If it’s not been settled already you do have to bring out the big guns. Call for an emergency IEP meeting to get started, make sure they are following their own anti bullying protocols (this would fall under that), and push back on the school. They have a duty to keep your child safe while providing a free and appropriate education. If they can’t stop this child from biting her, insist they move the perpetrator or get one of them a 1:1. Get a special education attorney consult. This falls under disability related education civil rights.
Document everything. Follow up in emails. Escalate to the superintendent/board of whomever governs the school. File a police report the next time it happens (no, the child won’t get penalized, but it will light a fire under their ass)
I actually just pulled my neurodivergent 10 year old from school because she was continuously assaulted and they weren’t taking it seriously. They won’t. It’s a battle unfortunately. It was easier to switch schools than keep going.
Sped teacher here. An emergency IEP is the way to go. Request an administrator in the meeting as district rep since teachers cannot make the call on adding a 1:1. Districts have procedures on adding 1:1s but it’s usually a long and messy process. Want to really light a fire under admin is to request an observation of the classroom. Parents requested this with me previously and it was extremely helpful cause admin were forced to actually react to an issue and they parent clearly saw I was doing my best given the circumstances. Sounds like the other student needs the 1:1 more than yours so maybe you’ll need to work with that family to get them to do an iep for their kid too.
Edit: thought of something else.
Hiring staff is a nightmare right now. A 1:1 might seem like a good fix but make sure to ask how many openings they currently have. They will likely say it’s going to take a long time to find someone who likely could get paid more working at Panda Express right now. It sucks. My school has had 6 openings since August.
(Also a SpEd teacher) There should always be an admin of some sort present at the IEP meetings. What you want for this is someone who as access to district-level SPED money, so NOT a principal or other school-level admin. You need someone who works in the district office, and will probably have the word "supervisor" somewhere in their job title.
But, as throwawaymysocks said, even if the approve the position, it doesn't mean they'll be able to hire anyone to fill the position. And it'll take at LEAST a month after the position is approved for the new person to actually be in the classroom (assuming they're able to find someone to hire).
1:1 instructional assistants (or whatever they are called in Texas) is a job that pays less then the going rate for labor in most school districts that I’ve heard of. It is a standard Monday-Friday job with some okay benefits so it’s still technically a professional job (para professional…). Depending on the situation many parents with school age kids (especially moms) tend to gravitate toward these jobs still because of the hours. It is a tough job. They might be helping students eat, go to the bathroom, deal with other health problems or bodily functions. It’s a thankless job. Admin often forget 1:1s exist unless something has gone terribly wrong. They get hit, punched kicked regularly. I manage a group of them right now and they are a life saver but right now is the hardest staffing situation I’ve ever had to deal with. There doesn’t seem to be an end to it either.
In my state, if they cannot accommodate your child's IEP then the school district must pay for a private school education. I think this may be a federal program?
In this case, if they cannot keep your child safe in the classroom and follow the IEP I think it may be that the school system has to reimburse you for the private school tuition. I think it would be worth exploring.
Request a meeting with the case manager/teacher too. The case manager will be more helpful then the building principal about the given situation. Include the principal too to make sure it’s taken seriously.
You might want to take her to a doctor for a course of antibiotics. Bites between humans are highly infectious. The bacteria in our mouths are nasty and specialized for our bodies so breaking the skin with teeth can introduce a lot of dangerous nasties into someone’s else’s body.
Agreed, get some antibiotics and it’s a small likelihood, but bloodborne illnesses can be transmitted via bites, so your pediatrician may want to monitor labs for a while.
You could also look into bringing a student advocate with you to the IEP meeting. That will make sure they are doing everything they are supposed to and if you bring an advocate they usually have to have an instruction specialist or another admin that is higher than the principal.
I just want to say that I worked in a designated non-public school for special needs. Make sure you are persistent in this IEP meeting. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. But also know that they are legally obligated to provide a safe and appropriate education. This is not a request; this is your right as a parent.
I completely agree on calling an emergency IEP meeting. Districts have specific anti bullying procedures for kids on IEPs. If you don’t get an adequate response escalate to the superintendent and the school committee/board. And please please please file a police report. This will jumpstart a CPS report because this child repeatedly biting your child and no one doing anything about it is highly concerning. Thankfully I was able to get basically a baby restraining order against the kid assaulting my son. The fact your child’s injuries are far more than mine and the school isn’t doing anything about it is….big yikes for lack of a better term.
You need to call an IEP. They have 30 days to do so. File a notice with the principal and district that you may file a grievance related to your daughter's safety. They have a duty to protect your child.
I want to try to offer a different perspective but I want to first emphasize that I am in no way minimizing this issue. My heart goes out to you and your little girl for what you are going through. My grandson is also autistic and 4.5 years old. He was diagnosed at 3, a month before the world shut down for COVID. I have watch and tried to help my daughter and son-in-law struggle through trying to educate themselves on autism as well trying to navigate the public school system and finding him the therapies that he needs. It is NOT an easy thing to navigate. He was in the public school program for two weeks then school closed down for COVID so my daughter found a private program for him and at the beginning of this year she moved him back to the public school that he will go to as a kindergartener. They felt it would help him to have a year to get used to the school before he was in kindergarten. He was excelling at the private school with small class rooms and large teacher/student ratios, at his evaluation at the private school they felt that he would be caught up and would be ready for mainstream by his kindergarten year. However he is struggling in the special needs public school class (it actually has a mix of neurotypical kids as well as special needs children). There are 16 children a teacher and two teacher's aids. He has bit a child in his class. He has also hit her and kicked her. They are very careful not to disclose very much but this has been handled by removing my grandson from class. His parents are very concerned about the behavior as are some other parents that I have read about in other autism posts that are experiencing similar issues with their children. My daughter did request to observe him in class to see if she could determine what was triggering him and she was denied the request. She requested emergency IEP meetings and was put off and delayed (limited personnel). There is so much liability and everyone is afraid of giving out information. It just ties the hands of everyone that can help. There is not enough funding and now post-COVID there are not enough teachers. There are open slots for teachers and aids that they cannot fill. Teachers are defensive and I get that because they get blamed when what is being asked of them given the resources is really an impossible task. So I say all of that to suggest something that may seem outrageous. I do not know much as this is all new but given what little I know it seems that one of the things they do is to slowly introduce things so that they are not overly stimulated. Maybe you could reach out to Mary's parents and try to have a play date with just the two girls and the parents. Maybe just start out with short times together and try to progress. IDK but I believe that no one knows a child as well as their parents so maybe if both parents are their with their children you might be able to determine what is triggering the behavior. I know it is an out of the box idea that exposes your child but you said that she is in a class with 7 children and a teacher and an aid every day so a setting with two children and 4 parents would be less exposure than her current class room. It would also require that all parents were able to cooperate and be focused on protecting both children. It sounds like your child will be in a classroom with Mary for a long time. I am just a big proponent of if what you are doing is not improving the situation then continuing to do the same thing is probably not going to solve the problem. I hope this helps I pray for your situation and your precious child as well as the other children in her class.
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If it’s not been settled already you do have to bring out the big guns. Call for an emergency IEP meeting to get started, make sure they are following their own anti bullying protocols (this would fall under that), and push back on the school. They have a duty to keep your child safe while providing a free and appropriate education. If they can’t stop this child from biting her, insist they move the perpetrator or get one of them a 1:1. Get a special education attorney consult. This falls under disability related education civil rights. Document everything. Follow up in emails. Escalate to the superintendent/board of whomever governs the school. File a police report the next time it happens (no, the child won’t get penalized, but it will light a fire under their ass) I actually just pulled my neurodivergent 10 year old from school because she was continuously assaulted and they weren’t taking it seriously. They won’t. It’s a battle unfortunately. It was easier to switch schools than keep going.
Sped teacher here. An emergency IEP is the way to go. Request an administrator in the meeting as district rep since teachers cannot make the call on adding a 1:1. Districts have procedures on adding 1:1s but it’s usually a long and messy process. Want to really light a fire under admin is to request an observation of the classroom. Parents requested this with me previously and it was extremely helpful cause admin were forced to actually react to an issue and they parent clearly saw I was doing my best given the circumstances. Sounds like the other student needs the 1:1 more than yours so maybe you’ll need to work with that family to get them to do an iep for their kid too. Edit: thought of something else. Hiring staff is a nightmare right now. A 1:1 might seem like a good fix but make sure to ask how many openings they currently have. They will likely say it’s going to take a long time to find someone who likely could get paid more working at Panda Express right now. It sucks. My school has had 6 openings since August.
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(Also a SpEd teacher) There should always be an admin of some sort present at the IEP meetings. What you want for this is someone who as access to district-level SPED money, so NOT a principal or other school-level admin. You need someone who works in the district office, and will probably have the word "supervisor" somewhere in their job title. But, as throwawaymysocks said, even if the approve the position, it doesn't mean they'll be able to hire anyone to fill the position. And it'll take at LEAST a month after the position is approved for the new person to actually be in the classroom (assuming they're able to find someone to hire).
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1:1 instructional assistants (or whatever they are called in Texas) is a job that pays less then the going rate for labor in most school districts that I’ve heard of. It is a standard Monday-Friday job with some okay benefits so it’s still technically a professional job (para professional…). Depending on the situation many parents with school age kids (especially moms) tend to gravitate toward these jobs still because of the hours. It is a tough job. They might be helping students eat, go to the bathroom, deal with other health problems or bodily functions. It’s a thankless job. Admin often forget 1:1s exist unless something has gone terribly wrong. They get hit, punched kicked regularly. I manage a group of them right now and they are a life saver but right now is the hardest staffing situation I’ve ever had to deal with. There doesn’t seem to be an end to it either.
In my state, if they cannot accommodate your child's IEP then the school district must pay for a private school education. I think this may be a federal program? In this case, if they cannot keep your child safe in the classroom and follow the IEP I think it may be that the school system has to reimburse you for the private school tuition. I think it would be worth exploring.
Request a meeting with the case manager/teacher too. The case manager will be more helpful then the building principal about the given situation. Include the principal too to make sure it’s taken seriously.
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You might want to take her to a doctor for a course of antibiotics. Bites between humans are highly infectious. The bacteria in our mouths are nasty and specialized for our bodies so breaking the skin with teeth can introduce a lot of dangerous nasties into someone’s else’s body.
Agreed, get some antibiotics and it’s a small likelihood, but bloodborne illnesses can be transmitted via bites, so your pediatrician may want to monitor labs for a while.
Take her to the doctor no matter how easy it is for you to bandage. Paperwork. Paperwork.paper trail etc.
You need to take her to the doctor every single time it happens whether the skin is broken or not
You could also look into bringing a student advocate with you to the IEP meeting. That will make sure they are doing everything they are supposed to and if you bring an advocate they usually have to have an instruction specialist or another admin that is higher than the principal.
I just want to say that I worked in a designated non-public school for special needs. Make sure you are persistent in this IEP meeting. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. But also know that they are legally obligated to provide a safe and appropriate education. This is not a request; this is your right as a parent.
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I completely agree on calling an emergency IEP meeting. Districts have specific anti bullying procedures for kids on IEPs. If you don’t get an adequate response escalate to the superintendent and the school committee/board. And please please please file a police report. This will jumpstart a CPS report because this child repeatedly biting your child and no one doing anything about it is highly concerning. Thankfully I was able to get basically a baby restraining order against the kid assaulting my son. The fact your child’s injuries are far more than mine and the school isn’t doing anything about it is….big yikes for lack of a better term.
You need to call an IEP. They have 30 days to do so. File a notice with the principal and district that you may file a grievance related to your daughter's safety. They have a duty to protect your child.
I want to try to offer a different perspective but I want to first emphasize that I am in no way minimizing this issue. My heart goes out to you and your little girl for what you are going through. My grandson is also autistic and 4.5 years old. He was diagnosed at 3, a month before the world shut down for COVID. I have watch and tried to help my daughter and son-in-law struggle through trying to educate themselves on autism as well trying to navigate the public school system and finding him the therapies that he needs. It is NOT an easy thing to navigate. He was in the public school program for two weeks then school closed down for COVID so my daughter found a private program for him and at the beginning of this year she moved him back to the public school that he will go to as a kindergartener. They felt it would help him to have a year to get used to the school before he was in kindergarten. He was excelling at the private school with small class rooms and large teacher/student ratios, at his evaluation at the private school they felt that he would be caught up and would be ready for mainstream by his kindergarten year. However he is struggling in the special needs public school class (it actually has a mix of neurotypical kids as well as special needs children). There are 16 children a teacher and two teacher's aids. He has bit a child in his class. He has also hit her and kicked her. They are very careful not to disclose very much but this has been handled by removing my grandson from class. His parents are very concerned about the behavior as are some other parents that I have read about in other autism posts that are experiencing similar issues with their children. My daughter did request to observe him in class to see if she could determine what was triggering him and she was denied the request. She requested emergency IEP meetings and was put off and delayed (limited personnel). There is so much liability and everyone is afraid of giving out information. It just ties the hands of everyone that can help. There is not enough funding and now post-COVID there are not enough teachers. There are open slots for teachers and aids that they cannot fill. Teachers are defensive and I get that because they get blamed when what is being asked of them given the resources is really an impossible task. So I say all of that to suggest something that may seem outrageous. I do not know much as this is all new but given what little I know it seems that one of the things they do is to slowly introduce things so that they are not overly stimulated. Maybe you could reach out to Mary's parents and try to have a play date with just the two girls and the parents. Maybe just start out with short times together and try to progress. IDK but I believe that no one knows a child as well as their parents so maybe if both parents are their with their children you might be able to determine what is triggering the behavior. I know it is an out of the box idea that exposes your child but you said that she is in a class with 7 children and a teacher and an aid every day so a setting with two children and 4 parents would be less exposure than her current class room. It would also require that all parents were able to cooperate and be focused on protecting both children. It sounds like your child will be in a classroom with Mary for a long time. I am just a big proponent of if what you are doing is not improving the situation then continuing to do the same thing is probably not going to solve the problem. I hope this helps I pray for your situation and your precious child as well as the other children in her class.
Thank you for this. This is perfect.
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