THE RESOURCE TEACHER

He was hired on the phone without an interview. The previous resource teacher was a legend in the school district and would be a hard act to follow for anyone, but after looking back on this bizarre school year with Reese, anyone would have been better than him. The Speech/Language Pathologist, Becky, and I, were reasonably on time for Team Meeting, within a half hour more or less. Reese was Johnny-On-The-Spot every week, and we learned later from Beryl, the Principal, that we drove him nuts. However, thinking back there were some snide comments like "Oh, we're running late again. Well, we didn't exactly get started on time, did we?" We didn't take the cue.

He had been to the Special Education Inservice and actually had as his mentor, a very experienced and meticulous retired Resource Teacher, Jan. However, he did seem to be having a little trouble with basic practices and procedures. So Becky and I decided to be proactive. We retrieved the Special Education Flow Chart from the depths of our storage blackhole, and went in to give him a short inservice. We gave him the flow chart and carefully went over it with him. We left a little too satisfied with ourselves, thinking that he would have no more problem with the sequence of the IEP process. So were surprised the next day when Beryl, Becky and I each received a 30 page type written narrative of the 10 minute meeting we had with him. As if we didn't have the flow chart memorized. We should have suspected something then.

We were accustomed to having free access to all Special Education files. Reese did not want them to leave the room and actually locked his classroom to keep us out. If we got over that hurdle, there was the locked file cabinet hurdle. We had some mild verbal tussles over this issue, which were solved by Beryl having keys made for Becky and I. The next time we went in to get a file, Reese had duplicated ALL the files, about 45 of them, to keep in his office in case we lost one. He took his responsibility as Team Leader and keeper of the files, very seriously. Extremely seriously.

Reese's assigned laptop was glued to his lap most of the day, and he printed everything. Yes, he went through about 3 years supply of paper in about 7 months, and by the end of the year, we were begging, borrowing, snatching blank papers out of teacher's hands, rummaging through the garbage cans, and using other inordinate survival strategies for getting our work done. In the meantime Reese was printing everything under the sun. It reminded me of the movie, "A Beautiful Mind" and the guy pasting little papers all over his office walls.

We were dreaming when we thought we had trained him thoroughly in the IEP process, and he never really bought into the concept of teaming. All year he continued to test before receiving a signed Permission to Evaluate form from Parents. He met with them and discussed scores and we hadn't even had a chance to do our testing. He started servicing kids before he had developed an IEP and had the parents sign it. He tested students and told the parents that they were good candidates for advancing a grade. Didn't abide by that process either. He maintained to the team that some parents were fine with seeking a Special Placement for their child. We proceeded to do the hours of work to make that happen, only to meet with the parents and find out they wanted nothing to do with a Special Placement.

If a child qualifies for Special Education services, we write an Individual Education Plan for them, with very specific academic goals. Reese either used the same goals that the previous teacher had written, or used his favorite goal: Sally will identify geometric shapes. On one very learning disabled 6th grade student, Reese's goal was: Travis will write a research paper. Travis reads on a first grade level and can hardly write at all. Are you getting the point? Jan came in faithfully every week to train Reese, but it didn't "take."

I'll just interject here, that Reese was no good in a parent meeting. He never said anything about student progress, goals, test scores, nothing. At the end of the meeting he said, "I will give you a call and of course, you can call me at any time." About February we started wondering if he was an imposter and Beryl decided to tell him she wasn't renewing his contract for next year. And his behavior management skills were a joke. One little kindergartener kept escaping to the kindergarten playground. The kindergarten would call Steve and she said he would spend a half hour trying to finagle him into coming back into class. One time I saw Reese heading for the Kindergarten room so I raced him and barely made it to the playground before he did. I touched his shoulder, gave him some severe eye contact and said, "John, I need you to walk to class." I took his hand and he walked in. This is the Precision Command, a well known technique that increases compliance.

But Reese would not touch a student. At all. Not even for a Precision Command.

In March, posters started to come down from the resource room walls. All the learning helps, the multiplication grid, the word wall disappeared. Pretty soon the room was bare. Including a very expensive reading program called "Edmark." We looked high and low for it for a month or so. The previous resource teacher came in and couldn't find it. Beryl finally confronted Reese about it. Reese said, "Jan took it." But Jan said she did no such thing. She would have remembered hauling that thing out of the school. So Beryl confronted him again and told him that Jan didn't take it. Reese told Beryl that he was tired of her accusing him of taking the Edmark. The next day when I was at another school, the resource teacher told me that Reese had called her wanting her to train him to use the Edmark Reading Program. The same day another resource teacher in the district called Beryl to report that he had called her and said the same thing. Now why would he do that if he didn't have the program and if he wasn't even going to be around nex t year.

By this time Resse had called the Education Association to advocate for him. Beryl was paranoid to have him in classroom and interacting with parents. One time when some high risk parents were coming to school Beryl told me not to let Reese out of my site. And so I didn't. I followed him very closely. I tailgated him. And he was a fast walker, so I really had to scurry to keep up with him and just about rear ended him once when he slammed on his brakes. He went outside the school to greet the parents and I'm sure he was wondering why in the hell I was stalking him. And I think the parents wondered that, too. I had nothing to discuss with these particular parents and felt very awkward, but followed my orders. So in order to Keep Reese from interacting with parents and students, Beryl cleaned out a custodial closet for him to do some input in permanent files. He made a list of 62 mistakes that the secretary had made in the files. When he finished that, she had him washing windows and working in the cafeteria. And he was so OCD and confusing to deal with, that the Education Association gave up on him.

Beryl didn't know how to handle him at this point so she called the area supervisor. He told her to call the police. She didn't want to do that so she called him in and told him if the Edmark wasn't back in the school by Tuesday she would call the police. Beryl was having me be a witness to all her interactions with him by this time, and being a psychologist, I was getting nervous that he fit the profile of someone who goes postal. Fired from his job. Demeaned in front of his peers. Being backed into a corner about the Edmark. Yup, I was a little nervous.

After this last confrontation, Reese left the office, went outside and called the police to report that Beryl had him locked in a closet. The police (four patrol cars)were right there and Reese approached them when they arrived. He was obviously not locked in a closet. After they heard the entire story, they told him they were going to investigate him for the theft of the Edmark. Reese had called the police on himself. We haven't seen nor heard from him since, but I don't work on my computer with my back to the door, either. And I'm in recovery.