Re: on and on

[Guest guest]

Hey Dana,

Don't forget the jump rope competition! Congratulations on making it

through a challenging year.

We have one more week of school here. As many have mentioned,

end-of-school stress = more OCD popping up all over. My daughter is

driving me crazy: her mouth starts running even before she opens her

eyes in the morning and doesn't stop until she falls asleep at night.

She is often times very funny and has many interesting things to say

but, man, is she wearing me out!

Fortunately, since I have all of your shared experiences to learn from,

I am not in a panic about the waxing OCD symptoms, as I know they will

subside once we get into our summer routine. (Reassurance seeking has

invaded our home, like an irritating, thoroughly unpleasant houseguest

who doesn't know when it's time to go home!)

Take care,

Lesli (S.F. Bay)

[Guest guest]

HI Dana:

Wow, what a painful experience for you to go through. It must be a relief

to have gotten through to the principal and I sure hope Ava has a wonderful

team of teachers next year.

Steve is also pretty happy that summer is here and we are happy he has made

it to the end of 7th grade without too much trauma and best of all, still

alive. I spoke to his counselor yesterday and we had to say farewell as

she has been bounced to another school so we have to get to know a new

counselor.

It might be one that my husband, , had a bit of a run in with before,

so I am hoping it isn't her. We have agreed if it is I will represent

Steve's needs. But I am with you, I do like to take my big guy with me

when I am confronting the school on stuff, so I guess will have to

get over the conflict. Anyway as you have shown this conflict can produce

a good result as well as damage along the way.

I hope you and your family have a restful, enjoyable and regenerating

summer. Take care, aloha, Kathy (H)

kathyh@...

At 09:42 PM 06/09/2000 -0400, you wrote:

>Yippie! School is OVER. Whadda year. After my nightmarish visit with

>the new doctor (who I will NEVER go to again and whom I will complain

>about to his superiors soon) I decided to question Ava's teachers about

>their (reported by the doc) responses on the questionnaire they filled

>out. I posted a copy of my letter to them here.

>

>They responded rather defensively and didn't really answer my question,

>except to say that " there was no question about torturing animals so we

>couldn't have said she did, besides how would we know? " . Not exactly

>the response I was looking for! So I had the doc mail me a copy. In

>the meantime I talked to the guidance counselor, who had saved a copy,

>since the hospital lost the first one they filled out and they had to do

>another one. She saved the second one, which was filled out by only one

>teacher. It turns out the hospital must have found the original one,

>the one filled out by the whole team of 4 teachers, because that's the

>one they sent me. (Jeeze, I hope that made sense!)

>

>When we compared the 2 questionnaires they were totally different! The

>one the whole team filled out gave said Ava was a below average student,

>they rated her a 2 (on a scale of 0-2, 2 being " often " ) on 60 questions

>out of 113. They gave her a 2 on screams a lot, cries a lot, hurtful to

>others, teases and bullies others, hears voices, sees things others

>don't.........in short, they did not describe MY child at all! It was

>pretty shocking. The second questionnaire, the one that one teacher did

>because the first one was lost by the hospital, was much more accurate.

>It gave her 2's on 23 items, including impulsive, blurts out in class,

>gets out of seat, makes humming noises, argues, has trouble with

>directions, spaces out and stuff like that. It also accurately reported

>that Ava is an above average student, esp. in math.

>

>I believe the difference in the two was due to the one teacher who has

>been picking on Ava all year. She is known in the community as a very

>difficult person and she was run out of another school because of her

>meanness. There is a group of parents trying to rid this school of her

>too. I didn't join this group and chose to try to work with her

>instead. Then on Tuesday, after I emailed the team and questioned them

>again about their responses, I got a call from Ava saying that this

>teacher said her shirt was inappropriate (dress code)and she had to

>change it. Now she has worn this shirt before and it was ok. The rule

>is your bra strap can't show and it clearly didn't. Ava couldn't change

>her shirt because the one they wanted her to put on didn't match. Ava

>has big OCD stuff with clothes and matching! She usually just wears the

>same few things. I knew if I made her change she would be having a

>meltdown later so I just went and got her.

>

>Then I called the principal and said I wanted to meet with him, the

>asst. principal and the guidance counselor the next morning at 8:00. I

>brought in both questionnaires, a copy of the dress code and my husband

>(always bring a big black guy when ya want to intimidate; he's a very

>gently man but he's 6'2'', black, it's the south........:-)). I said

>that the teacher was harassing Ava as retaliation, the questionnaire was

>inaccurate and unprofessional; the guidance counselor told how wonderful

>and constructive I had been all year trying to work with these teachers

>and my husband asked what are you going to do to make sure this doesn't

>ever happen to our daughter at this school again.

>

>The principal played it cool but I could tell he was appalled by the

>whole thing. He is a very kind, decent man and he was sickened by the

>questionnaire, the retaliation, etc.. Ava works as an office assistant

>and so he knows her fairly well. He said he would meet with the

>teachers and deal with that. Then he said he would personally meet with

>the guidance counselor to decide which team to put Ava on next year and

>then meet with the teachers of that team.

>

>Today for the last day of school the kids went to a water park. Ava put

>some board shorts on over her suit and asked if they were okay to wear.

>I said, " oh, don't worry, I don't think anyone will say a thing " ;-)

>

>Well, it's late and I'm trying to sum up a whole bunch of info so I hope

>I at least made sense! I'm glad school is over and all in all Ava did

>well: she made lots of friends, she got all A's and B's, she did some

>interesting new activities (band, lacrosse, basketball, art club. drama

>class) and WE ARE DONE! Whew.

>

>Dana in NC