Re: SETS/Rick
Posted by Bluegrass on 11/05/02
Rick,
It's good to hear from an intelligent KY administrator (retired-I don't
blame you!). After teaching for 20+ years in a progressive, forward-
thinking district in another state, I now find myself in culture shock
here in Kentucky. The local building and district administrators
generally are a defensive group who do not want teachers to think
outside the box although they do pay lip service to the concept when
writing their Comprehensive Improvement Plans. I'm just amazed at the
ability of these local administrators to speak from both sides of their
mouths. Whatever they think will tickle the ears of the hearers, is
what they will tell them.
I suspect these administrators are quite insecure in their educational
and experiential backgrounds, and they are unable to accept teachers
who they perceive as intimidating by virtue of either knowledge and/or
solid educational experience. I don't think it's my fault that they are
intimidated by me. These good folks have tried their hardest to find
something wrong with me and with others like me; however, they can find
no fault with our teaching abilities and consistently give us
outstanding evaluations. They now resort to baiting me with comments
made in an attempt to get me angry and to dance to their tunes. I've
refused to take the bait by just saying nothing when a huge red-faced
administrator yells at me while standing over my desk. I've perfected a
cool, calm facial expression that just drives these good-old-boys/girls
up the wall.
We are a small district of approximately 2300 students; however, we
have 660+ students classified as needing special education services. Is
that the norm in the state? Should I believe that almost 29% of the
students in this district are disabled, or should I believe that the
district is heavily into overidentification of students with
disabilities in order to bring in the big bucks from IDEA? We have an
inordinately large number of special education students who have
multiple disabilities (i.e. EBD/OHI, or LD/OHI). These kids bring in
over $10,000 each to the district opposed to the regular education
student's $3,000+ in SEEK funding. Is this an isolated incident in my
district or is it a KY trend in planning the school budget?
My particular school has yet to have one IEP produced using SETS. The
other district schools are using SETS; however, our sp.ed. building
coordinator is not especially tech savvy so I suspect that our foot-
dragging is because she's not comfortable with any computer software
programs. Even when KDE placed the IEP templates on their website, she
continued to just download the forms and complete them in handwriting.
When my youngest child finishes school here in a couple of years, I
plan to say "good-bye" to the field of KY education. I figure there's
an easier way for me to fill my waking hours--perhaps, web design or
consulting. I'd love to be a Highly Skilled Educator (I heard them
referred to as Hussie's recently) and be assigned to a district similar
to the one where I'm now employed. What fun!
Bluegrass
Teachers.Net
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