Today was a hard day at work. I sat in meetings ALL day today and they were intense meetings. There were two cases where the committee told parents that they wanted to test their children for special education specifically to rule out a learning disability. The testing results do not show a learning disability but there are concerns due to elevated scores in the area of depression on a questionnaire completed by the child's teacher. NOW, they want to label the child as emotionally disabled when the child has clear stressors/problems at home with parents, arguments between parents that escalates to police being called. The child is clearly worried about his home life and it is impacting him at school. Does that make the child emotionally disabled? There is much more to the case, of course. I'm not a parent, but I would be very pissed off if the school bent over backwards to convince me to allow them to test for a learning disability and you can back to tell me that my child is emotionally disabled. If it's that serious, there should have been some mention of it at the table when we were discussing concerns. There are other students who are performing poorly who do not qualify for special education and emotional concerns are discovered during the course of the testing but we did not make those children emotionally disabled...we/they recommended counseling. No ED labels. We recommended that they get assistance to deal with the concerns outside of school.

I get really pissed off that committee members are not upfront with parents. They say enough to get what they want from parents and then parents are caught up in a system/process that they did not anticipate. To label someone disabled in general is a huge deal to me. An emotional disability is a heavy, heavy label and a huge, huge deal to me.

I often want to say nothing because it would be easier for me...I am usually the lone voice of dissent at the table. I take a lot of heat for disagreeing with them and being the odd woman out. But usually parents appreciate my input. If there are concerns about my child that rise to the level of warranting a disability, I want to know about it before and while we are making the decision about what we do about it (to test for a disability or not). I think it's dishonest and misleading. I always try to think of it from the parents perspective...What information would I want the school to tell me? I hate to see people taken advantage of or mislead. I believe that if we were going to consider emotional problems/disabilities it should have been discussed from the very beginning, not after he doesn't qualify for anything else.

I'm pissed off, but I need to find a way to channel it...I still need to be a member of the committee and I don't want my judgment clouded by emotions and reactions. I want to make the best decision that I can make on behalf of the student and family.

venting................. ;afjapoteuf['aoseifu'sdof'aosdufoduf[osidufa'osiduf'asodfja'sodifj ....GOSH DARNIT!!!!!! #&$&(#*$(*#&$ it-shay...remember pig latin?

Peace