SK

At the end of JK I came to pick up Jitter Bug from daycare one day. His teacher was yelling -at the top of her lungs- at Jitter Bug in the classroom. He came out in tears. She yelled because he had peed his pants and didn't want to go to his cubby to get a chance of clothes, in case his friends saw him. Fair enough, most would say. However this teacher wanted him "teach him a lesson" about being too lazy to go to the washroom. On the drive home, Jitter Bug told me she had pushed him off the stool. He had never said anything like this before and hasn't said anything like it since. So I switched him to a different center where he finished JK and continued to attend until Grade 1. I eventually started working there as well, and we were so lucky to have wonderful educators who for the most part, knew that a lot of Jitter Bug's behaviour was not his fault, or intentional.


 SK started and the first month went without incident. Well that's a bold faced lie, but if we're using Jitter Bug standards it went without incident. He didn't try to leave school property, he wasn't having tantrums, and he only had about 3 accidents per week.


I know what you're thinking. The kid was 5 and still peeing his pants?! Well he's now almost 7 and it still happens so get over it. We had a meeting at the school so I could sign his IEP. It was strictly academic focused and not once did it ever mention what skills they were going to utilize to help him improve in areas of transition, self regulation, social interactions, ect. What they did have was a "Safety Plan" that included having a staff member trained in NVCI (non violent crisis intervention) and the entire plan included calling me to have Jitter Bug picked up. The only words uttered by his principal were "I thought we were beyond this stuff" Thanks a lot, a$$hole.


At the same meeting Spot's teacher was present. She presented to me two stories about Spot telling a "tall tale". Both turned out to be true stories. No apology was made for the mistake. Principal told me that when a group of students targeted Spot-and only Spot- with snowballs, he had threatened them. There was no mention that some how the yard supervisor had neglected to see the students all ganging up on my son. The problem was that he didn't react positively to this incident. Who would? I thought.


I now see what they were trying to do. They wanted to make the issue a family issue. This had nothing to do with Jitter Bug, this was a meeting to show that they had built a case against our family. Quite curious considering Spot's parent teacher conference had taken place just a month earlier and not one damn area of concern had been brought up. But now without a phone call or note home, all of a sudden it was so much of a concern they needed to squeeze it in to this useless meeting about Jitter Bug. Well one phone call to principal with me using my serious voice fixed that problem. I've never had Spot included in a meeting again.


 I came home and vented to Hubby, who thought I was over reacting to due to pregnancy hormones. The year went on with Jitter Bug getting sent home about twice a week. The principal even went so far as to ask me once "How stable is your home life?"


I was done. I decided now, that if I was going to get what Jitter Bug needed, I couldn't approach this as a popularity contest. I was going to step on some toes. I was going to make some people mad. I knew the squeeky wheel gets the grease. So I set out with a plan. What's that saying again? Oh right. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Well I'll bet He was rolling on the ground just watching us.