End of a looong week

It’s been a long week. I’m beat! Gege started his new school this week, and I had the run-in with the principal of Gege’s old preschool, work has been crazy busy… I need a break!

Thanks for everyone’s responses to my last post. I took everyone’s advice into consideration and sent the email. The version I sent was stripped of emotion and only talked about how I had not given her permission to speak to anyone about my son’s issues, that I would have preferred that she talk to me first, and that we, along with Gege’s current special ed teacher, could have met with the child care teacher together as a team. I left in the part about how Gege’s aggression didn’t appear until he attended her school, but took out the part about me being angry. I put my phone number in the email and cc’ed the superintendent, the special ed director, and two of the special ed coordinators. If I’d had Gege’s current special ed teacher’s email address, I would have cc’ed her as well.

Later I talked to a friend who is a principal in a different district, and she said that actually, the principal did have the right to talk to another person within the district about a child’s issues if she felt it was relevant to that person’s job, but conceded that what happened was in very poor taste. Oh well, we shall see what the response is. None so far – they probably need to get together to meet and discuss what to say to me.

Yesterday was Gege’s first day at the after school care. I called the child care leader in the morning, and she knew exactly who I was and was overly enthusiastic. She also claimed that the principal didn’t get a chance to tell her too much about Gege. Right.

Then later, when I was picking him up, she said he had an OK first day, but as I was walking out, she added, “And you might want to tell him that we don’t hit teachers or other children.”

WTF? He hasn’t done that in AGES. And when he used to do it, it was because he was being forced to do something he didn’t want to do. We’ve been working intensely on this and he hasn’t resorted to hitting in a long time. As far as I can tell, the child care center just lets the kids play the whole time and don’t force the kids to participate in activities. What would be the reason for Gege to hit anyone? I should have turned around and asked her what she meant, but Gege was really antsy and wanted to leave. So I’ll ask her today.

This has all left a bad taste in my mouth regarding the after school program. AJ has even suggested we hire an after-school nanny instead.

This morning, Gege’s special ed teacher was also surprised that the child care leader claimed that he hit someone, and said she would talk to her. It really should have been her talking to the child care leader to begin with – the principal of the other school didn’t need to stick her fat ass in. The other child in Gege’s class was exactly the same way when he first started at the after school program, so the teacher gave the child care staff a list of “if he does this, then do this” suggestions, and they were fine and he was fine. She’ll provide them a similar list for Gege, so we’ll see how it goes.