Dawn Knight

This has been a very stressful start of the year for me. I think I dare say that it is more stressful than my first year of teaching. I began the year by finding out that I was assigned a room smaller than the one I had previuosly even though I have more students and more self-contained students than last year. I am an LD teacher for elementary and currently teach students in grades k-2. All but two of my students have come out of either the preschool program or the DD program. I have 14 students on my caseload. Right now, three are labled LD. The others are OHI, SLI, DD (transfer from another County), and SWD. The DD and SWD students both have Downs and are completely self contained except for 1 hour of academics, lunch, recess, and specials, but need para support to do these things. One of the SLI students that I recieved was not potty trained. And when I say not potty trained, I mean not at all. He had no concept of what to do in the bathroom. After more than 6 clothing changes in two days, we had ask the parent to send him in pullups. We then tried to take him to the bathroom every 30 minutes. This was very difficult since we did not have a bathroom in the classroom. If my para was out of the room providing aid for other students, I had to line up my class, walk next door to the clinic, have them sit on the floor, while I either tried to get the student to use the bathroom or had to change him. He would fight you when you tried to change him and sream don't wipe me. I was somewhat aware of this since his IEP mentioned that he still had problems with potty training and would sometimes throw or smear his feeces when you tried to change him. I unfortuantely assumed that by the time I gor him, he just needed reminded to go to the bathroom and occasionally had an accident. I was obviosly wrong. Potty training was not the only issue. Within three days, he hit two staff members. He was unable to complete tasks without one-on-one support and spent much of the day crying and yelling despite any intgervention that we tried. Thankfully, it did not take long for my adimistration to noticed that I and my para were way over our heads. It was first suggested that we do an FBA and a BIP, until I informed them that both of these were written in May while he was still in pre-school. An IEP meeting was called for this student and the DD student (see comment I made to Jonh Hurst to see background of this student). After a couple of observations, special services determined that an LD classroom was the wrong placement and he was placed (with parent permission of course) in an ID classroom. At the second IEP meeting of the year,itwas determined that the needs of one the DD student warrented the need for a second para in my room. This para has not started yet, but we anxiously awaited their arrivial. I was howver immediately concerned about the thought of having another adult in our already tiny and overcrowed classroom. Fortunately, a kidergarten classroom (with a bathroom!) became available and for the second time in less than a month, I moved classrooms. I am now completely exhausted as I and spent 9 hours moving my stuff down the hall yesterday (I didn't leave last night unitl about 9:00). Hopefully things are starting to work themselves out and I can begin to do some of the homework for these two classes that I have yet to begin.
D. Knight