Dual Perspectives: Navigating Special Education as a Teacher and a Parent

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability.

In this epiosde we get an insider's perspective of the world of special education from someone who sees it from both sides.

Eleanor Janek is a dedicated special education teacher and a mother two two children with disabilties.

Her insight is both eye opening and incredibly useful for virtually anyone who is a teacher or a parent.

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability.

The Center for Family Involvement at VCU School of Education's Partnership for People with Disabilities provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you.

SHOW NOTES:

Here's a link to the Virginia Department of Education's Critical Decision Points resource that Eleanor talked about.

01:00:07:14 - 01:00:37:23

Erin Croyle

Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle, the creator and host. The Odyssey podcast explores the unique journey where sent on when a loved one has a disability. I started down this path in 2010 when my first child was born with Down's Syndrome. My journey weaved its way here, working with the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's, Partnership for People with Disabilities.

01:00:38:00 - 01:01:05:17

Erin Croyle

This podcast does a deep dive into the joys and hardships we face. We celebrate how amazing the odyssey of parenting, caregiving and disability is, but we don't shy away from the tough stuff. For many of us, advocating for and navigating special education services is one of those hard things. But we often don't realize that it's no walk in the park for educators either.

01:01:05:19 - 01:01:21:16

Erin Croyle

That's why I made it my mission to talk to a special education teacher who is also a parent whose children also have disabilities. Which brings me to today's guest, Eleanor Janek.

01:01:21:18 - 01:01:25:04

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, thank you so much for joining me.

01:01:25:06 - 01:01:26:20

Eleanor Janek

Thank you.

01:01:26:22 - 01:01:33:12

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, can we start by you giving us a little bit of a background about who you are and what you do?

01:01:33:14 - 01:02:07:17

Eleanor Janek

So I am a special education teacher in Virginia. This is my 16th year as a teacher, but my 25th year in education and I am 44 and I've been married for almost 19 years with two children. One is 16. She is deaf with cochlear implants and she has autism. And then I also have a seven year old who has ADHD and currently undergoing evaluations for autism as well.

01:02:07:19 - 01:02:15:19

Erin Croyle

so you have quite the perspective. I'm curious what drew you to education and special education.

01:02:15:21 - 01:02:46:04

Eleanor Janek

As a middle school student? I worked with students who had disabilities because mainly they were isolated from the general education students. So then I started working as an instructional assistant. When I was fresh out of high school. I was 19 when I started. So I was still, you know, pretty much a kid myself as an instructional assistant. But I had a career or established, you know, working with the school system, they say, is pretty much the best thing that you can do.

01:02:46:06 - 01:03:10:14

Eleanor Janek

You get paid. You have your summers off. It's great, right? But then I quickly realized that without a college education, you did not get much respect from the educational community. So I pursued my degree in Psychology first and then my master's in education. So I've been doing I've been teaching special education for the last six years at a middle school.

01:03:10:16 - 01:03:38:05

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, I'm really curious. You know, you mentioned to me before we were recording, you and I are very similar ages, and I think we have very similar experiences growing up in schools where even though special education existed, we never saw our peers who were disabled. We never really saw special education teachers. What was your experience growing up? Can you tell me what a typical classroom look like and then tell me what classes look like today?

01:03:38:10 - 01:04:09:20

Eleanor Janek

Exactly like you just said. You know, our students with disabilities, the ones who had the more physical disabilities where you could kind of tell that they were different. One room all day long. Probably a special education teacher or an instructional assistant within that room with them. In my experience, as far as high school or middle school, you never saw students with disabilities or visible disabilities as they're now known in the mainstream setting.

01:04:09:22 - 01:04:35:11

Eleanor Janek

I had a teacher who was my homeroom teacher who was a special education teacher. But other than seeing him in my home base, I never saw him out in the school anywhere. Whereas today, you know, when we introduce ourselves at the beginning of the year, we always introduce ourselves as teachers, myself and my general education partner. And we always tell the kids, you know, you're lucky.

01:04:35:11 - 01:05:00:11

Eleanor Janek

You get two teachers in here, you're the bonus teacher represented in that way. But at the same time, now you see two teachers in a lot of classrooms where 20 years ago or almost 30 years ago when I was in school, you didn't see that it was just one teacher in the classroom. And our students with disabilities were pulled out into what they call a resource classroom.

01:05:00:13 - 01:05:16:14

Erin Croyle

I mean, we still see a lot of students pulled out into self-contained and resource classroom today, but it's very different. So are you in a room then with co teaching and are you you're working together with the general ed teacher to adapt and modify curriculum then?

01:05:16:16 - 01:05:59:19

Eleanor Janek

I am so I am primarily science. I do sixth, seventh and eighth grade science collaborative. More pull out happens at the elementary level and I'm at the middle school level, so I do work collaboratively with my teaching partners. For the past couple of years, I've been doing a schedule that's been kind of crazy and hectic as far as my teaching goes because I've been split into 45 minute chunks during the block and may only have one two at most three classes where I'm actually in the classroom for a full 90 minutes so I can have as many as ten classes in a two day period.

01:05:59:21 - 01:06:31:05

Eleanor Janek

That's mainly because of the teacher shortage in Virginia and all states that are going on right now. I would love to have my full 90 minute classes back so I can work with my teachers for a full 90 minutes and my students for a full 90 minutes instead of doing 45 minute chunks or even 20 minute chunks, because that's what I ended up doing in two of my classes this year was working in one class for 20 minutes, going to another class for 20 minutes, going back to another class for 20 minutes.

01:06:31:07 - 01:06:34:03

Eleanor Janek

It can get really crazy sometimes.

01:06:34:05 - 01:06:36:14

Erin Croyle

That sounds like a lot.

01:06:36:16 - 01:06:38:07

Eleanor Janek

And yes.

01:06:38:09 - 01:07:08:02

Erin Croyle

Yeah. My understanding is to one of the one of the hurdles that special education teachers experience is a lack of planning time to really meaningfully do the work they need to accommodate these students. I'm curious what you see in the classroom and also how that shifted as we're in this teacher shortage. Was it easier before and now you're just hoping it will get easier again.

01:07:08:04 - 01:07:10:09

Erin Croyle

Tell me a little bit about that experience.

01:07:10:11 - 01:07:40:18

Eleanor Janek

So pre-COVID, all of my classes were 90 minute blocks. I had six classes and they were all 90 minutes. Since I am in the middle school setting, I do have the luxury of having a 90 minute planning block each day. Now, that being said, I also have six different teachers. Let me count. One, two, three, four, seven different teachers that I work with.

01:07:40:20 - 01:08:13:08

Eleanor Janek

And it's only by luck of the draw that I might have a planning period in common with one of those teachers, maybe two. So a common planning period with them is not the norm for special education teacher, especially in science or middle school science, because sixth and seventh grade science do not have vessels. Eighth grade science has the flow that encompasses seventh and eighth grade science.

01:08:13:10 - 01:08:45:07

Eleanor Janek

So the priority is not with science, unfortunately. It's kind of thing of the in my opinion and some of my general education teachers share this opinion that we're kind of the catch all sciences, the content that students with more significant disabilities can be placed in because it's supposed to be hands on learning and labs all the time in a place where they can socialize.

01:08:45:07 - 01:09:16:04

Eleanor Janek

And that's a misconception with science. Like I said, pre-COVID, I got those 90 minute blocks during COVID. The county that I'm in was the only county in Virginia to be open full time. We didn't have any remote learning going on. We had an online school, but we were open full time. Kids were in the classroom. But our middle school students were in one classroom all day long, and they were rotated together.

01:09:16:06 - 01:09:42:06

Eleanor Janek

They had the same electives together. They had the same lunch in the classroom with me. I was with them wherever every subject, all day long. I felt like I was the room mama of that calculus. After things got back to normal. Our middle school students weren't in the same classroom all day long, but they traveled with the same co-op of students.

01:09:42:08 - 01:10:21:14

Eleanor Janek

Unless they had, like, a higher level math or language arts or they had a different elective. But for their core content classes, for the most part, they traveled with the same group to keep them kind of all together and when contact tracing was a big thing. But as COVID came in, I think teachers, especially during that shutdown, were seen as angels saving grace put on a pedestal because parents really got to see right what teachers put up with on a daily basis because they had their students at home.

01:10:21:16 - 01:10:47:02

Eleanor Janek

During that shutdown from March till the end of the year. But then when different counties started talking about reopen and then it was kind of like the movement of teachers, let's make sure that teachers are safe before we reopen and then teachers were condemned for having an opinion. And that's when a lot of teachers started leaving the profession.

01:10:47:04 - 01:11:01:05

Eleanor Janek

And it was harder before then or it was as hard before then. But it's gotten harder since COVID as far as there are so many teachers that have left the profession, even the ones that have 20 plus years.

01:11:01:07 - 01:11:27:07

Erin Croyle

Yeah, I don't remember when that started happening, and I'm glad you brought that up because I think we've forgotten how our teachers, our medical community was lifted up and celebrated and then yeah, just dropped when they said, Wait, wait, wait. We want to be safe. Take it slow. But the rest of the world was ready to move on and we just kind of.

01:11:27:09 - 01:11:29:20

Eleanor Janek

We dumped the kids back in the school.

01:11:29:22 - 01:11:30:13

Erin Croyle

Right.

01:11:30:15 - 01:11:56:24

Eleanor Janek

Right. And because teachers started sharing their opinions, and especially on social media platforms, Facebook, TikTok, everywhere, where we were trying to say, let's make sure that we're safe before we bring our kids back to school again. Because teachers started sending an opinion, parents started berating and condemning us.

01:11:57:01 - 01:12:07:11

Erin Croyle

And if you're already burnt out and you already needed more planning time and more support before and here you are in this trial situation. Yeah.

01:12:07:13 - 01:12:50:01

Eleanor Janek

And a fourth of the teaching population is special ed teachers. And when your special ed teacher population leave a student having an IEP is a federally mandated thing, whatever that IEP says the school system has to deliver that. There's no getting around it. And because you have your students with IEPs and you're trying to figure out how are you going to provide the appropriate service for them, I don't know if it was a state directive, a federal directive, or if it was just a local directive where we really had to deliver services based off the number of minutes in a student's right up.

01:12:50:03 - 01:13:04:12

Eleanor Janek

And it was if this student only gets 20 minutes, I'm in a class for only 20 minutes. If this group of students has a 30 minute service, I'm only in that class for 30 minutes.

01:13:04:14 - 01:13:24:18

Erin Croyle

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You know, being on the other side of that IEP, you forget as a parent, as a caregiver, that you want all the minutes your kid can get, especially if there's issues with speech, reading, whatever. But the teachers only have so many minutes that they can give.

01:13:24:24 - 01:13:54:19

Eleanor Janek

Right. And, you know, there's it's not just your individual student in that class. Especially students with IEPs. There could be anywhere from 5 to 10 to possibly 15 in a classroom at the middle school level. And you're expecting two teachers, the special education teacher, to deliver that amount of support and to also deliver those accommodations that are written into that IEP.

01:13:54:21 - 01:14:03:08

Erin Croyle

Yeah, and a lot and that's a lot that falls on you as a special education teacher. I imagine.

01:14:03:10 - 01:14:44:14

Eleanor Janek

Yes, especially with the amount of accommodations that students are coming up with from the elementary level that are more, I would say, elementary driven accommodations that parents want to continue to keep in place because they don't know what they what the expectation is at the middle school level. You know, when we get a new IEP for student that's come from fifth or sixth grade and we see some of the accommodations they come up with, we're like, holy moly, you know, this is something that was done in an elementary classroom because they were in an elementary classroom all day long.

01:14:44:16 - 01:15:00:18

Eleanor Janek

But in the middle school class, we switch and some of those accommodations, like a desk check to make sure that they have appropriate supplies is not something that's feasible at the middle school level because they're moving classrooms and they're going to have a different desk in each classroom.

01:15:00:20 - 01:15:14:08

Erin Croyle

Interesting. And that sounds like it's not just parents. It's the IEP team doing the middle school transition should be recognizing some of those things to pull them off now.

01:15:14:10 - 01:16:00:12

Eleanor Janek

Well, usually we have someone, a senior teacher or a department head from the middle school that goes to the elementary school, but they may not always see that IEP ahead of time. They might see that IEP the day of it may not always be shared with them ahead of time. And when they go into the IEP meeting and there is the parent there, when they see how determined a parent is to keep a service or to keep specific accommodation, and then they hear the teacher side of it or the parent side of it, then that senior teacher or department head might be agreeable to that accommodation at that particular time.

01:16:00:12 - 01:16:30:16

Eleanor Janek

At that particular IEP meeting, especially if it's early on in the fifth grade year ten IEP meeting happens in October or November, and it's not going to be revisited until October or November of the sixth grade year, then it may not be something that's on their radar or they might say, well, you know, we could see how that goes within the first quarter and then we can talk about it at the middle school as to whether or not that accommodation is appropriate for that student anymore.

01:16:30:18 - 01:16:52:05

Eleanor Janek

But when we as case managers get an IEP and we see those level of accommodations that are more for an elementary school day versus a middle school day, we're trying to wrap our heads around how are we supposed to accommodate that student, if that makes sense?

01:16:52:07 - 01:17:14:09

Erin Croyle

it makes total sense. And you have so many students and you also have students with five offers. And we're also seeing a mental health crisis in our students where even students without Final Fours and IEPs need more behavioral and emotional support. What is it like teaching right now for you and your colleagues?

01:17:14:11 - 01:17:43:18

Eleanor Janek

Whac-A-Mole. Or putting out fires? There's more stopping and starting instruction because you're trying to answer questions from the student or answer you. Can they go to the bathroom or can they get water? Or can they go to the clinic? Or the student needs to get up and throw a piece of paper away or the student needs to get up and stand in the back of the room because they can't sit for so long.

01:17:43:20 - 01:18:17:05

Eleanor Janek

You have your quote unquote, normal students that are in the mix in a collaborative classroom that could have, you know, so many students that have IEPs, so many students, like you said, that had survivors. But then as a special education teacher, I don't always know who has a father for I don't always know who might have a specific emotional need because my schedule is so different.

01:18:17:09 - 01:18:51:18

Eleanor Janek

I may not be able to go to a team meeting of my sixth grade counterpart or my seventh grade counterpart where we get information on a specific need that a student might have. So I may not be privy to that information until my teaching partner tells me when they remember two weeks later. It can be extremely difficult to try to meet the needs of all of the different students in that classroom because the idea is that, there are two teachers in that classroom, so there's two sets of eyes.

01:18:51:20 - 01:19:17:14

Eleanor Janek

Well, I've got one set of eyes trying to keep track of my students with disabilities while my other teacher has another set of eyes who is trying to direct instruction and trying to keep her eyes on the other half of the students who may not have disabilities or might have that five or four or might have those emotional difficulties that we have to deal with in the classroom.

01:19:17:16 - 01:19:40:03

Erin Croyle

Or are just middle schoolers. I mean, middle school is the hardest three years of I think our public schools that age, you're going through so much. Your brains and bodies of these students are just in rapid development and the teachers are just I mean, even before the mental health crisis, it was triage. I remember middle school being miserable.

01:19:40:03 - 01:19:41:22

Erin Croyle

I don't know about you, but.

01:19:41:24 - 01:20:07:15

Eleanor Janek

There was a little difficulty. The timid little sixth graders who were, you know, still more like fifth graders. And they're coming up and they're still kind of afraid to show themselves because they don't want to get teased. They're also coming from an elementary school, one elementary school, and they're being pushed into a middle school that might serve three or four elementary schools.

01:20:07:17 - 01:20:29:17

Eleanor Janek

You know, those feeder schools. They're shy, timid little sixth graders. And then towards their sixth grade year, they start telling those lines and then they get into seventh grade and things really start to blossom. And then when they get into eighth grade, they feel like, well, I'm almost in high school. I can do whatever I want.

01:20:29:19 - 01:20:49:02

Erin Croyle

Yeah, it's it's so exciting to have you here because we have the perspective of you as a teacher and the perspective of you as a parent, and we get to hear about both. So I'm curious if your work as an educator prepared you at all for being a parent.

01:20:49:04 - 01:21:17:08

Eleanor Janek

I really don't think that there's anything that ever prepares you for being a parent. You can read all the books you want to the what to expect when you're expecting all of the different publications that are out there on parenting. I really don't even think that being a middle school teacher prepared me for parenting, especially when we found out that my daughter had disabilities.

01:21:17:10 - 01:21:20:14

Eleanor Janek

Nothing really ever prepares you for that either.

01:21:20:16 - 01:21:43:15

Erin Croyle

Tell me a little more about that, because I know for me, you know, my son was born. I didn't know he had Down's syndrome until after he was born. And like you and I talks about going to school in an era where students with any sort of visible disability were segregated. Let's be honest. And they still are in many cases.

01:21:43:17 - 01:22:02:23

Erin Croyle

And so I've said this many times, the first person I ever met with Down syndrome was my newborn son, and it was a lot. It floored me. So how about you? What was that like when you started seeing some of the complexities that your daughter had?

01:22:03:00 - 01:22:28:00

Eleanor Janek

My daughter and my nephew are three and a half months apart. My daughter is the older of the three and a half months. So, you know, as a mother, especially as a mother who has the sister who had a child at the same time, you know, you're constantly comparing your development or their development to each other and you're told, don't compare, don't compare, don't compare, but you can't help it.

01:22:28:02 - 01:23:04:09

Eleanor Janek

So my nephew, like I said, being three and a half months younger than my daughter, was talking at a young age. He was walking at a younger age. And I was fortunate enough that in the school that I work in, my sister, who is also deaf and has cochlear implants, had hearing aids when she was in school. So she had a teacher of the deaf then and it ended up being my daughter's teacher of the deaf was my sister's teacher of the day who was based at my school.

01:23:04:11 - 01:23:29:06

Eleanor Janek

So I would be talking to her before we even found out that my daughter was deaf because she wasn't born deaf. She was a late onset death. So I would be talking with that teacher about things that my daughter was not doing, that my nephew was doing, and her constant reinforcement to me was don't compare. Every child is different.

01:23:29:06 - 01:23:54:12

Eleanor Janek

Don't compare. But you can't help but do that specifically. As a parent who is a special ed teacher, I don't want to sound shallow here, but that's a special ed teachers nightmare. Maybe not for everybody out there, but that's what's my fear. I'm a special ed teacher and I'm going to have a child with special needs. Yeah, that was that was hard.

01:23:54:12 - 01:24:28:00

Eleanor Janek

She was 27 months old when she got her first diagnosis as having a mild to moderate hearing loss. And I was told that hearing aids weren't practical for two year old. And I think I was just being told what I might have wanted to hear because language acquisition happened so much between the ages of two and five. And to be told hearing aids are not practical to put on a two year old, I will not repeat that audiologist name, but from that point on I did not trust her anymore.

01:24:28:02 - 01:24:33:18

Erin Croyle

And that's interesting. Something similar happened to me where my son hearing loss is common with Down syndrome.

01:24:33:18 - 01:24:34:05

Eleanor Janek

Right?

01:24:34:07 - 01:24:55:04

Erin Croyle

And he was born in Malaysia. So I don't even know. I assume he passed his newborn hearing screening, but it was just such a traumatic time. I think that was the least of my worries. You know, we were apart. He was in the queue and the audiologist said, well, his hearing's okay in one ear.

01:24:55:06 - 01:24:55:23

Eleanor Janek

Yeah.

01:24:56:00 - 01:25:03:16

Erin Croyle

And you're a new parent and you don't know. And anyone listening who ever gets that advice, run and get a second opinion.

01:25:03:18 - 01:25:04:16

Eleanor Janek

Exactly.

01:25:04:18 - 01:25:07:12

Erin Croyle

Yeah. Because it's it's blatantly false.

01:25:07:14 - 01:25:30:02

Eleanor Janek

They told me that she passed her newborn hearing screening, but they had to do it three times. And at the time I didn't question it. You know, I was a new mom. Yes. We have a family history for hearing loss. And, you know, my husband and I used to joke when she was in utero that we were going to have a deaf baby with ADHD and look what happened.

01:25:30:04 - 01:25:57:19

Eleanor Janek

But you're just not prepared for anything like that, especially when the pediatrician comes in and says, know, she passed your newborn hearing screening. We did it three times and she passed away. We didn't think about it and never questioned it because of our family history. She had to be tested every six months until she was three, and she passed each time until she was 27 months.

01:25:57:21 - 01:26:20:24

Eleanor Janek

And that's when they found out her hearing loss was mild to moderate. It's kind of going back to my nephew because she wasn't progressing like he was. The recommendation was that she'd go into early intervention and she had not been diagnosed with the hearing loss for the recommendation for early intervention. That was afterwards. So it was a little surprising.

01:26:21:01 - 01:26:40:19

Eleanor Janek

And as they progressed, early intervention wanted different evaluations done on her because she aged out at three the day she aged out of early intervention and I signed the paperwork that, as was the day I found out that she was completely deaf and she was a candidate for bilateral cochlear implants.

01:26:40:21 - 01:26:42:00

Erin Croyle

Wow.

01:26:42:02 - 01:26:54:10

Eleanor Janek

So I literally went from the hospital where she had had her ABR and CT scan to the elementary school to sign her out of early intervention services.

01:26:54:12 - 01:27:00:19

Erin Croyle

And for anyone listening ABR, I know what this is, but can you tell folks what ABR is?

01:27:00:21 - 01:27:26:00

Eleanor Janek

I'm not exactly sure what ABR means. I'd have to look that up, but essentially they do brain scans. They hook those little electrodes up to the baby's head and then they put ear buds in the baby's ears and they send sounds and tones to see if there's any reaction on a brain scan. And if there is a reaction, then they know that the child is hearing.

01:27:26:02 - 01:27:41:24

Eleanor Janek

If there isn't a reaction, then they know that something is wrong and they did the CT scan on top of that to make sure that there was nothing blocking her ear canal that would prevent any sounds from going to her brain.

01:27:42:01 - 01:28:10:18

Erin Croyle

Wow. Okay. And ABR stands for I had to look this up because I can never remember either. By the way, auditory brainstem response because behavioral testing on a two year old is not necessarily accurate. What is a condition, if you don't mind sharing that can cause hearing loss that that significant that quickly is in this condition that a genetic condition of some sort because again our listeners might experience something similar and not know what it is.

01:28:10:23 - 01:28:40:02

Eleanor Janek

Honestly I don't know. My sister had genetic counseling done before her and her husband were considering having a baby. There is a chromosome and I think it's connects us 26. I don't know if that's a current event or genome, but that is typically the abnormality that would cause deafness that is known. There are several other genes that could cause deafness.

01:28:40:04 - 01:28:46:14

Eleanor Janek

It's just with mapping of the human genome. They haven't found all of the causes for everything yet.

01:28:46:20 - 01:29:03:18

Erin Croyle

Okay, Thank you. That helps. That helps so many others out there. So, Eleanor, on the flip side of all this, you've been through so much with your children. Tell me how being a parent has informed your work as an educator.

01:29:03:20 - 01:29:45:13

Eleanor Janek

I think there's pros and cons about that. And I have one colleague that often reminds me when I'm thinking about stuff as an educator. She often reminds me, Hey, would you want that done to Georgia? And then I have to pull myself back and think, No, I wouldn't want Georgia to have to go through that. So I have to change my way of thinking because, you know, typically as a teacher, someone a kid comes up to you with a question and, you know, if it's something that a kid can honestly do on their own, you're just like, go back and reread the directions.

01:29:45:15 - 01:30:07:15

Eleanor Janek

Something as simple as that. But as a parent, I have to put myself in that situation and say what? I want my daughter's teacher to tell her to go back and read the question when she honestly may not know what she's reading, if that makes sense. I don't know if that completely answers that question.

01:30:07:17 - 01:30:12:00

Erin Croyle

I think that's an example of what I'm asking. Yeah.

01:30:12:02 - 01:30:49:20

Eleanor Janek

As far as knowing the IEP process, you know, being a special ed teacher, I have that inside look at both sides of the table when I'm writing a draft for students IEP or when I'm trying to come up with an alternative assessment for student who may have a disability. I kind of think my daughter first, like, is this something that I think my daughter could do before I present it to one of my students or in an IEP?

01:30:49:22 - 01:31:07:17

Eleanor Janek

And I know that no two students are alike, but I think of it in terms of is this something that I would want my daughter to do as she gets older or something that I want my son to do as he gets older? And that's kind of how I kind of filter my way through it.

01:31:07:19 - 01:31:30:17

Erin Croyle

Interesting. So let's talk more about the relationships between parents of children and disabilities and their school teams. I mean, you get to see both sides of this. So how has your perspective changed since becoming a parent in those meetings where you're working with families to develop IEPs or change accommodations?

01:31:30:23 - 01:32:19:18

Eleanor Janek

I think that I often maybe sometimes more often than I should bring my personal not feelings, but personal experiences into it. When we're sitting around the table working through the IEP draft and talking about goals and accommodations, and as a parent start to maybe question why this goal or why this accommodation, I think I find it kind of humbling when I can bring a personal experience, I can say, Well, my daughter also has an IEP or my son also has an IEP, and I feel like this is to benefit your child because this is how it works for mine.

01:32:19:20 - 01:32:45:23

Eleanor Janek

Bringing that those personal experiences in has helped me to be a better teacher because I feel like I'm going through some similar things that a parent on the other side of the table might be going through, or I feel like I can explain things a little bit better to that parent on the other side of the table, having gone through it myself.

01:32:46:00 - 01:32:54:21

Erin Croyle

That makes complete sense. I mean, even if we try to leave our personal experiences on the other side of the door, you can't help but bring them in.

01:32:54:23 - 01:33:19:05

Eleanor Janek

Right? You know, I used to think about the parents who would always do or the colleagues who would always brag about their kids or talk about their kids so much and was, I have to hear another story about this child. But then would you become a parent yourself? You understand that it's not that they're trying to brag or it's second nature, you know, example.

01:33:19:05 - 01:33:26:23

Eleanor Janek

That's the way that their brain is wired right now. Because you say something and it triggers a memory and they just have to get it out.

01:33:27:00 - 01:33:49:00

Erin Croyle

Yeah, Yeah. And I think that, you know, when we're thinking about IEP meetings, it's such a strange place to be. The dynamics there as a caregiver, if you're not familiar with it. I mean, by the time you're seeing people in middle school, a lot of them are probably have been doing it a while. But there are trust issues because so often a lot of parents are aware of that.

01:33:49:02 - 01:34:29:23

Erin Croyle

Schools, it costs money to educate students with priorities. And so as parents, you're going in there making sure you're fighting. There's this dynamic of talking about how competent and great your kid is, but also you have to focus on some of the deficits, which are heartbreaking. It's this constant balance. And I think unfortunately, as parents, we're sometimes sort of pushed to not trust and to feel as this school, the school side of the IEP team is is maybe in it for the schools and for the teachers and not for the students.

01:34:30:00 - 01:34:51:00

Erin Croyle

What what is your take on all that and how do you feel that as a teacher going into those meetings, making sure that you have enough time and resources to give the students what you need? But then on the other side of it, how do you feel as a parent when you're going into those meetings to advocate for your own children?

01:34:51:02 - 01:35:18:11

Eleanor Janek

So we kind of do two things for that, because with my daughter when she was and like I said, the day she aged out of early intervention was the day we found out that she was aging out of early intervention, put her in to quote unquote, regular school. She no longer had individual family support plan with early intervention.

01:35:18:13 - 01:36:08:01

Eleanor Janek

She had IEP with the public school system. So I didn't have to fight when she was younger to get that IEP. For me, even as a teacher, I didn't see the hostile side that it could be or as a parent because I didn't have to fight the school system at that point to get her an IEP, move that down a couple of years later, where as a special ed teacher during that teacher week, we are supposed to contact our parents, our caseload kids that they would be called and just kind of introduce ourselves to who we are, what we do, what we're going to be doing through the school year.

01:36:08:03 - 01:36:43:18

Eleanor Janek

And I used to tell parents that my goal as a special educator was to give kids the tools that they needed to without special education services, because that is ultimately the goal. And I did that during teacher Week. And on the other end of the phone, the parents started arguing with me and cussing me out because their child had just gotten the IEP and I was not under any circumstances taking that away from their child.

01:36:43:20 - 01:37:14:11

Eleanor Janek

That was not my intention. My intention was simply to call, introduce myself and tell what my philosophy was. In that short phone call after we hung up, the parent was up at the school wanting to meet with me, wanted to have it out with the principal, all because I said that my goal was to give her child the tools that he needed to be successful so that he no longer required special education services.

01:37:14:13 - 01:37:51:15

Eleanor Janek

I did not know the back history of what that parent had gone through until the parent told me. So I think that that shaped my way of I'm no longer calling a parent and saying that, right, toothpaste, I want that to ever happen again. But being on the other side of that, because like I said early on, I had absolutely no problems with my daughter or her getting an IEP or services.

01:37:51:17 - 01:38:17:09

Eleanor Janek

But fast forward five years later when she was in fifth grade and I thought that my daughter was the perfect candidate for a functional curriculum. We did have some issues when she was in first grade where they wanted to do a reevaluation on her and they wanted to give her a whole battery of testing and they were testing for an intellectual disability.

01:38:17:11 - 01:38:41:06

Eleanor Janek

No way. My my daughter's deaf and she's in first grade. There's no way you can test and diagnosed her with an intellectual disability. Sometimes a student being deaf can mimic those types of behaviors because they don't know any better, especially early on. And I was very adamant that she was not a child who had an intellectual disability, and that was in first grade.

01:38:41:08 - 01:39:14:14

Eleanor Janek

But then in fifth grade, her teacher came to me and said, you know, we got to talk. What are you thinking for next year? And I said, She needs a functional curriculum. She needs to learn life skills. She needs to learn basic skills on how to care for herself and the teacher. Absolutely. She absolutely agreed with me. So that whole year of her fifth grade year, I was thinking that she was going to be going into a functional curriculum when she got to my school.

01:39:14:16 - 01:39:41:09

Eleanor Janek

And then we had her IEP in March and BAM, they didn't want her in a functional curriculum. They said she didn't have the label to be in a functional curriculum. But I think as a parent, we know our kids the best. We know what they're capable of, at least in the home setting. We may not see them in the school setting, but we know what they're capable of in the home setting.

01:39:41:13 - 01:40:12:06

Eleanor Janek

And in my opinion, she needed a functional curriculum. And at that point I had already hired an advocate and I was a special education teacher in my school system. And here my school system was fighting their own special education teacher for services for her child. So there are definitely pros and cons to being the parent and then being the teacher.

01:40:12:08 - 01:40:51:03

Eleanor Janek

And then I have to be reminded by my own mother that you are a parent first and you are a teacher second. And sometimes you have to bring the hurt out because you need to make sure that the school system sees you as a parent in that situation and not as a teacher. And that's really what an advocate has done for me, too, has allowed me to separate myself to be a parent at her IEP meetings instead of being a teacher and to remind the school system that I'm there as a parent.

01:40:51:05 - 01:40:53:14

Eleanor Janek

Right? Not as teacher.

01:40:53:16 - 01:41:04:18

Erin Croyle

For anyone listening when we say functional skills, you know, in some places they say life skills or assistance with activities with daily living. That's what you're referring to, right?

01:41:04:20 - 01:41:32:01

Eleanor Janek

Yes. And learning job skills, because, I mean, yes, we can do laundry. We can learn to cook here. But I'm sure, as many people know, middle schoolers are like toddlers sometimes and they don't listen to their parents and they're certainly not going to listen to their parents when they're trying to teach them things. But they have a different reaction to teachers.

01:41:32:03 - 01:42:06:04

Eleanor Janek

So my hope was that if she got into a more functional curriculum, that she would get those skills from the teachers, that she wasn't learning from me and they wanted to put her in a general education classes, collaborative classes, but general education classes with no aid, with no assistance and completely felt track.

01:42:06:06 - 01:42:08:17

Eleanor Janek

And I didn't agree with that.

01:42:08:19 - 01:42:22:00

Erin Croyle

Right. And so, well, again, for anyone listening and you mentioned this earlier, it's standards of learning. So that's, you know, achievement based diploma high school sort of effort. Correct?

01:42:22:02 - 01:42:40:24

Eleanor Janek

Yes. Right. They learn a set of information or set of standards over the course of the year. And then at the end of the year, they're given this big test that basically sees what they've learned. And then schools get accreditation based on those. The percentage of passing for that test.

01:42:41:01 - 01:43:28:04

Erin Croyle

You bring up such a tough conversation that so many parents, I think, struggle with and you have the unique perspective as a teacher. And it's interesting to hear you say they wanted to test for intellectual disabilities and look to that label and then flip side with middle school. You're looking more to functional skills, life skills. And I know what happens in a lot of cases is that oftentimes schools do pursue that intellectual disability label, that ID label, and then will use that to put students into self-contained disability ID classrooms, multiple disabilities, classrooms, things like that as early as elementary school.

01:43:28:05 - 01:44:03:06

Erin Croyle

Right. What's interesting to me hearing you say this is that my son having Down's syndrome and ADHD and hearing loss and a whole bunch of stuff, but everyone sees Down's syndrome when they see my oldest child, when we were entering out of early intervention, he automatically qualified for this reverse inclusion model of public school pre-K. And then when it was time to transition to kindergarten, it was different for me, whereas I had to fight it.

01:44:03:08 - 01:44:15:13

Erin Croyle

He was the first student in his elementary school in Northern Virginia to be in a general education classroom in kindergarten.

01:44:15:15 - 01:44:16:08

Eleanor Janek

wow.

01:44:16:10 - 01:44:51:06

Erin Croyle

Right. And so when we think about the labels that our children have to endure and the implicit bias and the ableism and all of the things that dance where we're going into these meetings, depending on the school's mindset and philosophy toward inclusion and disability and intellectual disability, you just don't know. And so you're going in there with like metaphoric body armor on IEP meetings with my son were painful.

01:44:51:10 - 01:45:00:13

Erin Croyle

There's no reason for students to be separated in kindergarten. I mean, that is kindergarten. There's some learning, but a lot of it's life skills.

01:45:00:15 - 01:45:27:03

Eleanor Janek

My eligibility meeting with her, she had already had the label, the D D label that they'd come out of with in preschool. They age out of that D d label around seven or eight, and they have to be given a regular label, a specific learning disability ASL D label or an h r label for attention, other health impairments or an H.R. label for hearing impairment.

01:45:27:04 - 01:45:58:19

Eleanor Janek

They have to be labeled into a category to receive funding from the federal government. And when they were trying to label her as D, I took her to Maryland, to the Kennedy Krieger Institute for the Dream Clinic to have assessments done. And I was not impressed with the doctor who completed the assessment on her at all. According to a medical diagnosis, she was medically diagnosed with an intellectual disability.

01:45:58:21 - 01:46:20:06

Eleanor Janek

Yeah, I had my daughter's audio verbal therapist look over the testing. She concurred with me. She was like, Yeah, this testing does not agree with Georgia, and I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to turn that testing over to the schools because they weren't sure what they were going to do with it. Were they going to use it for me or use it against me?

01:46:20:08 - 01:46:56:16

Eleanor Janek

And I had her look at that. I had my advocate look at that. And he also looked at the criteria sheet in my county for an intellectual disability. And he goes, go ahead, turn it over to them according to their own criteria. They can't label her with an intellectual disability right. But I will tell you that eligibility meeting lasted 2 hours and the first hour was incredibly hostile because we were going over the different testing that they were using to assist her with the intellectual disability and her achievement and performance match up.

01:46:56:16 - 01:47:22:07

Eleanor Janek

That was her saving grace. She had a very high score on, I believe, visual spatial reasoning, but then she had a very low score on everything else. But because she had such a discrepancy in her scores based on their own criteria sheet, they could not label her with an intellectual disability. But that was the first thing that they went through and that took an hour to go over all of the testing.

01:47:22:09 - 01:47:47:04

Eleanor Janek

And my mom was with me and she had to leave after that first hour after they said, okay, she's not eligible for intellectual disability, I said, okay, let's get the paperwork for it. So they going, Come on, let's go outside, wherever you need. I mean, that first hour was such a nerve wracking first process because I knew she wasn't.

01:47:47:04 - 01:48:17:19

Eleanor Janek

I'd be I told everybody who did assessments or did evaluations on her. She wasn't ID And I told them at that point, if you find her eligible for I.D., I will refuse to sign the paperwork. So they already knew ahead of time. But there was that hostility back and forth between them and between me because what I had been told was it was her second year in kindergarten and she really wasn't making any progress.

01:48:17:21 - 01:48:41:05

Eleanor Janek

So that was why they came to the conclusion that she could have an intellectual disability instead of stopping and thinking and listening to the teacher of the day. Right. That she is having typical behaviors of a student who is death, which mimic the behaviors of a student who might be intellectually disabled.

01:48:41:07 - 01:48:44:03

Erin Croyle

Right. What age did she get the cochlear implants?

01:48:44:07 - 01:49:07:24

Eleanor Janek

She got her first cochlear implant when she was three. She got her second when she was four and even her audiologist and the surgeon said that she was old for cochlear implant. She was a late implant because there was no indication over hearing this when she was a baby or when she was born or when she was too bright.

01:49:07:24 - 01:49:13:15

Erin Croyle

And a lot of times because of that late diagnosis, there's delays in speech.

01:49:13:17 - 01:49:41:03

Eleanor Janek

And she really bad articulation issues. She has mostly unintelligible speech. If you're not familiar or you don't understand her, I can't send her out in public to order at McDonald's without being with her because, you know, we have such a younger population now working in our restaurants who may not take the time to listen to her and try to understand her.

01:49:41:05 - 01:49:47:02

Eleanor Janek

And she's going to be written off because she can't pronounce things correctly.

01:49:47:04 - 01:50:27:12

Erin Croyle

Yeah, I similar with my son is down. It's very hard to understand him. And that is no reflection on his intellect. It's it's it's those those bias that are not yet that we cannot stop. I'm curious. Your son is younger and you said he has ADHD and you're in the process of having him evaluated for autism. I'm curious where you're at with this, because in my own experience, I missed a lot of signs with my daughter that they have ADHD because my older son's needs were so significant, I kind of didn't pick up on it.

01:50:27:12 - 01:50:46:13

Erin Croyle

I blamed it on my parenting or how chaotic our lives are because of our lifestyle, if you will. So can you tell me a little bit about the process you've gone through with your son and how that's different and what you say as a teacher and as a parent?

01:50:46:15 - 01:51:11:16

Eleanor Janek

Well, there is a significant age gap between my daughter and my son because, again, my daughter is 16, my son is seven. So it was debatable as to whether or not we wanted to have another child because we weren't sure if we wanted to go through that process all over again if something should happen that he was born death or became death at a later age.

01:51:11:18 - 01:51:35:13

Eleanor Janek

But then we just kind of chalked it up to if he is a year and we've already gone through it, so maybe we can deal with it again. He was born with absolutely no problems with his hearing. The child hears everything under the sun, sometimes too much, but where he hears everything, he's also got a sensitivity and he can literally hear everything.

01:51:35:15 - 01:52:10:20

Eleanor Janek

We did seek out early intervention services because in his daycare where he daycare preschool, he had a really difficult time transitioning to new things. He was more of a stands on the outside and watches. Then he was trying to go in and play even at three years old, he was still a little bit more immature than his same age peers and tended to gravitate towards younger kids to play.

01:52:10:22 - 01:52:36:11

Eleanor Janek

I feel like he thought maybe if he went and played with the younger kids, then he wouldn't act so different. I don't think as a parent I'm any more aware with him and I was with her, but I don't think I'm also unaware if that makes sense. I think my experience with her kind of helped hone that, but I still don't know what the heck I'm doing.

01:52:36:11 - 01:53:01:00

Erin Croyle

So I can relate to that very much. You know, a lot of parents have to shift their careers to be able to take care of their kids. Special DAY If you have a child that has a disability or medical complexities, do you think being a teacher allows for you to have the flexibility you also need to be a caregiver?

01:53:01:02 - 01:53:36:05

Eleanor Janek

I think my particular situation allows me to be a little bit more flexible and I only say my particular situation because my daughter was a student in my school and I was actually one of my daughter's special education teachers, so I was able to be around her more. And when she was in the school setting, if something happened and she got sick or something, I was notified about it almost instantly.

01:53:36:07 - 01:54:09:12

Eleanor Janek

But also, again, in my particular situation, and I have a husband who is a custodian at another middle school who has a different schedule than I do, and then I have a father who is retired as a custodian from my middle school and my mother, who is a bus driver. So in my particular situation, yes, being a teacher has allowed me to be a little bit more flexible because I have a good support system.

01:54:09:14 - 01:54:37:04

Eleanor Janek

I don't think that being a typical teacher without a job that would allow you to be flexible, because I don't know if you've ever heard, but it's harder for a teacher to be out a day than it is for them to just come in. because a teacher who is out means that unless they have a reliable substitute, the kids may not get instruction.

01:54:37:06 - 01:54:59:19

Eleanor Janek

It might be a free for all. They have to come up with some plans. They have to make all the copies that they need for those plans, or if there is a digital based platform, they have to make sure that everything in that folder we use a platform called biology. They have to make sure that everything in that folder is open and readily available for them.

01:54:59:19 - 01:55:10:00

Eleanor Janek

Because if it's a substitute that we're not familiar with this, they can't just send us a text message and say, Hey, you forgot to open this assignment. Can you open it now?

01:55:10:05 - 01:55:11:20

Erin Croyle

So right.

01:55:11:22 - 01:55:37:05

Eleanor Janek

Yes. Being a teacher can be flexible, but not always to be a caregiver. And when a teacher misses time, that sets her students back. And then that teacher feels guilty about having to take off because now their students haven't gotten the instruction that they need. But yet you're trying to take off because you need to do things for your family.

01:55:37:07 - 01:55:55:11

Eleanor Janek

So it's a catch 22 with the flexibility. Either you you take off and do what you need for your children or your family, or you don't take off because you have your kids at school who need you and you want to be there for them to.

01:55:55:13 - 01:56:13:04

Erin Croyle

Well, that that gives me a follow up question. You know, a lot of times we'll hear people say, well, teachers, it's such an ideal profession. You get your summers off. Is there any sort of myth to that summer break? I mean, as a teacher, is it is it worth it being a a parent and having that summer off?

01:56:13:04 - 01:56:16:01

Erin Croyle

Is it is it a good trade off?

01:56:16:03 - 01:56:47:03

Eleanor Janek

Summers are wonderful, but a lot of parents are under the misconception that teachers get paid for their summers. If teachers get paid a specific salary for teaching, so say a teacher gets $50,000 a year, just a number that's being made up that $50,000 a year is being paid over 24 installments. So our contract might be for 207 days.

01:56:47:05 - 01:57:19:15

Eleanor Janek

That salary is based off of 207 days. We get paid in the summer, but not paid for for the summer. And then teachers are contracted where we have to do professional development over the summer. We have to do contract our professional development and non-contract our professional development. So we have to give up anywhere between three and five days in our summer to do professional development depending on the county that you work for.

01:57:19:17 - 01:57:24:11

Eleanor Janek

So, yes, Happy Summers. All right. Is wonderful.

01:57:24:17 - 01:57:37:00

Erin Croyle

Right? Right. So, I mean, you get your summers off, but there's a trade off because your salary, even though you're paid throughout the entire year, is a salary based on that ten month.

01:57:37:02 - 01:57:38:04

Eleanor Janek

Right? Yep.

01:57:38:06 - 01:57:43:00

Erin Croyle

Right. So it's a misconception to think like you are taking a cut in your salary.

01:57:43:02 - 01:57:54:16

Eleanor Janek

Right? If I worked an actual 12 months in any profession and got paid for that 12 months, it would probably be significantly more than I make as a teacher.

01:57:54:18 - 01:58:00:19

Erin Croyle

Right. Which is why a lot of administrators make more because they are working a 12 month year.

01:58:00:21 - 01:58:24:02

Eleanor Janek

Right? My is a 12 month employee because he is a custodian. He gets paid his salary all year around. But a trade off for that is it's frowned upon. If we take a vacation during the school year, because after all, we're there for the students, right? In my county, teachers don't get vacation days. You're expected to take your vacation in the summers.

01:58:24:04 - 01:58:46:12

Eleanor Janek

12 month employees do get vacation days so they can take their vacation whenever they want. Now, would it be better for them to take it in the summer? Yeah, if they could. But they are allowed to take their vacation during the school year where teachers have to have special permission in order to take off time during the school year if they're going on some sort of extended vacation.

01:58:46:14 - 01:59:01:18

Erin Croyle

I had a dad who only could take his vacation in chunks once a year. And it it changes the dynamic of how you function in the world and see other people outside of the education field. I'm sure.

01:59:01:20 - 01:59:06:01

Eleanor Janek

Yes. Rates get hiked up in the summer, too.

01:59:06:03 - 01:59:16:15

Erin Croyle

Yeah, exactly. And it's crowded. Yeah, it's yeah. You know, if you could do it all again. What what career path would you pursue?

01:59:16:17 - 01:59:39:21

Eleanor Janek

Honestly, I don't know, because I've been in education over half my life. Like I said before, I'm 44 and I already have 25 years in education because I started at 19. I told my principal just a couple of weeks ago when we were having our end of year award assembly, you know, I whispered to her, I'm like, I only have five years, and then I've got my 30 and.

01:59:39:24 - 01:59:57:14

Eleanor Janek

Then I might decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. And she just looked at me and she goes, You're not going anywhere. And actually, I don't know what I would do because like I said, for half my life, over half my life, it's been education, teaching. It's hard, but you really have to love teaching.

01:59:57:14 - 02:00:05:07

Eleanor Janek

I'm not saying you always like what you're doing, but you do have to love teaching to stay in it.

02:00:05:09 - 02:00:32:02

Erin Croyle

I do have one more question about when you pursue a special education degree, because my understanding is as a parent, as an advocate, as someone who is around, there's really a huge lack of information about special education and special education law for our teachers. Pursuing those degrees was that your experience?

02:00:32:04 - 02:01:00:09

Eleanor Janek

Yes, I did have one class early on for my minor, and it was an intro to special education, and we did have to look at 88, 97, and we did have to look at fate, but we didn't discuss it in depth. You know, it was basically an individual education plan is federal law and whatever is written into it is something that you have to you have to do just because it's law.

02:01:00:11 - 02:01:17:05

Eleanor Janek

But there's really no instruction or there wasn't when I was in college, really wasn't any instruction behind it. Yes, it's a law and yes, we have to honor it. But they didn't take you through all of the parts of the different laws.

02:01:17:07 - 02:01:35:15

Erin Croyle

I mean, it explains so much because a lot of times if you have a strong parent advocate, they're going to know more than a graduating room. Yeah, I find that even in some cases, the directors of special education don't really fully understand the laws.

02:01:35:17 - 02:02:15:09

Eleanor Janek

definitely. You know, they they give you a scenario and it could be a couple of paragraphs about a kid and they're like, okay, now write an IEP for this kid with nothing to go on. Just, you know, a couple of paragraphs of what may have prompted the kid to go through child study. And then you're supposed to write an IEP based off of that paragraph or two, and maybe there's some psychological testing or there's a social history or there's an educational record, but that's really all you're given.

02:02:15:11 - 02:02:38:16

Eleanor Janek

At least that was my experience. I don't know how it is now. I don't know if they go a little bit more in-depth, But you're right, there are some directors who who don't know what they're talking about either. And I think we Virginia Department of Education, actually had a training for parents and educators earlier this school year outside of the school system.

02:02:38:18 - 02:03:05:19

Eleanor Janek

And I went as both a parent and an educator, it was called critical decision Making Next Steps in Transition. And I think I learned a little bit more from that. I use it as a professional development, but I think I learned more from that about special ed Law and directions that my daughter could go in that, and I learned from anyone during the school year.

02:03:05:21 - 02:03:21:03

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, if there is one thing you could tell parents out there listening who have to go to IEP meetings, you have to develop and maintain relationships with their teachers and their child's team at school. What would you tell them?

02:03:21:05 - 02:04:06:17

Eleanor Janek

I would say as much as teachers may not want a parent hassling them throughout the school year, communication is the best thing if you communicate with your teacher or your child's team of teachers, that's fun. You know, teachers appreciate communication, but be nice. You know, we had so many unkind parents that communicate or email with us because, you know, your child is your child and you may think that your child is the only child.

02:04:06:19 - 02:04:30:17

Eleanor Janek

I guess I would just want parents to understand that when we want to help your child, we're not there to hurt your child. We're not there to hurt their education. We're there to help their education. Just be kind. Teachers are people, too, and we have families that we want to help. And we want help. Your family, too.

02:04:30:19 - 02:04:44:20

Erin Croyle

Yeah, we're all human, right? We all make mistakes. We all have bad days. We're all caring and that argument we had in the morning or a sick parent or whatever, and I think you're right, kindness is the way to go.

02:04:44:22 - 02:05:21:21

Eleanor Janek

You know, if you want to establish an open line of communication with your child's teachers, that's fine. I, I can remember one of my IEP meetings I had, Eminem was in a magazine for the teachers. They also had a baby to pass around. So that was nice to. But, you know, anything anything being kind is going to get you a whole lot more respect from your team of teachers than coming in with a hostile attitude.

02:05:21:23 - 02:05:51:19

Eleanor Janek

Whatever happened before this school year isn't the school year. I had a parent meeting last year with a student of an eighth grader. And what really stuck with me was what the teacher said. You keep saying what the teachers did last year or what the teachers didn't do last year, where a new team of teachers and we're just getting to know your child.

02:05:51:21 - 02:06:18:10

Eleanor Janek

You can't keep saying what those teachers did or didn't do last year and not give us the chance this year. The next school year is a new school year and it's a new chance for you to redefine yourself if you need to or for your child to redefine themselves if they need to, and just open an honest communication with your teachers or your team of teachers would be my best piece of advice.

02:06:18:12 - 02:06:30:23

Eleanor Janek

Things are going to make people angry. But if you're honest and open and kind to your team of teachers, you're going to get to be more respected from them than you are. If you're not right on.

02:06:31:00 - 02:06:47:03

Erin Croyle

I love that. Even if you disagree with your teachers, I would say nine times out of ten thing is you all have the best interests of your child. That student in mind.

02:06:47:05 - 02:06:47:20

Eleanor Janek

Yes.

02:06:47:22 - 02:06:56:05

Erin Croyle

There might be a disagreement on what is best, but It is still their best interests. I mean, I do believe that most teachers feel that way.

02:06:56:07 - 02:07:04:12

Eleanor Janek

I don't think we would be in this profession if we weren't trying to look at the best possible opportunities for our students.

02:07:04:14 - 02:07:22:01

Erin Croyle

Yeah, well, I appreciate you and I appreciate all the teachers out there who are helping our kids and who in many cases see our children more than we see them as parents throughout the year. Thank you, Eleanor.

02:07:22:03 - 02:07:29:10

Eleanor Janek

No problem. Thank you.

02:07:29:12 - 02:07:53:01

Erin Croyle

And thank you, listeners for joining us. We're just getting started and cannot wait to bring you more. Please rate review and shaåre and tell us what you want to hear. We've got tons of topics in the pipeline and are always welcome to ideas. This is the Odyssey Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle. We'll talk soon.