Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Governator Speaks

So, yeah, Em finally heard back from Governor Schwarzenegger. Well, actually, *I* heard back from him. Except it wasn't a response to my note to the governor. It was a response to Em's note, sent to my email address. They obviously lost her original note, but decided they'd best pretend to have gotten it, since hell hath no fury like a mother whose daughter didn't get an emailed response from a government official in a reasonable amount of time. Works for me.

Works for Em, too, since she got seven cubes, Mom for the two emails--her original and the governor's response. (Her fifth grade teacher has an elaborate system of weekly rewards based on cubes and the accumulation thereof by various methods including extra credit work or really anything you do outside of school that's educational, with the reward being the having of lunch with said teacher, who is awesome, Mom, and so cool, Mom, and has a girlfriend in a rock-and-roll band, Mom, and used to play football for USC, Mom. All I know is that he's a kick-ass teacher, the kids work their butts off for him, and Em has learned more in the last three months than she did in all of third and fourth grades. So all is well in Emland.)

Oh, and speaking of hell hath no fury...Did I mention that I got a return-receipt-requested letter on Saturday from the school district's special ed office, saying that "I believe the issues have been resolved, as we have received the assessment plan in our office." Which would be indeed the case if I hadn't also received, in that same day's mail, a notice of Receipt of Consent and Individualized Education Program Meeting Timeline--a notice that had stated that my consent for the assessment had been received in the Special Ed office on November 11th, and that an IEP meeting will thus be held no later than January 25th, and that if I have any questions, I should call...wait for it...it's worth the wait...oh, you guessed already did you? THE IDIOT SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST WHO I SPECIFICALLY SAID I DIDN'T WANT IN THE SAME ROOM AS MY SON, MUCH LESS HEADING UP HIS FREAKING IEP! Seriously? I almost had a friggin' coronary, I was so pissed.

And thus I left a message this morning on the voice mail of the special ed teacher specialist who had sent me the "I believe the issues have been resolved..." letter, stating somewhat coldly that the issues have apparently NOT been resolved, and that if I find out that man has been anywhere NEAR my child, there will be hell to pay. OK. I didn't say hell, because I'm actually a good girl, and I don't swear at authority figures. Usually. I don't actually know what I did say...except that I spoke for several moments into the voice mail in a Very Stern Voice and demanded a call back, and then hung up the phone only to encounter a simultaneously bemused and clearly proud expression on the face of my listening husband, who said, simply, "Well. There's no way they're going to be able to misread your feelings on THAT topic."

Of course, I have no idea if they misread them or not, because Mr. Teacher Specialist didn't return my call.

Tomorrow's voice mail may just include a swear word or two.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I'm very impressed that you managed to restrain yourself and not swear at an authority figure. On such occasions I like to imagine the steam coming of of my ears and relieving the pressure, but I'm a bit visual like that.
Best wishes

po said...

Um, didn't you get some assurance that Idiot School Psychologist would NOT be involved? Did they think you were just going to forget about that? Did they think you just weren't going to notice that it was the Idiot School Psychologist? How freaking stupid do they think you are??? Gak!!

On the other note, cool for Emmy! And you have to tell me the name of her teacher, so I can see if I remember him from his USC football years. I hope it was during the time UCLA won The Big Game every year :D

Green said...

I'd be pissed about that too. I'm not so impressed with the lack of cursing, because I think a well placed curse now and then can be quite effective.