NOTE: In the comments of this post and another one titled “An EAA teacher elaborates on the treatment of special ed students: ‘These kids deserve so much better'”, there are multiple comments from the same person, making it look as if there more supporters of Nolan school principal Angela Underwood than there really are. The comments are from one of two computers and give the same email address (which only I can see) but are posted with a different name. One of the computers is a Detroit Public Schools computer which has visited Eclectablog many times over the past week, almost exclusively on posts where Angela Underwood is mentioned. This commenter has posted under the names “Lets Be Real”, “Pepsi Cola”, “Yours Truly, Pepsi Cola”, “Sundra”, and “Pro Children Not Politics”. I have banned this person because of this.
We’ve heard a lot from EAA teachers about the constant threat of being “written up” by EAA administrators. Just to give you a flavor of what they are dealing with, here’s an email sent by one principal to their staff. I’m not revealing the school for obvious reasons:
Subject: Students in Hallway During Sight [sic] VisitsTeachers,
Every time, before any visitors come to our building, I send out a very detailed email or memo stating that absolutely no students are to be sent to the restroom or in the hallways for any reason. Despite this directive, several teachers today allowed students to go to the restroom or sent them to the office for minor behavior infractions. Please understand that this email serves as a warning that if in the future, any teachers who allow students in the hallway after being given such a directive by me shall receive a formal letter of reprimand to be placed in his or her personnel file. If you need further clarification about procedures which are to be followed while visitors are in the building, please see me before the end of the day.
Life under a dictator. It must be debilitating.
P.S. And yes, as Rebecca notes in the comments, this “educator” spelled ‘site’ wrong in the Subject line of their email.
UPDATE: Here is another email sent to EAA teachers at one school. This one is particularly outrageous because the principal puts themselves in charge of determining whether or not something is worthy of being reported to Child Protective Services. Training is one thing, screening is completely another.
Team,Please be advised and reminded about this past summer’s P.D. [Ed. note: “professional development”] in which no hotline reports may be made unless first cleared by either me or [name redacted]. There may be extenuating circumstances in which something appears to be a hotline situation, and it is not. If this is the case, your careless actions could be devastating, or even detrimental to the child and family. In addition, in order for a hotline report to be legitimate, the person making the call must not do this based on hearsay, and must personally observe abuse, its result, or hear about the potential for alleged abuse from the victim him or herself. Failure to follow this procedure will ultimately result in employees receiving severe disciplinary action, up to termination of employment. If you are unclear about what is considered potential abuse and/or a behavior mandating hotline, or you are unclear about my procedure for making a hotline call, please see [name redacted] or myself immediately.
[Facepalm CC image credit: Alex Proimos | Flickr]
