School answering machine

[cambrook]

This is an actual message that a school in Australia has on its machine when you call the school. I think more schools should incorporate this. Very Funny but to the point!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php ... 7736234810" target="_blank

[The Jackson]

Bravo. They've got it. Enough with the BS.

[Dan Schultz]

Must have been pulled. This is what I see...

"This video either has been removed from Facebook or is not visible due to privacy settings."

[The Jackson]

That particular Facebook video was pulled, but this is all over YouTube.

[TMurphy]

Entertaining, for sure, and with quite a bit of truth to it...but real??? No way.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/palisades.asp

[iiipopes]

Oh, Yeah!

Now, of course, what goes along with this is the other side of the picture of those parents who have children with learning disabilities that the school system does not fully acknowledge and make allowances for, and the school administration and faculty should be slammed for that as well.

Last year, even after loading down the administration with all of the medical reports and related documentation about my son's Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, and how it has unfortunate behavorial manifestations, the principal of the school told me to my face that we were not being proper parents. This is in spite of having a primary physician, a pediatric neurologist, a clinical psychologist, and many other secondary resources review our parenting skills and complimenting us on our approach to parenting, including maintaining of proper routines and checklists, imposing proper responsibilities and consequential remedial measure (i.e. discipline) for our son, and staying in constant dialog not only with him, but the professionals so we are all on the same page to develop as best as possible proper work habits and such. He had such severe migraines from the mismanagement of his IEP that we finally had to have our neurologist pull the trigger and send the homebound form to the administration to require them to send, at taxpayers' expense, a tutor to teach him at home when they would not properly implement the IEP.

So, as far as the general idea of what this particular Australian school system is trying to get across, I'm all for it. But for those of us who still follow what can basically be summed up as, "If you get in trouble at school, you will get doubly in trouble at home," then it needs to be taken with circumspection.

By the way: when the annual achievement testing came due, of which the results help determine how much money the school district gets from the state, they sent someone to get my son and help him sit the test, because with his profoundly gifted intellect, he actually and demonstratively single handedly raises the average score for the entire school district so they can get more money from the state. This is no joke. I have the test results to prove it.

So I have mixed feelings about the telephone answering machine message. But it is funny. Reminds me of the Don Henley song, "Get Over It," with the lyric: "I'd like to find the inner child in you and kick it in the *** -- get over it."

Epilogue: this year, in a different school, the principal has a special ed background and they are doing everything they can to help him learn to cope with the limitations of his situation and fully integrate. Now if we can just get the migraines under control, so he can stay in school all day.

[TMurphy]

Oh, Yeah!

Now, of course, what goes along with this is the other side of the picture of those parents who have children with learning disabilities that the school system does not fully acknowledge and make allowances for, and the school administration and faculty should be slammed for that as well.

Last year, even after loading down the administration with all of the medical reports and related documentation about my son's Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, and how it has unfortunate behavorial manifestations, the principal of the school told me to my face that we were not being proper parents. This is in spite of having a primary physician, a pediatric neurologist, a clinical psychologist, and many other secondary resources review our parenting skills and complimenting us on our approach to parenting, including maintaining of proper routines and checklists, imposing proper responsibilities and consequential remedial measure (i.e. discipline) for our son, and staying in constant dialog not only with him, but the professionals so we are all on the same page to develop as best as possible proper work habits and such. He had such severe migraines from the mismanagement of his IEP that we finally had to have our neurologist pull the trigger and send the homebound form to the administration to require them to send, at taxpayers' expense, a tutor to teach him at home when they would not properly implement the IEP.

So, as far as the general idea of what this particular Australian school system is trying to get across, I'm all for it. But for those of us who still follow what can basically be summed up as, "If you get in trouble at school, you will get doubly in trouble at home," then it needs to be taken with circumspection.

By the way: when the annual achievement testing came due, of which the results help determine how much money the school district gets from the state, they sent someone to get my son and help him sit the test, because with his profoundly gifted intellect, he actually and demonstratively single handedly raises the average score for the entire school district so they can get more money from the state. This is no joke. I have the test results to prove it.

So I have mixed feelings about the telephone answering machine message. But it is funny. Reminds me of the Don Henley song, "Get Over It," with the lyric: "I'd like to find the inner child in you and kick it in the *** -- get over it."

Epilogue: this year, in a different school, the principal has a special ed background and they are doing everything they can to help him learn to cope with the limitations of his situation and fully integrate. Now if we can just get the migraines under control, so he can stay in school all day.

Sad, and very surprising to hear about the problems you had getting your son the assistance he needs, and glad to hear things are getting better. Unfortunately, from my experience working in a public school, I find that all too often the exact opposite is the problem...students who very clearly have learning or behavioral disorders and need to be classified as such to be successful, but their parents refuse to face that fact and won't even have them evaluated, so they just keep failing.

[Chuck Jackson]

By the way: when the annual achievement testing came due, of which the results help determine how much money the school district gets from the state, they sent someone to get my son and help him sit the test, because with his profoundly gifted intellect, he actually and demonstratively single handedly raises the average score for the entire school district so they can get more money from the state. This is no joke. I have the test results to prove it.

That may very well be and I don't doubt that he has done so as I have seen it done many times, BUT his scores are secondary to the real reason they made a big deal of him being there. A school has alot more at stake with NCLB and Federal Funding if a student doesn't show up for the test than how they perform. Every sub-category must have 100% attendance at these tests for the entire results to be valid. You can miss AYP if all the ELL, ESL, FDL, and Special Ed kids do not attend and take the tests. Really, you can have a high school such as the one I teach at that missed AYP last year (and was on the "Watch"list for 2 years) because one ELL student and 3 Special Ed students were not present. Mind you, the average for all other students was 6 points higher than the average in Reading and 5 points higher in the Math portion. You can challenge the results, but it is a tough thing. In the past 4 years I have seen my school resort to sending truancy officers to homes to get kids, offer kids Ipods and other gee-gaws to entice them to come to school to test, and a whole barrage of other things to ensure that they have 100% attendance. In your sons case, he is in a very special sub-category of Special Education students, students who no matter what their specific mental functioning levels, have to take the same test as the genius in their school. This is, of course, absolute bullshit, but it's the way the law was written during the Bush Administration and thusly still in effect. By his attendance, he helped the school district get money for Special Ed kids, which includes GATE kids. That dollar-per-pupil money is almost TWICE the amount a rank-and-file student gets.

As for your son's treatment, you should be quoting the Americans with Disabilities Act line by line to your school district. It was written for people in your position. If you aren't, you should, if you are and they aren't complying, simply sue them. This is major discrimination. Plain and simple. Vox Populi and the Supreme Court have said so and the yokels who run your schools should be trussed up and have to memorize the entire Act.

I feel for your situation, but it should be well within your control with a good lawyer and a quick call to your local media. They eat this stuff up. GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Chuck

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Last year, even after loading down the administration with all of the medical reports and related documentation about my son's Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, and how it has unfortunate behavorial manifestations, the principal of the school told me to my face that we were not being proper parents. This is in spite of having a primary physician, a pediatric neurologist, a clinical psychologist, and many other secondary resources review our parenting skills and complimenting us on our approach to parenting, including maintaining of proper routines and checklists, imposing proper responsibilities and consequential remedial measure (i.e. discipline) for our son, and staying in constant dialog not only with him, but the professionals so we are all on the same page to develop as best as possible proper work habits and such. He had such severe migraines from the mismanagement of his IEP that we finally had to have our neurologist pull the trigger and send the homebound form to the administration to require them to send, at taxpayers' expense, a tutor to teach him at home when they would not properly implement the IEP.

I share your pain. We have also had problems with the school properly following the IEP for our Asperger's son. They have not directly blamed our parenting, but they consistently fail to implement the strategies that have worked for him. This results in him manifesting behavior problems and being sent to the principal. At that point, it becomes a "discipline" problem for them...as if he has any control over his behavior when they don't take the necessary steps to keep him from being overly stimulated.

[iiipopes]

As for your son's treatment, you should be quoting the Americans with Disabilities Act line by line to your school district. It was written for people in your position. If you aren't, you should, if you are and they aren't complying, simply sue them. This is major discrimination. Plain and simple. Vox Populi and the Supreme Court have said so and the yokels who run your schools should be trussed up and have to memorize the entire Act.

I feel for your situation, but it should be well within your control with a good lawyer and a quick call to your local media. They eat this stuff up. GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Chuck

Chuck, I have quoted the ADA and everything else. And even though I don't have my law license right now, I work for a firm that specializes in labor law so we are all very well aware of all of this. This is the only reason I have been able to get this far with the administration, by being able to speak their language. You should have been there a couple of years ago when they weren't giving us proper access to the school for Cub Scout recruiting, and I went to the school board in my full Scout leader uniform with the rest of the leaders and the Scouts and quoted the Boy Scout Act and how they could get all their federal funding, yes, all of it, yanked by the Kansas City Civil Rights Office if they didn't comply with that law and let our Pack do recruiting at the school in the same way PTA, sports, etc., all get to do. The newspaper ate it up so much that they gave my son a full page spread in their feature section that they usually profile leading businessmen of the community. Finally, Missouri has a MAP test (Missouri Assessment Program), and that is the test that is scored for funding that I referred to above. It is tied into the "No Child Left Behind" act, and yes, all you say is true about funding based on attendance, but in this state funding also tied to performance on that particular battery of exams that takes a whole week out of every school year to administer. So thank you for your kind remarks, we are all on top of it.

Todd, thanks. It's good to know we're all in there together.

Here is the kicker with Asperger's: all of the problems normally associated with some manifestations of autism, including the fixations and social interaction issues, are usually accompanied with incredible intellectual ability. A few years ago when he was tested for his accelerated classes at school, because of his Asperger's, he wouldn't even finish parts of the test, as he told the testing staff they were boring, and chose to crawl under the table and play with toys instead and wouldn't come out. Even at that, the total results of his accelerated testing could not be accurately scored not because he didn't finish them, but because the test couldn't measure as high as his performance was. The best they could say was that his IQ was above 180. Now, in the real world you and I know that number and $1 might get you a coffee refill nearest convenience store, but it shows how that when he has a good day, it's really good, and when he has a bad day, the uninformed want to treat it as a discipline issue rather than a medical issue that affects how the chemical firings of the synapses gets cross-ways (oversimplified, but I'm already taking up way too much bandwidth).

The whole point of this rant is that every parent should be as educated and informed as possible about their child's situation, whether it be discipline, glasses, braces, psychological issues, autism, physical issues of all types, etc., and stay in constant dialog with the school district and the medical providers to do the best for their child. So when discipline is called for, the parent in conjunction with the "team" can administer it, and when accommodations are in order, the "team" can tailor what is necessary to help the child.

Even though my son does have a recognized condition, he knows very well he cannot use it as an excuse, and must still do his best in a behavioral context. It is something to be worked through and coping mechanisms put in place. So we have him in Scouts, and we require no less discipline and personal behavior standards where possible. He knows that since he does do well on school work, that many people will not understand how there can be other issues as well. The unfortunate kicker is that because the synapeses simply do not fire in order properly, even daily routines just simply don't get done without constant reminders. For example, even though we have had a small aquarium for years, and he walks right in front of it on the way to the kitchen every morning, he still has to be reminded to stop, turn on the light, and feed them, where you or I can develop personal routines and habits that we take for granted.

Anyway, enough ranting. It is regrettable that the particular Austrailian school district felt it necessary to post such a message, if indeed it is a real message, and it is even more regrettable that there are so many others who do need help that aren't getting it.

And now to close, another telephone message, this one a spoof, the Mental Health Hotline:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFmH66KT4RY" target="_blank

[TMurphy]

Anyway, enough ranting. It is regrettable that the particular Austrailian school district felt it necessary to post such a message, if indeed it is a real message, and it is even more regrettable that there are so many others who do need help that aren't getting it.

And now to close, another telephone message, this one a spoof, the Mental Health Hotline:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFmH66KT4RY" target="_blank" target="_blank

See my post earlier in the thread for the snopes link. It is, most definitely, not a real message.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Even though my son does have a recognized condition, he knows very well he cannot use it as an excuse, and must still do his best in a behavioral context. It is something to be worked through and coping mechanisms put in place. So we have him in Scouts, and we require no less discipline and personal behavior standards where possible.

Another staggering coincidence. We have our son in Cub Scouts, too. He's a Webelos I this year. He does seem to do better in the meetings and ceremonies there and has benefited from the experiences.