“Is everyone here?”
“I think so.”
“Then let’s begin with proper introductions.”
“Hello I’m Tamara Bankhead, and I’m the Resource Compliance Specialist.”
“Hi, I’m Chandra Skinner: Speech and Language Pathologist.”
“Hello, I’m Maxine Winters: Physical Therapist.”
“Hello, I’m Jasmine Sosa: Occupational Therapist.”
“And I’m Clark Gibson: Pre-Kindergarten Teacher.”
There was a friendly smile, followed by a nervous chuckle. “I’m Winnie Roberts. I’m the Mom.”
Yet another ritual. Another routine in what was my regular existence: The I.E.P. meeting. I.E.P. was shorthand for Individualized Education Plan. Contrary to popular belief, schooling isn’t always the same knowledge conveyor belt, pumping kids full of information and then passing them on to the next grade level.
To prevent them from falling through the cracks and to get them needed services and therapies, some students had I.E.P’s. All of mine did. In order to even get into Pre-K at Oakshire Elementary, a student had to have an I.E.P. This wasn’t terribly hard to do in Oakshire, if I’m being honest. The school got more tax dollars per student with an I.E.P. so they were incentivised to load up my classroom as much as possible.
People like Brollish were doubly incentivised. A crack under the pressure, a misfiled paper or something improperly filled out would have been all the excuse a clericly minded Amazon might need to dismiss me and “arrange a transfer”. All of Beouf’s caseload had I.E.P’s., too.
The first time I was in an I.E.P. I was a wreck. Buzzwords like “federal documentation” and “data based conclusions” got thrown around all willy nilly. My peers gathered around the conference table would be all but sweating bullets sometimes, making sure to have all of their notes perfectly in order, their lines perfectly rehearsed.
Teaching is a weird job. You’re expected to be educated and infinitely more informed on educational practices than a layperson, but also do service with a smile while keeping in mind that the parent is always right. The technical expertise of a doctor with the social constraints of a nurse.
“We are gathered here today,” Bankhead all but read from a pre-approved script, “to discuss Jaden’s progress in meeting his yearly goals.” Bankhead was a Resource Compliance Specialist: Essentially, a glorified secretary whose sole job was to keep minutes for and run these types of meetings, as well as make sure everyone else had their paperwork properly filled out. It was a thankless job, but she made more money than me, so she didn’t need thanks. “For this Annual Review-”.
I tuned out for a second and suppressed a smirk. Annual Review was such a bullshit term. Far too often, bureaucracy demanded multiple ‘Annual Reviews’ for the same kid. An annual review would happen for a kid in the early Fall, to ‘get it out of the way’. Then the same kid would get ANOTHER annual review close to Summer so meetings didn’t ‘pile up with all the new kids come Fall’. Did people not know what “Annual” meant?
It was an equal inconvenience to everyone, so I can’t even say ‘Typical Amazons’ here.
Mrs Bankhead looked to the Speech Therapist. “Miss Skinner,” she said. “How about you go first and review Jaden’s progress towards annunciation and vocabulary acquisition?” Translation: How good was a four year old at pronouncing words and how was he when it came to learning new ones.
“You see, Mom,” Miss Skinner started, “based on the results of Jaden’s latest Language Development Survey, or L.D.S. for short-”. I tuned out again. My first I.E.P. meeting I was a nervous wreck. This was my one hundred thirty-seventh such meeting.
It probably wasn’t, in actuality. I didn’t keep track of how many of these boring meetings I’d attended in my life, and that kind of normality, that lack of importance, was a good thing. I could do these in my sleep now. Yes, an I.E.P. was a Federally accountable document, but it really was just a kind of promise: A promise to pay attention to a kid, to keep track of where they’re at, to not give up on them, and to change up strategies if the current one wasn’t working. It’s literally what any teacher that hadn’t completely given up on their career would do anyways.