Years 23 to 34: Education Specialist for Spokane Public Schools: Transition, ACES, and "Rainbow Bunkers"

August of 1999 was a month of waiting and wondering. What would it be like to be an itinerant employee? How would I like not being "tied" to one school? Would the teachers I'd be working with like me? I'd been doing preschool straight for the past 13 years. How would I help resource teachers? Lots of anxiety!

When school started, the area coordinators, education specialists, and the special ed director all met to discuss school assignments and other sped business. These would be regular meetings and were referred to as ACES meetings (Area Coordinators, Ed Specialists).
That was a clever name and the meetings were great. Everyone brought problems to the table and discussed them. If new professional development opportunities were available, we discussed how to deliver the training information or who should attend.

At that first meeting I found out which schools I would have and provide support to. They included six schools that Susan B., one of our coordinators, referred to as the "Rainbow Bunkers", rainbow because they all had rainbows painted on one side, and bunkers because of their low concrete designs. During the 1980's and early 1990's, many of the older elementary schools in Spokane were torn down and replaced with these schools. All of these schools were identical in shape and size and only varied with different colored roofs and could be mirror images of each other on the inside. Indeed, I'd already spent three years in one of these schools when I'd taught at Woodridge. These schools are about as ugly as you can get and have all sorts of ventilation problems that cause people to get very ill. Over the years the heating and ventilation systems in all of these schools have had to be replaced. Nasty.

Having six out of my seven schools be the Rainbow Bunker style school wasn't that bad except that five of these were all on the upper northeast side of the district. When I drove to one of these buildings, got out and started to go inside, I'd have to pause and think, "Where am I?" Frequently, until I got to know my way around, I would turn around, go back outside, and look at the name on the building to make sure I was where I really needed to be!

Now the real work began. I started by going to each of my schools and introducing myself to the principals and special education teachers I would be supporting. Everyone was friendly and welcoming and two of my schools, Logan and Lincoln Heights actually had preschool programs in them. The teacher at Lincoln Heights would let me come and hang out for awhile when I was really missing preschool! Things started slowly partly because I wasn't really sure what to do, and partly because in a few of my buildings, I was replacing an education specialist, Susan R., who had been doing the job a long time and really knew her stuff! I have to say, I felt pretty inadequate to begin with!

And then the dreams started. To this day, fifteen years later, I continue to have these dreams. They go something like this: It is nighttime and I am looking at this big brick school building from the outside. Inside is all lit up and this school looks like an elementary school I attended in fifth grade. But in my dream it is Reid and I am going inside and then walking down the hall. All the rooms are brightly lit and parents are walking with their children. It seems like this must be conferences or a carnival or something fun. I walk down to the preschool room and walk inside. Kay is there but she looks confused. I say, "Is it time for Circle? What is our theme? Did I forget to do lesson plans?" Kay looks at me and says, "You don't work here anymore. We have a new teacher. You work in Spokane." I am devastated and as I turn to leave, the Reid teachers all close their doors. I am standing alone in the hall.
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Next week: Yes, ed specialists ARE that smart!

Years 23 to 34: Education Specialist for Spokane Public Schools: The Interview

In the summer of 1999, after ten years with the Cheney School District as a preschool teacher, I was told that there was an opening for an education specialist in Spokane. I looked at the posting for the position and decided I probably had the right credentials for the job, and so gathered all my transcripts, updated my resume, and applied for the job.

When I moved to eastern Washington in the summer of 1986, the first job I interviewed for was a resource room job at Salnave Elementary in Cheney. The interview lasted about 15 minutes. I knew that wasn't good, but every time I started to answer a question, the principal of the school would say, "Great, yes," and I would stop talking. Needless to say, I did not get that job. After that experience, I decided I always needed to have a lot to say. Those of you that know me well are thinking, really Kathy? When are you EVER at a loss for words!

So when I went to the interview in Spokane, I decided to take some things with me to share. During my masters program in early childhood, I worked on putting together a portfolio assessment for preschool. Over the years I had been exposed to several great curricula including the ERIN, High Scope, Creative Curriculum, and others. I took parts of each of these and then added information from my specialists and came up with a pretty complete assessment. In this assessment I included samples of children's work, photos of things they built, audio samples of things they said, etc. I had only just started to test this out with my students, but had high hopes for the information I could gather with it. This seemed like the perfect thing to bring with me.

Early in August, I got the call to come in for an interview. I was very nervous. This would be a very different job for me. No classroom. No attachment to one school. But I went in and thought, I just need to try my best. In the room were six women, these were the special education coordinators for the district. Each one represented a different part of the district and one of the women represented the middle and high school programs. They took turns asking me questions and I answered them all. At the end they asked me if I had anything I wanted to ask or share, and I brought out my portfolio assessment and talked to them about its' creation and how I used it. They asked if they could keep a copy and I said yes. The interview ended and I got up to leave. As I left the room and started down the hall, I could hear a lot of laughter coming from these ladies. All I could think of was I must have really bombed! Why else would they be laughing? My heart sunk.

My preschool portfolio assessment

But a day later, I got a call from the special education department offering me the job. I was surprised! (Years later I was relating my impressions of the interview and asked one of the coordinators why they had laughed when I left. She said, "We were so surprised by all of the things you shared, we couldn't believe it!")

A few days later I met the rest of the ed specialists at a luncheon at The Elk. These were (and still are) a great bunch of women, many of whom I would be spending the next twelve years with! I felt out of my depth, but knew I would be learning a lot from them, so I should pay attention!

Years 13 to 22: The Reid Years: Transportation; the Good and the Not so Good

My bus driving friend, Jerri!

Happy New Year to all of you! Today I'm going to talk about my years at Reid as they relate to the Cheney School District transportation system. I'm going to tell you the "good" and the "not so good" about my experiences with this system. First, the "good".

Field trip to Kay's farm.

The best part of the transportation system is my friend Jerri. She is a long time bus driver for Cheney and when she is not driving bus, she is a wheat farmer and rancher. She has the most impressive driving skills of anyone I've ever known or probably ever will  know! She can actually park a combine in her barn! Whenever we went on a field trip, we requested Jerri. One time we wanted to do a field trip of nearby farms. Kay, my instructional assistant, was also a rancher and had some cattle on her farm. Between Jerri and Kay, they knew nearby farmers who had goats, sheep, horses, cows and pigs. This was going to be fun! Jerri drove the bus and we sang songs including her favorite, Mr. Sun! Now at one point, we had to go over a small drainage ditch to get to the pasture where the cattle were. Over the ditch were two planks of wood. I would not have the nerve to drive over these planks with a bicycle, but Jerri sized them up and said, "No problem. We can get over those with the bus!" Yikes! I crossed my fingers and like the expert she is, she drove straight across those blanks with her big yellow bus! Amazing! The other impressive thing that Jerri does every year is what she calls the "one great day of sharing," or something like that. Here's how it works. During the school year, she collects things from friends and relatives. Anything really; knick knacks, toys, clothing, household items, etc. The students on her bus know that she is collecting things to give away. In a sense, Jerri has set up a token reinforcement system for her riders. Their good behavior ensures that they will get to have a chance at what she has collected. Genius! Jerri is such a great person and she takes the time to develop and keep rapport with the students she buses. There are not many like her!

And now the "not so good". What some of you might not know is that the Cheney School District has the largest busing area in the state. I'm including a map to show how extensive the district's boundaries are, but the real reason I'm mentioning it is because of how it affected programming and busing for my preschool students.

The extensive size of the district meant that all students, preschool through high school, were bused together. It also meant that preschool and kindergarten sessions were split into two full days and one half. So you would have a M/W session for 6.5 hours, a T/TH session for 6.5 hours, and Friday would be split between the two. Later, preschool would not come on Fridays at all, leaving us time to do assessments for new children qualifying for the program. This was a big shock for me having only taught in half day sessions before, and having each session daily for the entire week. What I noticed right away was that children with behavior problems did not make much progress in changing their patterns of behavior. Think about this: you come on Tuesday and Thursday, then you are off Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Old patterns of behavior are very hard to change on a schedule like that. And then there was the all day part. Newly qualified three year olds would fall asleep at lunch, and sometimes sleep for the entire afternoon. So the youngest session really only had a two half day program. I fought this for ten years, but never saw it change. But that wasn't the part that bothered me the most.

The other part that really bothered me was that all of the children were bused together on one bus. Worst of all, when I asked if the preschool children could at least sit in the front of the buses, near the drivers, I was told that it would be against their "personal rights" to dictate where they should sit. Now I don't know about you, but I believe that young children with disabilities probably need someone to look after their "personal rights"! But again, I didn't win that battle. So here is a something that happened my second year.

It was November and time for conferences. This meant shorter days. It was a very cold and snowy November that fall of 1990. At the end of one day, I received a call from a very worried parent. Her little boy had not yet returned home. I said, "But he didn't come to school today." The worried  mom replied, "Yes he did. We put him on the bus this morning. And today is his birthday. Where is he?"  Now I too was worried. I said, "Don't worry. I'll look into this and call you back." I called transportation. I said, "I have a little boy who didn't come to school today, but his mom says she put him on the bus. Could he still be on the bus?" The head of transportation assured me that all of the drivers check their buses before departing them. Therefore, the child could not be on the bus. I insisted that he go and look. He wasn't happy, but did it. What he found was a cold and frightened crying child, banging on the doors of the bus. He had been there for four hours! This little boy lived at one of the edges of the district, near Liberty. He had been sitting in the back of the bus and had fallen asleep. A quick glance around the bus didn't alert the driver to his presence.

I was livid! The parents came and picked him up and I encouraged them to go and talk to the superintendent. They called him and told him what happened. The superintendent blew them off and told them things like that happen sometimes. He was sorry, but that was all. I couldn't believe this! In retrospect, I am thinking someone should have called the newspapers or television stations, but that did not happen. Instead, the parents pulled their child out of our preschool and enrolled him in one in Liberty. They didn't want to take a chance on something like this happening again.

Several years later, I had a family move into the district with a little boy who qualified for preschool. He was a cute little guy, full of smiles and extremely chubby! Mom and dad came for the IEP and during the course of the meeting, the mom used foul language and seemed to have some tics she couldn't control. She told me later that she had Tourettes, a syndrome that can manifest itself with both abusive language and tics. At the time of the IEP, I asked the family if they would be interested in having the child bused to school. They told me they only lived a few blocks away and that they would be happy to walk him to school.  I told them that if they changed their minds to let me know, and I would give them the number to call to set up transportation.

About three weeks into the child's coming to preschool, mom called and said they would like to have a bus transport him. I said that would not be a problem and told her to call transportation and get it set up. I told her that she could give them the pertinent information and they could tell her when the bus would pick up, drop off, etc. So she gave them a call. . .

Well you might guess how that went! The mom, being nervous like she was during the IEP meeting, let a barrage of colorful language loose on the head of transportation! He was shocked and angry and called my principal to complain, claiming I had done this on purpose! Yeah, right. I explained to the principal (and later to the assistant superintendent), that this mother had a disability and could not help or control the language. This did not seem to matter to the man in charge of transportation. I thought to myself, seriously? You can get all worked up over something this minor, but a four year old child with disabilities being left on a bus for four hours in extremely cold weather isn't a problem? Somehow I thought it was poetic justice.

Years 13 to 22: The Reid Years: Parents and Principals

Over this past week, I had the chance to visit with my son and daughter-in-law during their trip to see us over Christmas. My daughter-in-law just finished us a trimester of student teaching that was also considered a teaching job since it was in a private school. She has a doctorate in biophysics and she was teaching math and science to middle school aged children. Listening to her talk about the students and seeing some of her lessons and pictures, I know she was making a difference for kids. However, she had many parents who demanded that she treat their children differently, including changing their grades or letting them not turn in assignments or homework. The many meetings, the bullying of the parents, and the lack of support on the part of the administration, caused my daughter-in-law to decide not to continue. This is really very sad as I think she is a good teacher and she teaches with a "hands on" approach that really helps the students learn the material. Maybe someday she will go back to it. We need good teachers like her!

Anyway, all of this made me reflect on my own experiences with parents and administrators. If you have been following my blog at all, you will recall my interesting parents in Spokane (with the antlers on their car), and my horrible principal in Tumwater. Well, Cheney had its' share of both as well. I had a single mom who had three children in the preschool over the years. The year I started at Reid, two of the children were enrolled in the program. These were very sweet children; happy and free spirited, as was their mom! Really she was quite the character! One day the children arrived at school quite late. When the mom showed up with the children she explained that her car would not drive forward, so she drove all the way to school with the car in reverse! Unbelievable but true!!

Another family I worked with also had several children enrolled in the preschool over the years. I loved this family and wanted to adopt the entire family, parents and all! The children always came to school clean, cared for and happy. If there was something you needed or something you wanted them to do at home, it happened. Parents like this don't come along every day, so you cherish them when they do.

And then you get the really demanding, illogical parents. Around about my sixth or seventh year at Reid, a family from Texas moved in. Their son was diagnosed with Autism and although he was 5 years old, they brought him into the room in an umbrella stroller with the seat belt fastened. He had some language and I thought he should be fine out of the stroller, but the parents told me that down in Texas, he had his own "padded room" and that was the only safe place for him to be. They warned me that if I let him out, they would not be responsible for what happened to the classroom. I took a chance and let him out. Well it was like I had unleashed the Tasmanian Devil! Wow! Around the classroom he flew, climbing up on counters and shelves, knocking things over, and throwing whatever he could find. I knew that in order to keep him safe and the other students too, he would have to be confined during instruction in one of our little Rifton chairs with a similar seat belt system to the stroller. However, since we also worked with gross motor activities daily, and I had a big gross motor area in my room, I figured we could make it work. The only draw back was that class size for preschool was 12 children with just a teacher and one instructional assistant. The only time I had extra support was when the specialists came to work with students and helped with groups in the room. Occasionally I also had practicum students from the college as well, but they were not always reliable. So it was up to Kay and me to manage 12 preschoolers ourselves most of the time.

The parents of this little boy would not give up on the idea of a padded room, and kept telling me and the principal that we would be sorry if we didn't provide one. Well he began preschool and we began chasing him on a daily basis; one time right into the street in front of Reid. He was a fast little guy and I began to really worry about keeping him safe. I asked for some additional support in the classroom, but the principal said no. Meanwhile, she downplayed the dangerous situations we found ourselves in with this boy in conversations with the parents. If I talked to the parents and suggested some different parenting techniques they might want to try at home and they didn't like what I said, they would call her and complain. She would then agree with them and come and tell me to stop making suggestions. This was frustrating and went on for over two months. Then one day the boy did not come to school. A few minutes later, down came the principal with a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses. This principal always had one of those super sicky sweet "put on" smiles on her face, and today was no different. She walked in and said, "Guess who these flowers are from?" I thought they must be for me or Kay, possibly from one of our husbands. However, that was not the case. She said, "No, they are from LG's parents. They are for me. There is a nice note from them telling me how much they appreciated my support over the last two months! Isn't that thoughtful?" And then she turned around and went back to her office. Dude! Really? She had done NOTHING to help us with this child! Ugh! Well that family decided to move back to Texas and the padded room. Apparently we just didn't have the "right stuff"!

A small sample of the "thank you" cards
I've received from parents over the years.

But I have to say that over the years, most of the parents I've had the pleasure to work with have been wonderful and supportive, not only of me and my team, but also of their children. They have been advocates for these children and in some cases, continue to support and provide for their care. You have to admire them and continue to hold them up. As a parent myself I understand; you are always concerned, worried, excited, proud, and you continue to be your child's parent no matter how old your child becomes!

Years 13 to 22: The Reid Years: Strong Support Staff and Thematic Teaching; A Powerful Combination!

It's time for me to give due credit and belated thanks to the wonderful support staff I had the honor to work with in Cheney. First up; Kay Scott. Kay was my instructional assistant for the ten years I worked at Reid. She was not new to being a preschool aide having worked for two teachers previous to working with me, and continuing to work with other preschool teachers after I left. It takes a lot of patience to work with that many different people and personalities, but Kay did this with grace and determination. She wasn't afraid to give suggestions or tell me if she thought I was crazy when I had some far flung idea! She also loved working with the children with large motor activities but was a little less enthusiastic about the messy things, so we made a good team! Kay had a good sense of humor and so did her husband Gary. Here is a note he sent in with Kay one day. That cracked me up! And here is a picture of Kay in our gross motor area. As part of a unit on Bears, the children swung in the hammock on their stomachs and hit a "beehive" pinata with a rhythm stick. The beehive was made out of brown paper lunch bags folded down and placed inside of each other. Candy was placed in the middle.

Next up; the "Julies". We had two Julies that worked with us; Julie Carstens, occupational therapist, and Julie McNeal, speech language pathologist. These two ladies were (and still are) the most amazing therapists to work with. They were very supportive of the idea of working in themes and every summer we got together at Julie Carstens' farm and had a potluck planning session. We planned out our themes and weekly activities through November, and then during that first conference period, we planned through the end of the year. This was not only fun, but made lesson planning a breeze as the weeks passed.

Julie Carstens planned sensory and other fine motor activities. Here is a picture of her with a student during a unit on Water. The little girl is standing on a small stool in the middle of a wading pool filled with bubble solution (made up of dish washing detergent and glycerin). A hula hoop is being used to pull a giant bubble up and around her. She is inside the bubble! Good times!

Julie McNeal planned language and social activities that were theme related. So for example, during our unit on Bears, she would have the children act out the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. To help make this more fun, I made plastic canvas masks for the children to wear. Here is one of my students wearing one while pretending to climb over a "mountain".

Our PE teachers Jackie Randall and Brenda Kloe made good use of our full day preschool programs and the wonderful college campus in winter. Sledding became a permanent activity when the weather cooperated and we had a lot of snow. It was good "heavy work" pulling the sleds up the hill, and extra fun sledding down! After a half hour or more of this, we would return to the class for hot chocolate.

Finally, Gloria Kelley, our physical therapist, always had the most creative ways to problem solve and make our activities inclusive to a wide range of students with disabilities. One year I had a little girl who was quadriplegic. She was a very bright young lady with great ideas and the ability to communicate them clearly. During our unit on Insects and Spiders, I liked to do fly swatter painting as one of our activities. This activity was done outdoors with large sheets of butcher paper taped to the fences and pie plates filled with paint and fly swatters. The children loved this activity and really got into slapping the paper with their swatters! However, I wasn't sure how to include this little girl. Gloria to the rescue! She adapted a piece of head gear to hold the paint loaded swatter. All the child had to do was turn her head. Success!

 I am forever indebted to all of these wonderful ladies! I learned so much from them!

Years 13 to 22: The Reid Years; Crazy Stories

Pet Unit. This is not the mom with the bird!

During the ten years I worked at Reid Elementary in Cheney, I had some crazy things happen! One of those funny stories was related to a theme we were studying around Pets. I had one mom who said she could bring a parakeet to school to share with the children. She told me that she could just "check it out" from the Ben Franklin and bring it in. Now I knew that the Ben Franklin had small pets like birds and gerbils to sell, but check them out? Like a library? That was news to me! However, the next day, here she came with a bird to show us! The children were excited and the mom said, "I can let it out of the cage because it will come back." I was very skeptical about this, but before I knew how to respond, she had the bird out of the cage! Well the bird was not going to stay close and it flew straight up to the highest part of the ceilings. Now if you had ever been in the classrooms at Reid, the ceilings were extremely high in order to accommodate the observation towers. This was a disaster! How were we going to get the bird back down? Well the next thing I knew, this mom had her shirt off and was running around the room trying to capture the bird in her shirt! Luckily she had something on under her shirt or we would have learned more then the random facts about birds! Eventually she got the bird back and into the cage and we had an entertaining few minutes, as did anyone watching in the towers!

Another great story concerns a conversation I had with two boys at lunch one day. One of the boys and his three siblings lived with his grandmother. His grandmother had adopted the children when it became clear that their mother and father could not parent them. The grandmother had a female partner that was also part of the household and the two women were doing an admirable job of loving and caring for these children. Well one day this little guy announced, "My grandma and ________ are going to get married." I said, "Really? That's great news!" Now the other little boy got a frown on his face and said, "That can't happen. Your grandma is a girl and _______ is a girl, and girls don't marry girls. Girls can only marry boys." The first little guy looked crushed. He said, "Well I think they are getting married." The second little boy looked at him , brightened up and said, "Wait a minute! I think I know what they call that when that happens! They're called transformers!" I thought this was pretty funny! What kind of conversations had he heard his parents have concerning same sex couples?

Finally, in 1992, Leslie Cicero, the kindergarten teacher, and I took tap dancing lessons through the Cheney Parks and Rec program. I had always wanted to learn to tap dance, but never was given the opportunity growing up. So at the age of 40, I took this class. We had all kinds of fun, and many other Cheney teachers joined in. That June, Reid had a talent show. Leslie and I decided to do a routine we learned to the song Footloose. I had never done anything this crazy before! It's one thing to take a class; it's quite another to get up in front of lots of people and do it! Plus, Leslie, a life long dancer, had all the moves. I looked like a klutz. But I don't regret it, it was so much fun! Check out the video if you can on my Facebook page. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201296216353019&l=474257418877022923 Hope that works!

Years 13 - 22: The Reid Years in Cheney

Starting in the fall of 1989, I taught at the Robert Reid Laboratory School in Cheney. In 1985/86, the Cheney school district entered into an agreement with EWU to staff the school with teachers and make it one of the Cheney school district schools. Teacher training would continue to be a focus and the teachers working in the school for the district took many practicum students, allowed countless students to observe through the towers, and often spoke to classes of education students on campus. Reid was considered sort of a "choice" school, and wasn't really tied to any particular parts of Cheney.

 I was already sort of familiar with Reid after transferring my son to that school two years earlier. I'm just going to say this now, for the first time, and by the time I get finished talking about this woman, you will all be wanting to meet her! I moved my son his kindergarten year to Reid so that he could have Leslie Cicero, the most fabulous kindergarten teacher ever!! My son was a bright student who by the time he was in kindergarten could already read and do pretty high math problems in his head. He had a vivid imagination and wrote and illustrated numerous  stories (volumes!) about a world he created full of shapes that were his characters. This fascination sometimes took precedent over other required school work. His first kindergarten teacher did not seem to appreciate him for who he was and by December, he was refusing to go to school. At that time I was still teaching in Spokane, twenty-six miles away, and was struggling to figure out what to do. And then some people started to talk about Leslie, and I thought, she is the teacher for him. I moved him after Christmas break and what a difference it made for him! Because Leslie valued individuality, encouraged drama through literature and poetry, and had a very creative nature, he blossomed. I watch children today in school situations that are not compatible for them and what I see happening is them practicing school the wrong way. That was what was happening for my son. With the intervention of a not only compatible, but also a highly creative and capable teacher, he started practicing school the right way. I am forever indebted to her! Thank you Leslie!

So you can imagine how I felt when I found out I would not only be at Reid to teach preschool, but that my classroom would be next door to hers! Score! That was the beginning of a great ten year partnership. I will have more to say about my time at Reid over the next several weeks. Here is a picture from the front page of the Cheney Free Press in August of 1989, showing the new teachers hired by the district that year. Got to love small town papers!