Incompetent Education Politicians

[sabotabby]

When I talk about the people being in charge of life-and-death decision-making around school re-openings as being incompetent tools who have never walked into a public school in their lives (and in one case, have never walked into a school at all), I would be remiss in my duties as an educator to not present examples of said incompetent toolage.

For those of you not In the System, an IEP is an Individualized Education Plan. It is a binding legal document that sets out needs and accommodations for students with exceptionalities (this includes learning and behavioural disabilities, physical disabilities, developmental delays, autism spectrum, and gifted). It is updated annually and comprises hours and hours of work on the part of classroom and special ed teachers, psychologists, and other professionals. It includes information like psychological tests, student strengths and needs, accommodations, modifications, and strategies to assist the student. For many teachers, this is much of what they do in the fall every year. It's a vital part of a student's educational success. In my school, about a third of students have one; in mainstream schools, this is generally a bit less but not much less.

It is a very important bit of paper in terms of supporting students and meeting their diverse needs. Many of these kids, in the old days, wouldn't have made it through school. Now many of them end up doing incredibly well, because we have this document that lets us adapt what we do in the classroom to their disabilities.

A good place to check what the definition of an IEP is exists on the Ministry of Education's own website.

Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education appears, as usual, unaware of their own website and what's on it, because yesterday, this exchange happened:






Now, yes, this was probably some summer intern in charge of the social medias and not the Goatfucker or the Homeschooled Fetus, but in the same way, how incompetent do you have to be to not teach your interns how to Google? I just tried Googling IEP to make sure it didn't have some other meaning that is more commonly used. The first result is, of course, this news story, but all of the top results are for the same, widely used, central to modern education term.

They deleted the tweets, after they started trending, but we kept our receipts.

I hope when these people get us all killed, it's at least this funny.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

... whee...

[sabotabby]

I'm responding to all statements by the government with, "Good morning, can you please clarify what a [stupid thing they said today] is?"

[ironed_orchid]

It's a good tactic which, unfortunately, will never get old because they keep coming up with more stupid things to say.

[sara]

As a parent of a kid with one, I'm disappointed but not surprised (down here it gets ignored half the time, and I have Stories about the last school district....)

[sabotabby]

It does get ignored a lot but NOT ON MY WATCH goddamn it. Also, there are a remarkable number of kids who don't understand it so we spend a lot of time making sure they know their rights.

[lapinlunaire]

How do people get these jobs? Did they lie on their resume? Do they have connections? I need to know how to get important jobs I'm totally unqualified for

[sabotabby]

You have to be rich, white, straight, male, and conservative.

[broken_record]

I had an IEP and I couldn’t even go to my own meetings because when I tried, I had a panic attack because I have PTSD from school and the entire point was I refused to go to school/on campus.

[sabotabby]

That is horrifying.

I wish more educators made an attempt to understand the ways in which school traumatizes or exacerbates existing trauma. By default people who become teachers are generally people who were not traumatized in school.

[broken_record]

Yeah. So I think my psychologist was the best person to speak on my behalf. Of course she's an expert about all that stuff.