Day 14: Thursday Thoughts: Rainy Day (school) Rant

Sorry if this gets a little long.  As most of you probably know, I have filtering issues, and am incapable of making a short story short.  Either that, or I just like to hear myself type. 

We had a little situation at Samantha's public school yesterday.  Not one that anyone else would have noticed, but one that really, really ticked us off.  

As is the case for most preschoolers, I believe, Samantha gets a sheet of paper home from school in her backpack that details some of what they did each day.  It's very helpful to read, as it lets us know of any issues, or it allows us to talk with her about a particular activity they may have worked on.  It also lets us know if she used the potty by herself and whether or not she ate the snack we packed for her. 

Every day Samantha eats breakfast before school.  We send a snack for her to eat at snack time (@9:30am, I believe), and since they eat lunch at about 11am (too early in our opinion), we send a yogurt for her to eat during "lunch" time (she comes home at noon, takes a nap, and gets a real lunch when she wakes up).  A few weeks ago we received a communication from her teacher on that sheet in her backpack that stated that since Samantha did not ask for her yogurt at lunch time when told she needed to ask for it, they didn't give it to her.  We were a little miffed by this, and her yogurt did not come home in her backpack, so we thought perhaps they had eventually given it to her after all.  Now we both know that Samantha is perfectly capable of asking for her yogurt, as she asks us for it frequently. We both also know that Samantha is just being stubborn. She's 4 - that happens.  The harder you push her to do something, the more likely she is to dig in her heels and flat-out refuse. Like saying "I'm sorry." She used to say it any time she knew she'd done something wrong, but now she's at a point where she refuses to acknowledge that she's done anything wrong, and feels too ashamed to say "I'm sorry," so she's practically pushed it completely out of her vocabulary. We're working hard on that one...

A few days later the teacher came for a scheduled home visit, where she mentioned that they were requesting that the students ask for the food before they would give it to them.  Steve responded to this by telling her he was all for placing this responsibility on the children, but that he didn't agree with the idea of withholding their lunches.  He suggested that they prompt Samantha with picture cards, then just give her the food if she still doesn't ask.  (I know this doesn't reinforce the desired positive behavior, but we're talking about food.)  The teacher agreed. 

Nothing else was said about this, and no further notes came home that indicated this was an issue.

Until yesterday.

Samantha got off the school bus and immediately told Steve she wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Thinking she couldn't possibly be hungry after her snack, he told her no, she'd have to nap first then could have the sandwich when she woke up.  So she slept.  While she slept, he emptied her backpack and found the yogurt (now warm and unusable) that we had sent to school this morning.  The communication sheet stated once again that Samantha refused to ask for her yogurt, so they didn't give it to her.

There are so many things wrong with this practice.  To start with, this is a special needs classroom.  Many of these children have moderate to severe speech and language delays.  Additionally, many of them have medical issues, and eating certain foods at certain times is pretty darned important.  Yogurt helps with Samantha's constipation issues.  Also, this stinks because we rely on the fact that Samantha is going to have that yogurt as a snack so we create a schedule around it (yogurt at school, then nap at home, then lunch at home).  In yesterday's case, a poor, hungry little girl went to bed without having eaten and without being able to tell her daddy she didn't eat.  Last, but not least (and somewhat trivial, given the other issues we have with this whole concept), the yogurt was wasted. 

Steve was fuming.

He called the school's Vice Principal, who's the head of the Special Education department, and explained what happened, and what our concerns were.  The VP completely understood, and said he was heading down to the classroom that minute to speak with the teacher and that he would call Steve back to let him know the outcome. 

He didn't call back.

But the teacher did. 

Now, doesn't this just scream "confrontational?"  This teacher is a new teacher, one that is newly-certified after having been a substitute for many years, including for several months in Samantha's class last year while her main teacher was on maternity leave.  The jury's still out on our opinion of this teacher.  We're not getting the warm-and-fuzzy vibe from her like we did with Sammi's previous teachers, and I am willing to bet Samantha isn't getting that vibe from her, either.  If things don't change, I would be inclined to ask them to switch her to the other classroom (where one of her teachers from last year is now after the class was split in half), but her little BFF is in her class now and I hate the idea of separating them.

Oh, right, I went off on a tangent there...what I was getting at was that after the teacher called and accomplished nothing in her conversation with Steve, he was pretty ticked that the VP had not called him back himself.  So he got in the car and went to the school to speak to him directly.  They discussed it again in person, and established that going forward they'd try to get Samantha to ask for her food, then if she doesn't and all attempts fail, they'll put it in front of her.  If she doesn't want to eat, fine.  If she does, then it's there. 

Any thoughts on this?  Are we wrong?  Have any of your schools ever done anything like this?  I just think it's kinda weird.