My father's ashes

[kayc]

18 hours ago, Clematis said:

And the only other person would be the superintendent, and that would make him furious.

Of course it would make him furious.  He gets his way by bullying.  He uses his furious-ness to get his way by intimidating people whose jobs are subject to him.  That's why it's called abuse of power.  You have someone over him, I'd go to him/her.  But you have to exhaust all avenues so that may mean going to the inept human resource person first.  When that doesn't pan out, then take it to the district office, the superintendent.  Definitely contact a lawyer to advise you and have your back.  I was told to contact BOLI when I was going through it but I couldn't because my boss owed me back wages and if I did contact them, they would lock his doors and I'd never get paid.  By that time I was out of my job and needed the money.

[Clematis]

On 2/18/2018 at 5:13 AM, kayc said:

Of course it would make him furious.  He gets his way by bullying.  He uses his furious-ness to get his way by intimidating people whose jobs are subject to him.  That's why it's called abuse of power.  You have someone over him, I'd go to him/her.  But you have to exhaust all avenues so that may mean going to the inept human resource person first. 

His direct supervisor is the superintendent. Human Resources would be the only other avenue inside the district.

This is really getting to me. The whole document (Improvement Plan) is very poorly written; it is vague, has poor grammar, mixes things up, and mixes up terminology that he should know as well as anyone around. He also has an outline with bullet points that is so disorganized it is rather astonishing. He uses comments like "See prior bullet" and the two are unrelated. He also talks like that, going in circles, backtracking, and contradicting himself. Then he gets angry that we are going in a circle and not going anywhere. He should have had someone edit it for him so that it made sense, just like how in our last meeting he had his assistant/secretary come in and interpret for him so that she could explain what he was trying to say. She told me about four months ago that one had to be really careful listening to him because he leaves out parts that he thinks he said, and therefore what he actually said makes no sense.

A close friend who is a psychiatrist told me that based on what I had said about him, she thought he sounds like he has early signs of dementia. I think she's probably right... This is a man who has had a top level career who is saying totally crazy things. He told me not to say "does that make sense?" because that means the same as "do you understand?", which is the same as telling the other person that they are stupid. I told him that they are opposites because if I say "does that make sense?" that puts the onus on me...perhaps I have not been clear or have garbled things in some way. He insisted that I was totally wrong. He also has spoken with derision of my using active listening and reflective listening. And when I told him that it was not insubordination to fail to do things that were unreasonable, impossible, or illegal, he yelled back at me, "Oh yes that is insubordination!" Another friend suggested that perhaps he is trying to trap me into doing something that is illegal...

[Clematis]

The more I think about this and talk to other people, the more I think he really does have dementia. Here is this man who had a stellar career who writes at a level that would not pass muster at a good high school as a freshman, and the way he talks is worse. He has totally co-opted Suellen from being the Special Education coordinator to being his personal assistant. I think it's because he cannot function without her. It seems that she helps him write and think and interprets for him when she needs to when he talks. When he goes to a meeting, he says very little and doesn't always follow what's going on. I have seen him do simple presentations and even though someone was helping him, he still got things all scrambled up so that it didn't make sense. He reminds me of the father of one of my best friends, Herb, who had been about the most brilliant person I ever knew, and being aware of how much he lost, he just became very quiet.

He is referred to as a "national expert" and has had a career at that level, until recently. I think he is hiding here and thought he could get away with two or three more years before retiring. He is 64, and if he could get another year or two, he would be in better shape for retirement. I'm thinking he thought no one would notice his declining cognitive functioning in podunkville. Meanwhile, the other psychologist thinks he is unraveling in some way and is lashing out all over the place, with me as his apparent number one - but not only - target. 

[kayc]

Wow, but what a hard position for you to be in.  On the one hand, he might not be in his position much longer, but on the other hand, can you take this that long?

[Clematis]

I've got my little recorder up and running and that's good, although I'm not sure what good it will do me. I had an interesting talk with a very experienced special education director that I very much like and trust. I would say that for the most part, very little of what she had to say was of any comfort at all, and unfortunately, I think she is probably spot on, at least in the world of education. If someone doesn't like me, they can go tattle/complain/make up stuff/whatever about me or anyone else they don't like, and whomever they tell all this b.s. to can just take their word for it and punish me accordingly without my ever knowing what was said, who said it, or what was the subject matter. It is then incumbent upon me to figure out who has a beef with me (by e.s.p. and without asking them) and repair my relationship with this person, who may be an extremely fragile psychotic and personality disordered person for all I know, as well as a person to whom I have done nothing as far as any reasonable person would ever think. She says that is what Human Resource law is like because of harassment issues. It's really crazy. I have this teacher Cindy who really has been harassing me with all of her tattling and making up stuff and being hostile to me, while I was nice to her and helped her in any way I could in her new career, but because she has extreme fragility and felt wounded and exposed by the fact that she knew very little in her first job in her new career, she is the protected victim and I am on an improvement plan so that I can learn to stop doing things I was never doing in the first place. Huh. Well, she is moving to another part of the state and we'll see what happens next. At least she won't be there next year. And as for me, somehow I need to focus on my work, get it done, and see what happens. I have good skills and will be working somewhere next year...

[kayc]

I guess that's the way to proceed then, if you can just focus on doing your job and ignore all the rest as best as you can...it's kind of hard to ignore when you're being called into question all the time, sitting in meetings that are unproductive with someone behaving crazy, but if you can just hang in there this all might just go away.

[Clematis]

I decided to ask Becky the HR person about improvement plans and how/whether they were tracked through HR, and was there a district  policy about this. She said she really didn't know much and was a little vague told me she'd get back to me. She did call me back the next day with how to find the policy manual online and search for that, although it was about evaluations and nothing much about improvement plans. Then I went to my meeting with Michael yesterday and Becky was there! She was there to take notes and mediate the meeting. This was a big improvement. He was more logical and did not yell at me; when he became frustrated he controlled himself fairly well. The insulting and demeaning comments towards me were much less, but still there.

In previous conversations, he had told me to NOT ask families or staff any questions as to whether I had adequately answered questions and explained my clinical findings to the degree that they needed or wanted. Because I have clinical training and experience as a psychotherapist, I am in an excellent position to do this and have always believed that this is one of my greatest strengths as a school psychologist. I track the people at the meetings, especially the parents to make sure that they understand what I am saying and what the team is doing. Parents are typically too intimidated by these meetings with professionals in different disciplines to ask many questions - or any questions. An they are hesitant to express any disagreements about the direction things are going. If they are confident enough to express themselves orally, that's great and it makes it easier. But if they just sit there silently, it is incumbent upon me to find out and make them feel comfortable enough to ask questions, disagree if they do, and to actively participate. I am at a disadvantage in a way here, because everyone else at the table knows these parents, and I am seeing them for the first or maybe second time. I am going into it blind and have to figure out them out on the spot (with an audience of professional peers). I follow my clinical training, watch for cues that they don't understand or disagree or whatever, but aren't commenting. I can generally get them to open up by using empathy and sensitive questions (psychotherapy techniques). I sometimes say, "Does that make sense?" if the parent doesn't say anything but I think they do have thoughts or questions about what I said. But Michael told me that to say, "Does that make sense?" is exactly the same as saying "Do you understand?" is exactly the same as saying "Do you understand?" He followed this with saying that when someone asks him if he understands, he feels like they are saying "Are you stupid?" He told me that I was to ask NONE of these questions, but to only ask at the very end of my presentation, "Do you have any questions?" I think that is a terrible idea, because if the whole thing was too much information, went over their head, lost them a long time ago, or whatever, they are not going to be able to ask questions unless they were taking notes. I have tried to follow his directions, as inappropriate as that might be.

Tuesday I was at a meeting where I presented a lot of complicated information about a student's IQ, academic, and clinical information. We were talking about making a change in a student's category of eligibility from one clinical category to another. The parents stated clearly that they wanted this change even without hearing the testing data, but I sent through all of the complicated data. Several people asked me questions, the people from the local mental health agency, from DDD, and the principal all asked questions. The principal asked me one question, I answered it, she said nothing, I asked, "Does that make sense?" and she had another clarifying question, which I answered and we went on. But when I asked that question, Michael, sitting beside me, flinched as if I had slapped him. I didn't ask any more questions and went on to the next thing on the agenda. (One of the people from the mental health agency sent me a message later, complimenting me and saying it was the best presentation of data like that he had ever seen - and he has been in this field for at least 15 years).

So at the meeting with Becky yesterday, he complained about the way I handled that aspect of the meeting, complaining that I had asked no questions to see if the parents were following, and that Parent 2 understood nothing I had said. He said this again in different words and then went on to talk about Parent 1 not processing the information, saying her name several times. I said something about Parent 1, since he had switched from talking about Parent 2 to Parent 1. He erupted and said, "Why are you talking about Parent 1? You have worked with this family- don't you know that Parent 1 doesn't process anything? I am talking about Parent 2!" (Actually I don't really know these people; I had only once before met them and noticed that Parent 1 was totally silent. Someone had told me "Parent 1" doesn't process" (whatever that means). So then Michael told me (at the meeting with Becky (after talking about this), "you don't know anything about reading body language or you would have asked Parent 2 some questions to see if she was following what you were saying. And I repeated the entire conversation for Becky's benefit about how he had told me not to ask any questions other than "Are there any questions?" at the very end.

He also took my spreadsheet to task, asking me to re-arrange this for his purposes. This is a spreadsheet that I have carefully designed over the years so that all of the data I need for my job shows up on one page (and anything else is off to the side). But I print the first page and carry it with me everywhere. He had asked me to add some stuff and I put it on the side (second page). He wanted me to add something else, and he wanted me to put all of that in the middle so that I wouldn't be able to see all if my needed data on one page, but it would be easier for me. I said no, that would mess me up. There are two dates that I carefully track together; the timing of these dates together has a lot of legal implications related to timelines, and I have them right next to them so I can see if that is on track at a glance. He wanted me to put some other date of something else in the middle of those dates. I told him I double fit it in next to the second date, but not in the middle. He argued about this and Becky asked me about why I wouldn't just put it in the middle. I pointed out that this is my own personal spreadsheet for organizing my own work and that stuffing that date in where he wanted it would trip me up every time I looked at it. He finally agreed to allow me his date column next to these two columns and not in the middle. Has my job become one of creating spreadsheets and collecting information for Michael of am I still a school psychologist? The micromanagement at this petty and inappropriate level is crazy. If feels the same as if he had borrowed my cell phone once to make a call and then insisted that I rearrange the layout so that it would be easier for him the next time he wanted to borrow my phone...It is my own personal organizational tool and he has decided that because I have shared it with him I have to make it what he wants.

He also objected to my agenda. Before he told me it was excellent. It has the agenda for MET-1 meetings and MET-2 meetings on one page. I used to have them on separate pages, but had decided that it was simpler to combine it onto one page. HE had told me that the single page was excellent. Now he tells me that this really needs to be on two separate pages.

[kayc]

It is like I said, it's hard to work for an idiot.  I know you've said he used to be considered brilliant, and maybe he was, but something has changed in him that makes it really difficult for you to work with him or please him.  In my last boss' case, he never had it to start with and never did grasp anything.  It made me wonder how/why he chose such a complicated field...when I asked him how he came to be in this field, he said "Because I flunked out of law school."  What can you say to that, it doesn't even begin to make sense!
Your spreadsheet is YOURS, he shouldn't require you to make changes to it, that's like making someone take their personal notes a different way!  Wow, you can only hope he retires soon.

[Clematis]

Yeah, I know. I figure it's like having me reconfigure my cell phone since I use it at work, but it's really mean and thoughtless. For his convenience in looking at my information, he is willing to really trip me up at work and wreck my organization system. It would be one thing if this was a district-wide document that everyone was required to use. I am going way beyond what the other psychs have done in sharing information with him and he has gone crazy over it. And the HR lady said to me, well he is your supervisor. If he asks you to do something, you should just do it. Wear my underwear on my head? Do brain surgery on the school secretary against her will without any anesthesia with my MSW training? Wear my shoes on the wrong feet because he wonders if I am as uncoordinated as I say I am?

I have been advised by several people to smile and say yes I will do what he wants, even though I have been told this is not possible for a person in my position with my workload (to meet the timelines), and the part about the meetings that are on the line of easy bait for any parent to sue - to just say I'll do that too, but not really do it. When I've told people who have had long careers in education about having all these "pre-meetings" before MET-2 (eligibility determination) meetings with everyone there but the parents, the responses have ranged from "You can't do that!" to "That's illegal" to "I'd be very very careful because you could get in BIG trouble".

I have a hard time doing this...cheerfully saying I'll do something that is impossible, unreasonable, illegal, or something that would scramble me so badly I would be function at a worse level than the level that got me in trouble. Maybe it would be enough to say, "I will absolutely do my best to do that exactly like you want it" and say it cheerfully, while knowing that I am not likely to be able to do it.

[Clematis]

I started out as a social worker working at an agency straight out of graduate school and they gave me two jobs that were supposedly half time jobs figuring that way I would definitely have enough work to be a full time employee. And then everyone dumped anything they wanted on me, tried to steal all of the best furniture out off my office & replace it with junk, etc. Lenny the boss was a smart guy and he stopped the furniture swapping immediately, saying he was not going to have an agency where one office had all the crap and he allowed all of his employees to just take wild advantage of the new person. But I still had way too much work. Most of the therapists had about 30 clients and I had too many to count. At some point I started closing out all the ones who hadn't really been seen anyway. When I got done with all that and could finally count them, I had 76!. I was totally overwhelmed and went to Lenny. He gave me some advice and told me to take it with me everywhere I went. He told me that the biggest priority was always legal deadlines that would cost your agency if you were out of compliance. He told me that the next was anything that went outside the agency. The next level of priority was things that would really make a difference to clients by getting something they really needed - info for a doctor, that sort of thing. The next level of priority was arbitrary deadlines made up by the administration of the agency. The next was my basic work tasks that were part of my job description, And the lowest priority was whatever else I thought was important. This guy I am working for is telling me that his arbitrarily set deadlines are at the top of the list...

[kayc]

6 hours ago, Clematis said:

Maybe it would be enough to say, "I will absolutely do my best to do that exactly like you want it" and say it cheerfully, while knowing that I am not likely to be able to do it.

What more can you say or do!

Lenny's advice makes sense.

[Clematis]

I thought that I might make a list of my tasks on a given day - like tomorrow and how I set priorities on a list that is always too long to complete because I am truly overloaded. In schools everyone has a job that is more than one person can realistically accomplish in a day . It might help him to make sense of how it is that his desires seem to fall to the bottom. In truth, if he were looking at my list I truly believe he would make the same decision. Every day he would place the legal constraints like timelines, the services to children and families (the basic essence of my job - evaluations), and getting information to coworkers as soon as possible so as to not stress them over trying to meet arbitrarily set internal deadlines. Every day I must make sacrifices of things that do not make the cut for a given day and put them off until tomorrow. I constantly look at the tasks before me and try to decide what are the most pressing tasks for every hour of every day. Things change constantly and therefore the tasks have to be shuffled. Eventually, everything does get done, but the way I prioritize never does. 

Anyway, today is my birthday and here I am alone with Lena and no plans, But Lena has been extra attentive and sweet today. Well, it is still morning...maybe someone will call me or something...

[MartyT]

Laura, my dear, it sounds to me as if your considerable skills may be threatening the dickens out of your supervisor, and the more you try to show him how you manage your day, your time and your work, the more threatened he becomes and so he lashes out in order to protect himself from his own insecurities and incompetnece. And I'm willing to bet that he may not even be conscious of what he is doing (or why). Only you can decide how much your health insurance and other benefits in this position are costing you, physically, emotionally and every other way. Only you can decide if it's worth it. I feel so bad for you, and I wish with all my heart that things at work were different for you.

Anyway, know that all of your GHDG friends and family are thinking of you today and wishing you a very

[kayc]

Oh Laura, I'm sorry I missed your birthday.  I hope you did get a call from someone, I know what it's like to have my birthday slip by unnoticed.  But Lena is thinking of you and didn't miss a thing!  Thank God for our devoted furry companions.
 

[iPraiseHim]

Happy Birthday, Laura.

Yes we do care and pray you have a wonderful day.  Praying for a healthy resolution to your challenging work conditions> Keep doing what is best for your students.  - Shalom

[Clematis]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:40 AM, MartyT said:

Laura, my dear, it sounds to me as if your considerable skills may be threatening the dickens out of your supervisor, and the more you try to show him how you manage your day, your time and your work, the more threatened he becomes and so he lashes out in order to protect himself from his own insecurities and incompetnece. And I'm willing to bet that he may not even be conscious of what he is doing (or why). Only you can decide how much your health insurance and other benefits in this position are costing you, physically, emotionally and every other way. Only you can decide if it's worth it. I feel so bad for you, and I wish with all my heart that things at work were different for you.

Thank you so much for the good wishes. On Saturday night I played cello in an orchestra concert and was talking to my friend Paula, the retired vet, who happened to be talking to another woman that I really don’t know very well. Paula wandered off and I continued talking to this other woman Susan, who just happens to have worked in the education field for more than 30 years before she retired. I had been updating Paula about this situation and Susan just kind of jumped into the conversation as if she was already on the same page.  I filled her in on a few details, and in addition to telling me that I should basically lie, smile, and say that I absolutely would do everything he wanted, she also said that administrators really want to be right and they really want to win. Huh. So woke up this morning and I think I figured out a good plan.

I sent him an email this morning and suggested that we might try to focus on the spirit and essence of what he would like me to do and maybe that would lead to more success than we had in totally focusing on the details. The devil is in the details...

Michael has a tendency to act impulsively without thinking things through very well, and so his plan for me is resulted in a series of details that he has insisted that I follow. Unfortunately these details were all some combination of unreasonable, impossible, and/or possibly fraught with legal risks. I suggested that if we focused on his intention, or the spirit and essence of his desired performance for me I would certainly be able to be successful at that. That would enable him to get out of the situation, save face, be right, and win. Of course the same would be said for me.

To get this thing going I talk to all three principals, mentioning to each one that I had this plan - which they knew about – and that Michael wanted me to have these pre-meetings before the MET-2 (Eligibility Determination) meetings. I told each of them that I very much desired to be successful in my improvement plan but wanted their input on how to help make this work at their school. Each one told me that they had concerns about the meetings, not only because it would be cumbersome if not impossible to schedule those meetings, but they also had apprehension about the legal risks. So I asked them what other way would be good for them as far as how I could get them the information they needed. One principal said she would like me to just email her, one said she would like me to call her on the phone,  and the third principal told me that I should just text him and we would figure out where to meet up on campus or to chat on the phone. And his campus is the one where my office is housed so that will be very easy.

The second part of my strategy is to start talking to the SpEd Teachers, starting with the one I saw this afternoon. I asked her what would be good for her in the way of timely information. She said three days would be the least unless it was a blazing on fire emergency for some reason, but a week would be better. Generally I have gotten her the information much earlier than a week prior, much less three days. She said she could really care less when I got that stuff in to the Met section of IEP-PRO because she doesn’t look for it there. I suspect the other teachers will say the same thing except the one teacher who does get stuff out of IEP pro and she’s the one who is the outside the district. She’s also the one who complained. But she is a great person and very straightforward. She will have no trouble telling me exactly what she needs in order for it to work for her, and it will probably be the same time-frame as the other teachers and while she does get a few pieces out of IEP-PRO, most of it would be fine in an email.

This seems to me like a good plan and would get everybody what they want. The teachers and principals would be get able to get what they want the way they want it, the SpEd Teachers would get their stuff when they need it, Michael can save face, I can get out of hell, and it all seems much more doable than the arbitrary and impossible details he created in order to flesh out his basic idea. The basic idea which was just fine. I think he just wants me to get my information to the other staff in a way that doesn't stress anyone out.

Of course the reason we had such a time crunch in the first place that I was late in getting information to people in the first place is Michael's fault - that he pulled Suellen off her job of getting things going and setting up meetings because he needed her to hold himself together. It caused extreme stress on the entire staff that we had to wait until six weeks after the school year started, kind of like starting the school year with a land-slide. But we don't need to mention that all of this was caused by Michael in the first place. I think everyone already knows that...

Ahd hopefully I will be able to pull this off.
 

[Clematis]

16 hours ago, kayc said:

Oh Laura, I'm sorry I missed your birthday.  I hope you did get a call from someone, I know what it's like to have my birthday slip by unnoticed.  But Lena is thinking of you and didn't miss a thing!  Thank God for our devoted furry companions.

Thanks, Kay! And what a luscious looking cake! My sisters both called me on my birthday and were very nice to me. I spent time with Herman and with my neighbor and good friend Doriene. I had flowers and some cake and a little trip to a small national park nearby. But most of all, my precious Lena...

[Clematis]

13 hours ago, iPraiseHim said:

Happy Birthday, Laura.

Yes we do care and pray you have a wonderful day.  Praying for a healthy resolution to your challenging work conditions> Keep doing what is best for your students.  - Shalom

Thanks, George! I think I may have found a way out...explained in my post above to Marty...

[Clematis]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:40 AM, MartyT said:

it sounds to me as if your considerable skills may be threatening the dickens out of your supervisor, and the more you try to show him how you manage your day, your time and your work, the more threatened he becomes and so he lashes out in order to protect himself from his own insecurities and incompetnece. And I'm willing to bet that he may not even be conscious of what he is doing (or why). Only you can decide how much your health insurance and other benefits in this position are costing you, physically, emotionally and every other way.

I think you're right about him, that he feels threatened. And it doesn't help that I don't back down. I am never disrespectful, but never obsequious either; just straightforward and honest. I watch him as he circles around mentally like a cat watches a bug, not to make him uncomfortable, but well, how could I not watch him closely? He is a danger. I think he is trying hard to hide, but when he looks at me fears that I see right into him. Partly true, but I am not sure what I am looking exactly, only that something is seriously wrong. I'm really not trying to threaten him...

I suspect that my plan of helping him to open the door to success, being right, winning and saving face might work. I'm sure he has other things to do rather than haggling with me. In any event, it won't last long, because they are supposed to either offer me a contract or announce I am not being offered a contract by April 15.

[kayc]

It sounds like the trickiest part of your job is not dealing with the kids, but the administration.  Good luck to you with your plan, I hope it works!

[Clematis]

On 2/27/2018 at 8:11 AM, kayc said:

It sounds like the trickiest part of your job is not dealing with the kids, but the administration.  Good luck to you with your plan, I hope it works!

Hard to tell; I saw Michael my boss today and he was about on fire with rage at me at a meeting with a principal (who really likes me) and the SpEd teacher who helped start all of this by complaining about me when she was too new to know if she even had anything to complain about. My boss was firing questions and issuing challenges at a rapid fire rate while I tried to answer them. Some of what he said was totally irrational. I had a conversation with a parent two days ago and talked to the principal about it right away. He talked to the Gen Ed teacher who was primarily involved and she talked to the mother, who went to PHX yesterday to see the student's doctor, and today she brought in these crazy documents. Having showed them to me and my having had 5-10 minutes from when I first heard of them, Michael demanded to know, "Why didn't you have a meeting about this?" So he got the papers, called a meeting, showed me the papers at the meeting and wanted to know why I hadn't called a meeting about the papers that came to him and I first saw at the meeting he called. We were talking about an upcoming MET-2 and IEP meeting and how to handle it.

Anyway, the principal was ready to take charge of the part of the MET meeting related to these problems, and was that OK with me (yes, please). The SpEd teacher couldn't have been sweeter to me and asked, can I do this for you, do that, explain this to the other people we need to get pulled in, offered to do the extra paperwork Michael was demanding, etc. I was too stunned to even think or process the crazy stuff her was saying. They were SO nice to me - both of them. I suppose it was apparent that Michael was firing away at me with no reason or rationality, but with both barrels.

Michael also insisted that we do something that is totally against SpEd law... determine that a student qualify as "Other Health ImpaIrment" with an (undiagnosed) learning disability that is not a medical problem. The law is rather clear. I have had several people suggest to me that he is bullying and trying to box me into doing something that is against the law. He has told me that if I refuse to do something that is against the law it is insubordination. Huh.

The other school psychologist is laying low and trying to stay below the radar screen. I think that is terrible. If the positions were reversed, I would be right there with her. That may be part of the problem; that in addition to my skills, smarts and abilities, I appear to be fearless, and will speak out against something I feel is wrong. I guess that's why I have found myself so many times being the only person in a situation who will take a stand and say something, even when many others agree with me,

He sent me an email today saying that we are not going to have our last two meetings to discuss my "improvement plan", but will meet on March 27 to discuss my evaluation, the improvement plan, and his formal and informal observations. I wonder if this is because he is just done with me, or is it because I complained to the human resource manager that these meetings had been such harassment and upsetting that it had interfered with my sleep, life, and ability to actually do my job? 

He was SO angry today...because I had complained about him harassing me to the HR lady? Because I talked to the principals about how he was requiring me to have meetings at their schools that would be likely to cause them lots of problems even though I did so very sweetly in the interest of satisfying my improvement plan and better serving the schools? Or some other reason...

I did wish today that I had brought my little tiny covert recorder with me today...maybe I should bring it with me every day, just in case...

[kayc]

I would bring it with you every day.  You never know when you'll need it.  What a shame.

[Clematis]

Just now, kayc said:

I would bring it with you every day.  You never know when you'll need it.  What a shame.

I know! He is trying to get me to things that are illegal...and right out in the open. If a student qualifies as OHI (Health Impairment Other than orthopedic, they must have a med cert (medical certification) that the student has a medical problem that would impair their learning. The biggest one is ADHD. So the girl's mother took her to the doctor; she was supposed to come back with a med cert that said she had ADHD. The mother came back with a med cert that said the girl had a learning disability, with a note at the bottom that said recommended that the school evaluate her to see if she has ADHD and learning disabilities. As far as the law goes, only a medical doctor can diagnose a medical problem.

Michael slapped this paper down in front of me and asked me if it was OK. I didn't answer immediately and he yelled it at me again. I said, "Is it our form? Yes! Does it have the right information on it? No!" He asked me if I thought that was ok and I asked him if HE thought it was ok. He said yes, that we should accept it. I told him that if he was going to accept it, well he is the boss.

So now he is insisting that the whole team at the school do something that is against the state law. Cindy, the teacher on the team, goes straight to Michael about everything. Matt, the principal, seems to genuinely trust, like, and respect me. I guess I should talk to Matt. And bring him the legal statute...It seems pretty clear to me...

 

The determination of eligibility for special education is based on an evaluation pursuant to the IDEA, A.R.S. §15-766, and the following requirements:

  The student has a health impairment that limits his/her strength, vitality, or alertness (including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment) that is due to chronic or acute health problems including but not limited to asthma, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, or heart conditions. The health impairment adversely affects performance in the educational environment.

  The health impairment has been verified by a doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy.

 

[Clematis]

Things have improved dramatically! I had a chat with Matt, the principal who really likes me and has known me for 12 years. He listened with concern to all that I had to say and had a very encouraging responses. As to my being subtle but putting in plain view the thing about the extra meetings that there was no time for, would annoy everyone, and might be a legal problem, he (and the other principals) had gotten the message loud and clear. The OHI thing - he said he was the one who got the message and he was sorry that he didn't just come to me rather than Michael, who stomped around and made a mess of it. Matt said he didn't think it would be a problem, but if it was, we would all hang together because all three of us heard Michael say this crazy thing. Also, I had a plan to get around it altogether and he agreed to help with this. That would also leave Michael out of that altogether. As to trying to get me in trouble, he said he had never known Michael to be vindictive, but he has only known him for 1-1/2 years and doesn't know that he really "went after" Amy last year. He did say that he didn't know why Amy sort of disappeared during the last half of last year. I figure it was probably related to Michael harassing her, but I left that one alone.

Also Matt told me that he thought well of me and that Mr. King, the superintendent had a master plan for the administration moving into the future, and that plan included me as part of the administration. He also pointed out that he (Matt) is the principal of the largest school and he is on a 10-year contract, while Michael is on a one year contract. He has also made it clear that he will not be with the district for very long. Sounds kind of like big fish-small fish thing with him and Michael. 

It also sounded like there was probably some awareness of this as a problem, as evidenced by Becky the HR director sitting in on my last meeting with Michael, my having talked to her on the phone afterwards about how much better it had been with her there because the sessions alone with Michael had been so awful with him yelling at me and saying demeaning things,  that I had been having trouble sleeping, functioning, or focusing on my work because it was so upsetting. That is probably why the meetings were terminated.

I also had a conversation with the principal of another school where I had used my clinical skills to the hilt to keep a justifiably irate parent and a speech pathologist (SLP) from killing each other over something that happened earlier that had little to do with the meeting at hand. It was like doing marital therapy, where both parties are at each other's throats. I tried very hard to align myself with the parent, while protecting the SLP and keeping the meeting moving in the right direction. The SLP had thanked me right after the meeting, and again the next day, telling me that she was still shaking from it (she is brand new). The principal stopped me today when I was at her school and thanked me for handling this difficult situation as well as I had, saying how well I had done and how much she appreciated it. Nice to hear, and it seems likely that she will have good things to say about me when Michael asks her for input as a part of my evaluation.

Matt also said that when someone has their evaluation, often someone else sits in, and I was asking him if he could do so for me. He said he absolutely would do this and thought it was a good idea, and he would try to seek it into a conversation with Michael. He also told me that I shouldn't lose sleep over any of it.

[kayc]

It does sound more promising.  This is beyond anything I would know how to handle, but I hear everything you're saying and I care.  I know you to be a thinking person and will make the right decisions.