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Saturday, September 13, 2008

The Irony of it All

This week I've been frustrated to the point of tears during phone conversations with both the speech therapy teacher and ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers at Maria's school. Apparently Maria doesn't qualify for either of these services. Say what?!?

I pleaded her case and gave example upon example of the areas that we see at home that you would never detect in a cursory, 15-minute evaluation. The best I could get was a "we'll keep an eye on her." I did almost snap when the ESL teacher told me that in her 33 years of teaching experience she saw no need for services. I replied that having sent 3 other kindergarteners to school prior to Maria, I did see reasons to be concerned. Does mother's intuition trump classroom experience?

With as much courtesy as I could muster I thanked her for her time and told her I was sure that she hadn't heard the last of us.

I won't say much more because I try to only criticize myself or the wasps on my blog. Suffice to say that our public school system would rather be reactive than proactive. Makes no sense to me.

And now for the irony. Yesterday Maria came bounding into the kitchen and for the first time seemed genuinely excited about something that she had learned at school. As we sat eye to eye for her to share with me her newly acquired knowledge she exclaimed...

"I learned my colors...in Spanish!"

Simply stated: OMG!

1 comments:

Emily said...

I'm frustrated for you. I'll be praying that somehow, someone's eyes will be opened. How does her teacher feel about things?