Hello! so my roommate is a SPED teacher. The school changed how SPED works to be identical to standard education at the expense of the 6th 7th and 8th graders that have mental disabilities. because of office politics and “Test Scores”, all SPED teachers got assigned a subject based on “who would make the best test scores” and she (suspiciously) got the short end of the stick. she also got assigned a repurposed office room no larger than small bedroom with no windows.
what can she do to possibly deal with or go around the internal politics? if not, how could she change the room itself to make it at least tolerable?
Edit: for all that need to know for the legal side of thimgs, we are currently in Ohio.
Write the local paper?
Oh I definitely smell a soft news cycle story on this. Can’t you just see the reporter in the classroom, no windows, full of kids.
They told (him|her) it was to improve test scores. How you ask? By moving these students to a repurposed office. One that does not even have… a window.
Haha, as if any paper had the ability to do anything but publish press releases.
Sometimes you can get positive change at local papers. Lots of the people working there got into it because they wanted to do journalism, and unlike national papers, many people who aren’t ideologically aligned with the billionaires don’t get filtered. Even if nobody at the paper follows up on it, I’ve seen getting a letter published in the public comment section of the paper get the ball moving.
Schools tend to take retributive action against both teachers and students, but that’s usually part of the sequence for building enough trouble that the school board/superintendent starts to lean on the principle.
I’m amazed that it is apparently legal (is it, where you live?). Have the parents or caretakers been informed? They probably have an opinion on this, and may be your best bet (but tread carefully, management may not like it).
Seriously, this has to violate fire codes if nothing else. There’s only one point of egress, from the sound of it.
Classrooms don’t have to have windows.
This seems to vary by state. For example, a quick google search revealed the following regulation for Texas:
- Every room or space greater than 250 ft2 (23.2 m2) and used for classroom or other educational purposes or normally subject to student occupancy shall have not less than one outside window for emergency rescue that complies with all of the following, unless otherwise permitted by 14.2.11.1.2 [Which would not apply in this case]
Poor ventilation = low performance and now COVID. And doesn’t SPED mean don’t use the usual process? Thus the word “special”.
Sounds illegal where I am living. Where is this happening?
Ohio, United states
what can she do to possibly deal with or go around the internal politics?
See if she can get a particularly influential parent on her side?
Sounds like warehousing to me
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