity to read and be tested on ACCELERATED READER BOOKS from the school library. Mariah wasn't being provided any opportunity to do grade level Math classwork while in class! Mariah was being EXCLUDED and it broke my heart to finally have answers to all the reasons why her new 5th Grade teacher wouldn't COMMUNICATE in the daily planner or respond to any of my emails or return my phone calls. This teacher was NOT A GOOD TEACHER.....for MY GIRL!!!!!

Inclusion so far was not happening in 5th Grade for Mariah!!! Miss Ridhur didn't know, maybe didn't have any training on inclusion, maybe she didn't 'volunteer' to have Mariah in her class, she had low expectations of her and she certainly didn't BELEIVE IN HER! She didn't care! Mariah IS a bright girl that can learn lots of wonderful things, but a teacher HAS TO CARE and a teacher has to have HIGH EXPECTATIONS for all students, not just the smart ones, but especially the students that struggle with their academics. Mariah will always struggle with her academics; she is going to learn what she needs to learn to be successful in life. If she has a teacher that BELIEVES in her and sees her POTENTIAL, then yes she will do well, of course any student would!

Mariah and I both had a very disappointing start to her 5th Grade school year. At the beginning of the new school year we were both excited and looking forward to having a great academic year. Now with putting in for a TEACHER CHANGE to start immediately on Monday with Mr. Allagood things have to be better! They just have to be, Mariah DESERVES a GOOD TEACHER that BELIEVES in her and will provide her with the right peer role models to sit next to her and work and assist her with Grade Level Classwork. More than anything Mariah and her mom deserve a GOOD TEACHER that is willing to return at least one phone call and TALK, COMMUNICATE & COLLABORATE....and yes...MAKE EYE CONTACT even! A GOOD TEACHER WOULD DO ALL THAT...

Putting in a REQUEST FOR A TEACHER CHANGE was the best thing that happened for Mariah's 5th Grade school year!

"Don't worry Mr. Allagood; you're going to do just fine!!"

*He was a tad nervous I'm sure!


**This is a true story ~ some teacher names have been changed and some names are Mariah's real teacher names.