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.