Every Wed my school spends all day in local screening looking over the paperwork of special education children or children who could perhaps be considered for testing. The members of this team sit in one room all day listening to various case managers, teachers, and sometimes parents, come and go from the room. The team has to stay in the room the whole time.
I am very glad I am not on this team. I enjoy working with them and I always benefit from discussing children with them. It is a very knowledgeable group of educators who have so much to offer.
But they sit there, all day. One room. The biggest issue with this room is the temperature. It's hot. It doesn't depend on what time of year it is. The room is just hot. If you open the windows one side of the room starts to freeze. So anyone sitting over near the windows needs to close them. But then everyone else starts sweating again.
Did I mention this is all day?
Yesterday the schedule was so packed they didn't have time for lunch. I think people were suppose to bring their lunch to the meetings but they got off schedule and nobody had time to go get their lunches.
So they are in this small hot room the entire day without eating lunch.
You can imagine that things didn't go so well in the afternoon. I was lucky and only had to attend the first two meetings of the day. I only heard about the afternoon meetings from other people. It is all hearsay, but I can tell you that the looks on people's faces and their tone of voice when they left the room did not convey that things went well.
There are rumors of yelling, though these may just be rumors.
Truthfully, I'd yell at someone if they were what was standing in my way of escaping from the small, hot room so I could eat something. Not very professional, but it is the truth.
I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the meetings were held after every one's blood sugar was level, and held in a room where the temperature was comfortable. Executives would never meet with an important client in a back room that is overheating.
Environment is such a little thing but it can affect so much. Not that we have space elsewhere in our building!
1 comment:
You have made so many good points in this post. Between reading this and having some distance from yesterday's meeting I'm feeling as though I can see more perspectives. Thanks for that.
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