School casemanager response

Kitty's casemanager is also her math teacher. Here is her response to my e-mail. She's the only one who responded.

All,

Kitty appears to be fine in math class. However, it has been a difficult 2 weeks because of her friends in math class being withdrawn to attend schools out of the school district. One of the young ladies Kitty considered to be one of her best friends, and was in all of her classes. This loss has been the most difficult for Kitty. The other young lady was whom she shared a lot of "gossip".

Kitty has not asked to go to the nurse from Math class. I think she may have missed a class because the nurse sent her home.

Kitty does not have a BIP {Behavior Intervention Plan}. It was dismissed at the last ARD {IEP meeting}. I really don't know if a BIP can address behaviors as you described. Would you like for her to see the crisis counselor, Ms. S? She can also visit with Mr. C {her guidance counselor - although she has talked to a different guidance counselor (female) who will be her counselor next year}, Mr. J {her assistant principal}, or me.

Kitty completes her class work. Any homework which I have given her is not done at
home and is usually late, so I have not given any lately.

Anyone else have any ideas? I hope this helps

Mrs P

I don't even know where to go from here. To address the e-mail:

We knew Kitty's friends moved away, but this happened after the increase in her emotional issues so this isn't too helpful in figuring out the problem.



I didn't realize that Kitty's BIP (supposed to limit her visits to the nurse) was dismissed at the last meeting. I'm not sure it was. I know at the ARD the teachers said it wasn't being used, so they didn't see a need for it (she was only leaving one class - so the others weren't seeing the issue) and therefore they weren't following it.



No worries on the not giving her homework anymore. Saves me time arguing at the next IEP meeting that she's not ready for mainstream classes with inclusion. To keep her from being put in regular ed classes (which I don't think she can handle emotionally), I've been using the fact that she never has homework as a major reason why she wouldn't be able to be in a regular ed class where there is lots of homework. Instead of trying to get into the more subjective stuff, like her inability to handle the emotional demands.

I did talk to the school's crisis counselor who used to be a foster parent and mostly "gets it," but I don't know what I want from her (she suggested social skills class, DBT, talking to Kitty about what biopolar is (Kitty probably isn't ready for this)... all good, concrete suggestions. However, I think the problem is that I want to discuss finding alternate school placements for Kitty, not vocational assessments. I have messages in with other people too so maybe I can address this in another way. I haven't found any alternatives yet, and of course coming to the school without options and a plan, means nothing happens, so I'm not ready for that yet.

I better get some sleep.