Monday, January 26, 2009

I believe this to be a questionable choice...

I just heard from a reliable source that a certain MARSD "professional" is having a "projected long term absence" and will have the cases that she had been put in charge of (but had not shown up for work for, not one single day since her first day of work) will be placed in the hands of her biggest supporter.

Well. Well. How many issues are there in this little bit of information? How about the fact that the person who is taking a "long term absence", is, presumably still getting paid by the district? Or, should I say, the tax payers?

How about the issue that many, many parents that I have talked to wrote in to request that the "professional" not be their child's case manager, for fear that she could not be an impartial, fair member of their child's CST? Because they feared reprisals from her? And now they will, instead, be forced to accept the fact that their new case manager is someone who publicly and strongly supported the "professional" at a board of education meeting? Someone who was clearly upset with the parent group who was being unjustly blamed for the "professional's" job change?

This was the best that the district could do?

The letter sent out to parents states that the "Special Services Department is committed to the student centered management of the educational, diagnostic needs of each student" and that Dr. Lake "sincerely appreciates your continued support of our educational mission".

For parents who's children are at the middle school, or who's case manager, for whatever reason, continued to be a part of the middle school's CST, I doubt they are feeling warm and fuzzy about this decision.

Come on, you can do better than that.

2 comments:

LIVSPARENTS said...

Glad that you found my blog, and especially glad to see I have a fellow special ed Aberdeener/Matawanna to commiserate with. I've flagged your blog as a great resource for a lot of different issues...thanks for the link, Bill

Aberdeener said...

Dr. O'Malley assured us that he would endeavor to honor all requests regarding the composition of a student's CST.

Some parents may want to consider sending another letter.