Give me drugs so that I won’t be afraid.

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Since I truly believe that my children have been in an excellent elementary school, for them, and that they have thrived there, I do get frustrated with rants against ALL schooling, so I'm glad to see some softening in this thread, admitting that it is very individual: individual both to the child, and to the school.

Parents have to remember that you can choose the best school in the world, the one everyone raves about, and it can still be wrong for your one unique child. Individual fit is EVERYTHING.

If a child is unhappy or failing to thrive, it is a parents duty to ask why, and look how the environments the child is in may not be suitable for the child. I learned that with my son's preschool. NEVER again will I be talked out of my instincts, or allow myself to feel that I've invested so much into one road, that I cannot take another.

Every child can be happy with learning, once in an environment suitable to them. It may be a public school, it may be a private school, it may be a homeschool, it may be unschool. But every child CAN be happy, I truly believe that, and it is an important thing for parents to remember as they make choices for their child.

I have been in several public schools and with the exception of the aforementioned one that the principal turned around, I've yet to personally see any that fit your description. I have heard of private schools (but have never seen) that tend to meet your description, though from what I've heard thats because they are trying to "force" the child into the mold of the ideal person for the church that runs the school

I suggest you ask schools to let you observe their classrooms - tell them you are considering moving to the area and want to see if the school would be a good fit for your child. I'm sure your view of public schools will turn around 180 degrees as soon as you start doing so. Your comments only apply to a very small minority of public (and private) schools.

I did that when my daughter was in kindergarten.
"Ask" is the wrong word. Try "demand."
They knew that refusing was illegal, but it took a lot to get them to admit it.
Once inside, as I said, I could write a book about all that was wrong.
I settled for a twenty-page letter to the board of ed.

One ignorant aide actually did refuse, locked the door and refused to answer the bell or my pounding on the door for a half-hour.
I was so pissed, for a moment I considered a law suit that would close the whole school system.
I'm still not sure that it would have been a bad idea.

There are no perfect schools. But is something less than perfect always bad for the kids? The answer is no. You can't walk into a school with a checklist. It's very intuitive. Of course, an aide locking a door on you is a sure sign something is off, but sometimes it is worth asking ourselves if our expectations are really appropriate.

you also can't use just one day in one class to get a good idea of what its like. I'd say try 3 days (not necesarily all day, but make sure you cover morning and afternoon) over at least a 3 week period

if I went to your house on a day you had a severe headache, your phone was ringing every 20 minutes for some trivial reason or other, and just when you made your plans, something happened that made you have to rework out all of your plans again before you could start them - 3 x, would I see you acting as you typically would act? Engaging in the activities you typically would do and to your best ability to do them?

Sometimes a school day is like that. Especially on days where there is some program or assembly and the guest speaker has to change their time of arrival, or amount of time they can stay for whatever reason. Sometimes thats at the exact last minute because their car breaks down or they are lost

If you were really doing that for half and hour than she would be in trouble with the law were she to let you in, as your very behavior was showing you were in an agitated state which made it unsafe for the children in the school to be around you. And if that is what got you in you should thank your lucky stars the school didn't call the police and have you arrested for endangering the welfare of a child instead of letting you observe

Also if you did not have a pass to show her that you were allowed there (or were not escorted to the room) than she would also be in legal trouble for letting you in the room. How is an aide to know you aren't little Johnny's mom who intentionally broke his arm when he was 3, trying to come in under false pretenses and take him back? or peadophile? or schizophrenic who believes sarah is his daughter and will do anything to get her back?

The appropriate response, that doesnt make you look like a raving lunatic on drugs who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the children, is to go back to the office and tell the principal the teacher needs to make sure its okay before she lets you in. Or you could even knock on the door of the next room and ask that teacher to call the principal and explain the situation to you




Wouldn't have happened, especially because of the way you were behaving. What most likely would have happened would be a counter suit would be awared that would keep you from ever going within 150 of the school in order to protect the students

Good points, Triangular Trees.

I am probably going to take a lot of flack for saying this, but one of the issues in the ASD community is that people often cannot see the other side of their actions, why the response from the other person might, actually, have been reasonable. To understand how their actions would appear to the average person. And when I point that out, I'm often told they shouldn't have to understand, the other person should understand them. Well, thats quite a stalement, isn't it? Makes it very difficult to navigate the world. I get so frustrated seeing it.

On the day in question, I told them ahead of time that I intended to take my child out a half hour before dismissal. The aide knew who I was and that I intended to pick up my child. She was just being spiteful and refused to release my child.

The door in question was downstairs, and all the students were upstairs.
No one, including the aide, felt threatened in any way. They were just having a little fun.

I had observed the procedures several times, and was not disruptive at all, by anyone's standards.

The entire program, on their best day, was mindbogglingly ignorant. The basic structure contradicted everything you learn in teacher's college about early childhood education.

Would anyone like to see my 20-page letter to the Board of Ed?
Several of the members commented privately that they took my letter seriously and wanted to look into it, but were afraid for political reasons. It did cause something of a buzz, but I don't know how it ended. I got so disgusted that I went to the charter school and didn't look back. I am now a board member at the charter school.

There was no room for anyone to accuse me of anything unreasonable.

She had your child???! !! !!

I don't recall that little fact from the first discussion.

It takes time to get down to the truth, so that readers can see it all accurately, that's all. I hope these discussions haven't upset you. Just look objectively at the summary, and the questions raised. All sides had merit, based on the little we knew.

It doesn't matter whether they knew you or not, most schools have strict regulations that you have to show id to do such things in order to keep the children from being abducted. Though the way you originally wrote indicated you had no children enrolled in this school and just wanted to observe the classes

did you ever see this aide let anyone into the school? I know if she was an aide in the US, she wouldn't be allowed to let someone in from the outside. Not even a teacher would be, unless they were the acting authorized representive to do so at that time period




According to your own description of your behavior everyone on the other side of the door would have been frightened by your behavior. No doubt your child was withheld from you for her own safety



And was this after you pounded on the door for half an hour? Second floors do have windows and you can hear what goes on outside when you are on the second floor, and sometimes even see it. If the kids saw you, or recognized your voice, after you had done your pounding they would have been literally terrified of you and so would not have been concentrating on their work.

just think how you would feel if your daughter was sitting in her kindergarten class and some man starting banging on the door shouting "open up, I want in, you have to let me in, open up" and he did it for half an hour. Don't you think that would upset her? Make her nervouse when she sees a strange man?
Once you engaged in the pounding for 30 minutes you lost any hope of seeing a typical school day at that school




If you were pounding on the door and shouting open up its amazing the kids were even able to sit in their chairs while you were in the room



And did you include the part about how you were pounding on the door while demanding the employees let you inside the school? I know I definately wouldn't want to be in a school that allowed you in when you were like that, or even on a date after that event, as it shows a serious disregard for the students safety



Pounding on the door for half and hour is very unreasonable in itself

Last edited by Triangular_Trees on 22 Jul 2008, 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All this, out of one sentence?
I had to look again at my post (from Tue Jul 22, 2008 8:12 am )

I quietly observed several times.
The spitefulness was in retaliation for my letter. No one pretended otherwise.
They did a bunch of other petty things, too, and my kid came home in tears more than once.
The day they refused to release my child was the last straw.
I am not a man.
No one shouted.
The students could not see or hear me.
No one could hear any kind of knocking or pounding from so far away.
I'm not sure where in the building they could hear the bell.
The aide actually smirked when they finally released the class.
I said nothing and took her home.

I'm thinking that part may be taken on some added flair in the story telling. Whether or not it did, it really is difficult to get an accurate view from what someone says in one sentence in post.

Although, I think suggesting how that one sentence might look to the other side is important. You had a point.

well her first post gave me the image of her barrelling into a "random" school, demanding to observe a classroom right then and there, refusing to leave until they buckled down and gave in to her. Then storming down to a classroom and when the teacher shut her out to protect the students, she engaged in beating on the kindergarten classroom door demanding to be let in, while the scared kindergarteners tried to listen to their teacher and have fun

You said that they wouldn't let you in, and then once you were inside you noticed alot that was wrong, then you mentioned writing a 20 page letter and considering a lawsuit. THat makes it sounds like one of the main reasons for your writing the 20 page letter is that you weren't allowed in




I never thought you were. I also used examples of females. However the image one gets in their mind of a male pounding on a school door is often very different from the image of a female doing so, even though the effects of both are the same, so I used male when asking how you'd feel if your daughter was in that class. And I wrote that before you made it known that this was your child's school. I was still under the impression that this was a school you had asked to observe in order to see if you wanted to send your child there


Most people would also be shouting to be let in, if they were beating on the door and ringing the bell for half an hour and no one was letting them in, especially if someone had already seen them. I know I would be



not necessarily. You can't say the couldn't hear you unless you were where they were at when the pounding was going on and couldn't hear it yoursef. And then there could have been a dozen other reasons why a few students wouldn't be on the second floor at the time, even if everyone else is.

That does depend somewhat on the layout of the school, which I obviously don't know, and if you were knocking, rather than beating, a window may have needed to be open. I have heard a baseball hit by a bat on the third floor of a school, though i'm sure the windows were at least partially open then



again that depends on the school and the type of bell, and again I obviously can't comment on your school. The once school i am in has a bell that first sounds like the typical buzzer than it pauses but if no one opens the door it plays a recording of dogs barking, the next some type of music. Each one getting gradually louder. Since that school is all one hallway with maybe 10 classrooms total you can quickly hear it all over the school. Then another school i am has a bell that only rings once each time you push it and you have to be at the secretaries desk to hear it




so they kept her until regular dismissal time then? I woul dhave called the police though granted i doubt they'd take a 30 minute delay as being serious enough to care about