Two weeks after the homeroom change, Dani is still with the original teacher for math and English. She asked me why she still had to have her for math and English. I explained that this teacher teaches the high level kids, so she’s going to have to keep going there. She then tells me she wishes she wasn’t high level. That broke my heart.
Last night we had another interesting exchange.
Dani says “My back hurts”.
I ask “Why?”
She replies “It got cut”.
I lift her shirt and see a nickel sized scrape right in the middle. I ask her “What happened?”
She says “It’s a long story. I was crawling under the bathroom stall.”
My curiosity is piqued and I ask for more details. She explains that her stall did not have any toilet paper and she didn’t want to leave the bathroom with her pants down.
My next question “Why didn’t you check for tp before you picked that stall.”
“Well” she says “I was in a hurry and I had an accident in the bathroom.”
Now my sweet child wasn’t potty trained until she was almost 4 but she hasn’t had accidents at school since first grade. She has trouble recognizing when she needs to go and tends to wait until it becomes an emergency. We have worked very hard on getting her to go before it becomes urgent, and she’s come a very long way. So as always, I ask her why she waited until the last minute and she says “Mrs. L (the old homeroom teacher that she still has for math and English) is charging tribal bucks to go to the bathroom and I traded all my tribal bucks for colonial cash when I changed homerooms, and I wasn’t sure if I could still use the bathroom since it costs 5 tribal bucks to go. So as soon as class was over, I quickly walked to my homeroom, because you aren’t allowed to run, got my water bottle and went to the bathroom. It was a little too late and I kind of peed myself and I didn’t even think to check for tp because I had to go so bad”
Livid mom immediately fires off an email to her special ed team to let them know that my child is to never be charged any kind of currency to use the bathroom, and needs to be specifically told that she is to never be charged any kind of currency to use the bathroom. I also let them know that she is allowed to have a bottle of water if she feels it is necessary. I told them I understand that this is Dani’s interpretation and perception of the policy, but the policy is that she can use the bathroom when she needs to and if I need to add potty breaks to her IEP I will.
I got a horrified reply back from her learning resource teacher first thing this morning letting me know that she is absolutely allowed to go to the bathroom when she needs to, without charge, and that this would be addressed. Hopefully this problem is solved, but I hate that this is a problem in the first place. I hate that things like this are even an issue. I’m ready to completely write off this entire year learning wise. Not only is she falling behind academically, she’s miserable and peeing herself.
**** UPDATE****
Email from the school - Dani is not being charged to use the bathroom. Some kids in the class are if they are excessive bathroom break abusers, but they assured me Dani would not be charged. More importantly they assured Dani that she would not be charged. The teacher also went through Dani's homework with her and clearly defined what she was expected to do each night. 30 minutes of reading. 30 minutes for math - just do odds or evens. Grammar if she can get to it in an hour. I'm VERY happy that this was addressed (but still not sure why it had to be a problem in the first place....)
