Dealing with numerous 504 accommodations...

I feel like it's impossible to equip teachers to deal with the true psychology of certain things like bipolar.  I can handle a student who is special ed.  In fact, those are some of my best students.  Yet, I admit that I don't know much about psychological disorders and how to react to specific people with those disorders.

Last hour classes can be rough!!!  I had 4th hour plan, last year.  This year, I too have a 4th hour class.  I guess we'll be doing MANY "get up and move" types of activities.

I feel your pain...sometimes it seems that the most needy children are in my 4th hour classes, as well.

In elementary we have these students too.  All day!  I certainly emphathize with you.  I have had them all in my class too.  In fact, I had 43 students last year and 10 of them had these kinds of problems.  One little Dennis The Menace was a super bully on top of it.  And according to the parents of these kids, It is my fault if I don't control them.  Many of the parents no longer want the kids on medication either.  It was the worst year of my career.  I am hoping for a better year but I already have 35 students coming into my room on Monday.  I am looking forward to retiring more now than ever before.

If the meds are wearing off a little prematurely, you may ask the parent if they could speak with the doctor and have the dosage dispersed over the day, so the child is not on such a roller coaster of mood and behavior.  I know this worked well for several of our students.  Our team also had a similar situation last year, when a new group of 504's came to us with multiple accomodations per student.  We sat down with our very supportive guidance counselor and administrator and told them that any child with more than two accomodations does not really belong in a regular classroom and we did not have the resources to do what they were asking.  We agreed to the two most important accomodations and then worked with the parents to wean these kids away from all these accomodations. (I mean, really, are they going to have a 504 when they get a job?) The compromise worked out well for everyone, with our students gaining more maturity and the parents stepping up to their responsibility.