90s47 Busy Schedule

Monday, November 8, 1999 – My Dad fell down the basement steps on Halloween. He received a serious cut on the forehead and was up here in U of I Hospital all week. He is doing much better now and is in skilled nursing care in New London for about a week. In the meantime things have gone pretty well at Longfellow. We didn’t get a troubled family we were expecting so that is a break in our favor. This morning we met with another tough family and that meeting went well. They have wanted acceleration for one of their children, but it is not going to happen. Relations with the disgruntled parent who complained to the the superintendent and the board have been better lately. You never know what this person will do so that could change at anytime. I am really trying to avoid conflict with him if at all possible. I am meeting with the PTA Exec. Board today to discuss PTA projects.

Friday, November 12, 1999 – Things have been fairly calm this week. The PTA is having their fall dinner tonight. I am planning on going and helping for an hour or so and then Becky and I are going out to dinner. This one is always hard for teachers because many have other plans for Friday evenings, but feel somewhat obligated to attend things like this. Night activities extend the day for the teachers. In this case it extends the week for them. It is early enough that it doesn’t take up their whole evening. I don’t know how many will participate. It will upset the PTA President if there are not a lot of our staff there. The PTA also wants to have their pajama night on a Friday night early in December. That is a busy time so we have encouraged them to consider having it in January or February. In the past it has been in the middle of November and not many teachers have participated.

Tuesday, November 23, 1999 – We had a meeting at Child Psych. last night regarding one of our students. It didn’t go well! One of the parents became very upset and directed most of the anger at me. I was simply trying to defend the teachers. That person still insists that there would be no problems if we do the accommodations. We do try to do all of the accommodations but that is difficult when we are serving so many kids. Even when we do there are problems. Last spring was a good example of that. We are trying very hard to serve this child and every time something goes wrong the parents think it is our fault. Child Psych. had told us they were going to recommend a more restrictive setting but they did not do that in the meeting. We felt they really turned on the school. The child will probably be coming back to Longfellow after winter break. We are having a transition meeting here on December 9, 1999.