Check out this e-mail which was sent to the principal at North River by a concerned physical therapist who worked in one of the Early Childhood special education classrooms. At that time, although some of the students were suposed to have dedicated aides, there was only one shared aide assigned to the classroom who was unable to really do any meaningful physcial assistance because she had a high-risk pregnancy.
I have redacted all but the principal's name.
Wednesday May 11, 2011
From: [Redacted]
To: "Sanchez, Gilberto " <gsanchez@cps.kI2.il.us>
Subject: May 10th conversation:
Attachments: Uploaded File 7.1K Paraprofesional needs in 105.doc
Dr. Gilberto, first of all I just want to say thank you for making the time to talk to me on 5/10/2011. I know that you were very busy that day. I simply want to recap the conversation that we had and perhaps shed some light on a few more details regarding the children's needs in room 105.
As I had mentioned that day I believe that the students in this classroom have a wide variety of needs, with different diagnoses, personalities, educational and physical needs. I have put together a word document which I have attached. It includes the areas where the students on my case load require paraprofessional assistance. Please note that these are only the students in my caseload and there are nother 7 (AM) students and 6 (PM) students that all have paraprofessional needs of their own.
Those in blue font mean that they are supposed to have a dedicated aide (Which of course you are aware of as we spoke about this issue at some length back on February 9th and February 16th.)that this document (which has my PT comments on it) will explain a little better how students in Miss 's classroom have a wide variety of needs, many of which include physical handling. It is my opinion as a physical therapist that minimal handeling of one very light child would be ok for a pregnant woman to perform, but not repeated handling of numerous children. I think it is important to emphasize that these children do not only need to have their diapers changed, but they need assistance with clothing management, ambulation, stair navigation and in a few cases assistance with behavioral outbursts which can be violent (although unintentional). All of these activities involve some kind of bending and or lifting, which can put a pregnant woman at risk.ll of these things should be provided by a willing and capable paraprofessional in order for the teacher to work on the children's education. As I am sure you know, all of the student's in Miss 's class have extensive IEP's which also include numerous academic goals.
In order for the special education setting to work as it should and for these students to be progressing academically it is imperative that there be sufficient adult assistance in that classroom. I believe it is a matter of safety for the children to have appropriate adult suports in that classroom. In order for Miss to be able to address each student's individualized educational goals and needs the paraprofessional in the class room should be able to take care of the physical needs as well as providing educational supports. I do not believe that it is appropriate for a woman with a high risk pregnancy to be handling that many children, nor do I believe it is appropriate or that parents would be ok with Miss taking instructional time to diaper and toilet 10 students in a school day that is only 3.5 hours long.
I realize that this is a lot of information and that we are at the end of the school year. I only hope to make sure that every piece of information is at your disposal so that when you have to make an administrative decision you can make a well informed one.
Thank you again for you time and consideration, , OPT
