Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Macho Macho Man

The last couple of days my friend SH has been quite silly! He has been yelling at me because I have not returned the class fish to our class from the summer. On a regular basis he says "BRING GABRIELLA BACK MISS MEGAN" and putting me "under arrest" I have been VERY bad.

Then yesterday at the end of the day Shane had left for the day, when all the of a sudden he comes running in arms flailing "WAIT WAIT WAIT! I forgot my jacket!" The vision of a tall gangly looking goof ball running into the room sent both Stefanie and I into stitches.

Finally, this morning SH was playing with his legos when he jumped up and ran across the room to the mirror and flexed his muscles. Mr. skinny arms pushed up the sleeves and flexed both arms. He turned and modeled his muscles to me. I commented on his muscles and he flexed again.

Silly boy!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Only 1 Bus!

Sometimes the smallest things can upset the students I work with, on this particular day it happened to be that there was only 1 bus, when we generally have 2. This was very upsetting for my friend S.H. He was throwing the ultimate of fits. We had called his mother after several attempts to calm him down, but alas we had no hope. We feared today would be a loss for him. Mom had said that S.H.'s father would be picking him up. The site leader and myself then discussed who would stay behind with him and we decided to send the bus on it's way. The bus driver started up the bus, just then S.H. screamed, jumped up and ran as fast as he could onto the bus. All was fine for the remainder of the day. If only we'd known all it would take was starting the bus....

"OOL" There is no 'P' in our pool, Let's keep it that way.

I've been volunteering with a community called Wellspring this summer teaching them aquaerobics. Wellspring is an organization that hopes to establish a residential facility for adults with disabilities. This facility would also provide a place of employment for the residents that it hosts. Anyway there are about 16 participants and I get to spend an hour of my afternoon working with them. My team teacher Stef is the teacher for this program for the summer and overheard one student saying to another. "Do you ever pee in the pool?" The other student replied "Yeah, I just did." No matter the age, I guess we have to review the rule that we are not supposed to pee in the pool.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Happy Birthday

The other day we celebrated C.M's birthday. She had been bothering her mother for over a month saying "Birthday, Birthday." So her mother called us and asked if she could bring in cupcakes even though C.M.'s birthday isn't until July. We said yes and her mother brought in cupcakes, juice, baloons (upon C.M.'s request) and a card. We passed the card around to have the class sign it. When the card got to S.H. he stared at if for awhile. Stef prompted him to write his name so he slowly wrote his name. When he was finished Stefanie reached for it and he said "I'm not done yet." So Stefanie waited while he wrote a little note. On the card S.H. had written Happy 16th Birthday Sweetheart, We love you so much.

He's so sweet, he loves his C.M.

Friday, April 10, 2009

I love technology always and forever.

This morning I saw something I really wasn't prepared for at 7:20 in the morning or at school. We have some very cool software for our kids to become more independent and one of them is a program that interprets what you say into the microphone. It can not only type for you, but you can browse the internet and even navigate tool bars. What a great option for some of our students, but you must get the device to get used to the users voice. So that's what were doing. K.K. and I were sitting on the computer and she said "Hi, my name is K.K." and the computer typed Hi, my nude gay porn. I freaked out and quickly deleted the text that had popped onto the screen. Thankfully the script was too small for K. to read so I was able to delete it before she knew what had been typed. Gotta love the quirks of technology.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I'm allergic to babies

So today was a VERY exciting day one of our para's Lara told our class that she was having a baby (very exciting news for me) The kids were very excited but SH just sat in the back of the room and said nothing. So I asked him if he was excited and he said "Uh, no, I'm very allergic to babies."

SO HILARIOUS!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Support Your Teachers

So I NEVER use this blog as a place for me to complain about things at school, but I'm just so fired up right now and I'm sitting here working detention and I have to get something off my chest. If/When you become a parent PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take it easy on your kids teachers. They really do have your students best intentions in mind, especially the special ed teachers. I don't think parents realize exactly what we do in a day. I wish they would take into consideration that not only are we teaching their student, but we are also teaching other students, the ENDLESS paperwork that comes our way is another horrific task, if it's spring than there are IEP meetings out the wazoo, transition meetings to host, summer paper work to fill out, evaluations to prepare for, Student behaviors which really do seem to elevate in the spring time, CSAP's to administer, and of course there are the parent concerns, as well as anything else that may pop up out of no where. As Special education teachers we are managers, managers of kids, managers of paras and managers of tasks. We prioritize the tasks that lay ahead, and most of the time parent concerns come third to teaching classes and student behavior, but you never know what might come up and expecting us to get back to you with a detailed e-mail in less than 24 hours really is quite unreasonable especially when 15 of those hours occur when we are not working. If you e-mail us at 4:00 in the afternoon do not expect a lengthy response in 24 hours. It's not going to happen. Our job is not one that allows us to sit in front of our computers for hours on end responding to e-mails and we typically have 7 minutes between passing periods as well as a short amount of time during our planning period to even check our e-mail let alone find answers and responses to e-mails.
We do the best we can, and many of our parents could do with a healthy dose of perspective.
Again I apologize for the rant, just keep in mind when you have your own children that teachers need time to respond.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

You can't give that to the kids...

We had our Valentine's Day party on Thursday this year so that we could have all the kids together, because Valentine's Day was on a Saturday. We also had Monday and Tuesday off so Today was the first day back. Our dear para Rosie had forgotten her Valentine's and was handing them out to the kids. There were a few kids who weren't in yet so she left them on the table. Stefanie comes in a little while later and shows me the Valentine's. Each Valentine has 2 pieces of candy taped to them. I think to myself how sweet she is and then Stefanie points out the type of candy that Miss Rosie has brought in. Miss Rosie has taped Bailey's Irish Creme candies onto all of our classes Valentine's. Boy was she embarassed.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Where's Phillip?

Today we had a class outing to the Target and Petsmart near by. As we were getting onto the bus. I did a head count, and then called Stef to do a head count. 16 kids, perfect. We get back to school and quickly prepare for 4th period. My math class comes in gets their work together and is ready to go. "Where's P.L.?" I ask
"Oh he's in the bathroom." Great, well let's get started. I start the fluency test and get the class prepared started. 5 minutes passes. P.L. is stillin the bathroom? I walk next door, no P.L. I call Cheryl over.
"Have you seen P.L.?" We walk down the hall to towards the bathroom. We stop a passing teacher and ask him if he would check the bathroom. No P.L. Now I start to panic. I head down the hall to Academic Support where Stef is working.
"Have you seen P.L." I ask
"No, was he on your bus?" Stef asks
"No, I don't think so, was he on yours?" I'm beginning to really freak out now.
"No, have you seen him since we got back?"
"No, you don't think he's at Target still do you?"
"I'don't know, should we run up there?" I walk quickly back to my class. Cheryl suggests that we call Target and Petsmart. Stefanie decides to head up to PetsMart. No answer at Target.
I run back to my computer to look up Target's number, when Cory calls. "A.S., broke his leg." Cory says before I can say hello.
"WHAT!?!?! Are you kidding me?" I shriek into the phone. I really can't handle this now.
"Just kidding, no, I have to go.... blah blah blah" I didn't hear the rest because now that I didn't have to worry about A.S., I started to worry about. P.L. again.
"Hey, Cory have you seen P.L.?"
"Oh yeah, didn't you read the note, him mom took him to the Dentist."
"WHAT!" Oh, the breath returns to my body.

Later I log into Powerschool to take attendance. Guess I should've done that first. I would have saw that he'd been excused. OOOPS!

Monday, February 2, 2009

Pencil Free Diet

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so I thought that I would post a story from last year. I used to have a can of pencils that I provided for the students, however I was CONSTANTLY having to replenish them as they were disappearing faster than I could keep up with them. I jokingly asked my class if they were eating the Pencils and ATO replied "Ms. O. I'm on a pencil free diet."

Friday, January 9, 2009

Underarrested!

SH came back from lunch today to announce that CM should be put under arrest. Stef asked him why and he said "She took, my trash and threw it away without asking." Stef asked him if he was going to stay with the teachers or if he was going to go back to lunch. He turned around and walked out of the classroom.

During Weight Training SH was lying on the ground while CM was playing with her teacher. SH was becoming agitated with CM when suddenly he jumps up and says "CM you are under arrest for lying, stealing and fishing without a license!"

Hope you don't get caught for fishing without a license too!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Dirty photos

My dear SS has since departed our school and while I miss him dearly he has left my team with some excellent memories. A personal favorite is about a "dirty" photo. SS was in pottery and for the end of the semester the teacher was having them make collages out of magazine pictures. At some point during pottery SS found a picture of a woman in her underwear with flames in the background. The photo is so dark that you can't even really see the woman, but it did elude to the skin that should be seen. During this student's daily pocket check the "racy" photo was discovered and confiscated. Although it's not really a bad picture it's not a picture that I want to explain to parents about when they ask why I let him keep it.

I smell pretty oh so pretty

Today CM asked me to go to the bathroom. She had been gone for awhile when Miss Ann came into my room laughing. I asked her what had happened and she said that she was walking down the hall when she was stopped by our Nurse's assistant. Of course I get nervous that CM has done something but come to find out CM goes to the bathroom takes the air deodorizer and sprays it on her wrists and neck. Sure enough CM comes struting down the hallway smelling herself. So Ann had to take her back into the bathroom to explain to her that this spray was used when someone has pooped and wants to make the room smell better. CM's response was "AH, POO POO!"