AS kindergartener & nightmare PE teacher - please help!

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Hi! My son is 6 and was diagnosed with AS about a year and a half ago. He started Kindergarten in August, and is doing great - good services, great teachers, very supportive atmosphere. Right now his teachers are working with him to help him be quiet when he needs to be (rest time, instruction time, etc.), because it can be a real challenge for him It's all done with positive reinforcement.

He has PE 3 times a week, and yesterday when he got off the bus he was pretty upset and told me that he had to go in "time out" in PE for making noises when he was supposed to be quiet. Then he told me that when time out was over, the teacher said to him, "I know your address and I'm going to call your parents, and I want you to be sad about that." At that point, my other son who's 9 came over and proceeded to tell me all about this PE teacher and how she basically manages her classes with threats of phone calls to parents and/or humiliation.

I knew this lady was a bit gruff and I expressed my concerns about her at the first IEP meeting and they made arragements for the classroom parapro to accompany the class to PE for the first week while my son made the transition, but that's over now. Since this happened on Friday, I haven't approached anyone yet, but I'm wondering if I should talk to my son's teacher first, or go directly to the principal.

Has anyone had a similar experience or does anyone have any advice?

I would contact the teacher first and voice your concerns and hear their side of the story. Then let them know that it is unacceptable and if it continues that you have no problem bringing the principle in to mediate things.

I have had problems with teachers before. I know we should talk to the teacher first, but in my experience teachers tend to lie whe they know they did something wrong. I know my daughter does not lie. So I always go directly to the principal or my administrative contact, notify what happened and explain very clearly I will not tolerate any teacher to misstreat my kid. 'Til today it has always worked. I think I've been lucky.

Is there someone in the special ed dept who acts as a case manager? You could bring your concerns to her, and ask to meet with her and the PE teacher to discuss how to extend the behavior management techniques that are being used in his other classes to the PE class. It's likely the PE teacher has no idea that your child has an IEP and will take her threats literally.

At this age, in our school, the PE teacher was never officially a teacher, but more of a part time specialist. Which means she is unlikely to have any training at all in IEP protocols, special needs, etc. Me being me I usually introduced myself directly to the specialist, and said that I was doing so because there were things I thought she needed to know about my son, that would help her when he was in her class. In that type of conversation you can also get her version of what happened (always ask polite questions to resolve conflicts with teachers, never run in with "my child told me" because there is often a part of the story kids never registered). If you can't resolve it that way, then the next channel is the teacher.

While it is really important to sort it all out as soon as possible, you also don't want to ratchet things up to where there is a permanent rift between your family and this specialist.

Many AS kids ending up opting out of PE at this age, btw, because it can be a sensory nightmare. Keep an eye on that. We've been blessed to always make it work for our son, some really cool teachers and alternative curriculums, but with some kids and some curriculums it just can't.

Thanks for the info and advice; I'll post when it's been resolved! This gym teacher has a bit of a reputation and although she had to sign a statement saying she had read the IEP, there's no guarantee that she did. .

I agree with the PP's. I would try speaking with the teacher in a non-confrontational way about your concerns first.

Of course if that doesn't work, you could always tell her that you know her address and you're going to call the principal, and you want her to be sad about that.

Annotated Alice, LOVE that idea (so would my son)!

I'm going to speak with my special ed "liason" today, so we'll see. I think the botom line is, these teachers really need more training so they can understand these kids better.