CHARLIE UPDATE: I had a looooooong conversation with Charlies teacher last night. She broke down the circumstances behind each of Charlies injuries, reassuring me that none of them were bully-related. I felt a lot better but explained that when I dont recieve ANY communication from the school, I have no option but to take the word of a 5-year-old. Every time he came home with blood on him wed pat Charlie down for a note, check our email, check our voicemail and check our text messages, looking for ANY communication from the school just explaining what happened. Nothing. Ever. She apologized profusely and explained that because she has her hands tied with a full class of Kindergarteners, it was the office staffs responsibility to notify the parents any time a child has a head injury or an injury that leaves a mark. Unfortunately all the current office staff are new-hires and temps that are still training. Until they get their act together, the teacher has offered to drop me a quick text whenever an injury happens though. I reassured her that ANY form of communication would be fine and she said text would be easiest for her. I asked why, in her opinion, Charlie seems to get hurt more often than most kids... and only while at school? She said all kids go through an adjustment period when they first enter a classroom environment, during which time they tend to be more prone to injuries because they tend to get overexcited while playing in large groups and dont yet understand the need to scale back their energy levels so nobody gets hurt. She said Charlie doesnt do so more or less than the other children, but he is definitely part of the 50% of the class that she can tell didnt have classroom experience at a preschool program prior to starting Kindergarten. So Charlie is definitely not alone in his owie-tendencies but she assured me that by January ALL the kids will be on the same level. There is one child in the class who is obviously a special-needs student that Ryan and I have had concerns about previously. He has been the cause of Charlies head injuries that WERE reported to us, but we had witnessed firsthand that the child acted out towards all of his classmates AND the teacher. Without the proper resources, the teacher had been utilizing parent volunteers to essentially babysit the boy during class and hold his hand at all times during recess...which we didnt feel was healthy or fair to the boy (who obviously wasnt able to participate in many activities), the other students (who kept getting hurt) or the teacher (who lost the extra resources that are normally associated with parent volunteers because they were busy babysitting). I was happy to hear last night that the school had FINALLY been granted the resources to allow a trained councilor to assist any special-needs students in the class, one-on-one, full-time while they are at school (she cant legally discuss other students specifically). What a relief!!! Im so glad that child will FINALLY get to enjoy his Kindergarten experience! And hopefully Charlie will at least have less *head* injuries! ...So were happy with the current arrangement. Were going to see how things play out moving forward but Im optimistic that the issue was communication. Ill keep you all posted as we try out the text option though. Fingers crossed!
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:06:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015