April 24, 2008 8:41 AM
Loudoun County Public Schools - school nurse problems
Once again, I have found myself in the middle of a mess with the school nurse who for the past two years been subjecting my son with disabilities to hyper-scrutiny and - I believe - a different standard than the general school population.
(See Does this kid look sick to you? and A rant maybe only mothers of kids with special needs will understand)
I made this charge last year when I had three sons in the same school and was receiving several calls a week about all of them. This year two of my sons have moved to different schools and am not receiving calls from their new school nurses.
Does that tell us anything?
As many parents have learned, though the school system is full of wonderful professionals who love our kids and see beyond their disability, there are those who will never see them as fully-entitled human beings. They may profess to see them equally, but this is one place where a parent can say with justification, "Your actions speak so loudly I can't hear what you're saying."
I'm collecting stories from public school parents - particularly Loudoun County - who have experienced this hyper-vigilance from school nurses. Have you felt that your child - with or without a disability - has been singled out? Have you ever felt harassed or intimidated by a school nurse or the administrative level?
Please comment - anonymously if you wish - or email me privately to add to my data collection.
And one piece of advice: don't accept this treatment. Document it. Require the nurse to put things in writing and start a file. Respond in writing yourself. If your child has a disability and you need an advocate, call or email Eleanor Voldish at LARC.
And don't forget, if you live in the area and have a child with special needs, I will be talking about the spiritual journey we all share tonight at St. Andrew's Church in Clifton.
Posted in Disabilities, Loudoun County, Public schools | Permalink
Comments
Hi Barbara,
My sympathies are with you! I haven't experienced exactly what you have, but what do you think about this...
I have a son who is HoH (Hard of Hearing), and it's not the school nurse who scrutinizes him, it's the school psychologist. She took it upon herself to evaluate how he was doing at the beginning of first grade.
My son, at the time, had moderate hearing loss in his "good" ear, and moderate-to-severe loss in his "bad" ear. He wore Hearing Aids (HAs) in both, and used an FM at school. This is a little receiver that clips onto his HA's, which picks up a microphone worn by the teacher.
Due to the school district screwing up, they did not have an FM ready for him at the beginning of the school year, so he was muddling through as best he could.
If you don't know about HA's... it's not like glasses. You can't "correct" your hearing the way you can "correct" your vision. The sound you receive is comparable to what you'd hear if you left a tape recorder running in the middle of a classroom and tried to listen to what it recorded later. ALL sounds are amplified... every scrape of a chair leg, every pencil tap, every rustle of clothing. It's a HUGE effort to listen to all that, and attend to the sound you're "supposed" to be listening to. The FM pipes the teacher's voice (or whomever is using the mic) right into his ear, so it's much easier to discriminate.
Naturally, without the FM, he had a hard time following what was going on in the classroom. As the only HoH kid, he probably didn't want to constantly ask for things to be repeated, and draw attention to himself. And, frankly, as a 6 year old BOY, adjusting to school after a whole summer of camping, riding his bike, swimming and playing, he would rather have been just about anywhere else!
I observed him myself and could see his frustration, but he was not being disruptive.
The school psychologist wrote a report, characterizing hims as "anxious", depressed, anti-social, and generally not very bright.
It didn't seem to register to her that he couldn't hear what was going on in the classroom without the FM.
I took him to our local university, which has an Audiology department, and had him evaluated by their education specialist. It was like night and day. She indicated a couple of specific areas of concern, but characterized him overall in glowing terms... extremely bright, pleasant, cooperative, insightful, good sense of humor, etc.
I make sure to attend every meeting where the school psychologist will be present, to minimize her hyper-scrutiny. I have to insist that she confine her comments to what she has observed, not what she infers.
Stay strong!
Julie
Posted by: Julie | April 24, 2008 2:29 PM
