Class teacher lied about discriminating me based on my health condition

[Survivormummy]

Hi,
I recently had a chat with the KS1 Lead who is also my child's class teacher. Amongst other things that were discussed regarding my son, I found her to be extremely judgemental and condescending to me whilst my son was also with me at the time during hometime. My child is currently 5 years old. I stated that I do have a mental health condition of anxiety and depression and she snapped back at me saying that "you shouldn't come to collect your son and get someone else to come as he can feed off your anxiety". My son also has faced abuse and witnessed domestic abuse from a young age and I believe he does have some form of anxiety. Thankfully we fled a couple of years ago from the perpetrator. But I found her remark highly offensive and distressing. I believe this is discrimination as the teacher has no right to tell me as a single parent with a disability that I cannot pick my son up and judge me. I stressed I have no one else to collect him. My dad sometimes offers to help but I will be the primary person coming to collect and drop my son off at school.
I had a meeting with the acting headteacher to discuss the inappropriate comment the class teacher stated and she said that she would look into it. I had a meeting with the head today and she told me that the class teacher was really upset and that she didn't say that all! This is a lie. The head teacher made me feel as though it was my fault that the class teacher felt really bad. Imagine how I must have felt when she was discriminating against me for having a mental health disability.
I told the head that the ks1 class teacher was lying. The head snapped and said that she wasn't there. So basically it's her word against mine. The school favoured the staff teacher over me which I found to be unfair and unjust. I don't know what to do. I can't even go to collect my son anymore as I am scared of seeing her. Are the school trying to cover their backs? They have an Ofsted inspection due next year. I was made to feel like I misunderstood the teacher and that due to my anxiety I was overwhelmed. This is false. I was to feel like I was the liar. I clearly heard what the teacher said. What shall I do? Shall I leave it? I have no other proof as it was just myself, the class teacher and my 5 year old son present. Leaving me in a vulnerable position. How will I believe anything the class teacher tells me in the future? How can I face her? Please can someone help? What shall I do?
Thanks in advance

Why did you tell the class teacher about your anxiety and depression? What’s the context? Seems a odd thing to come up at home time.

And what do you want the Head to do? It is your word against the teacher. And they will know the teacher better so have a better understanding of whether that is the sort of thing she is likely to say.

Im sorry but I think it would be better to let this go. Stop dwelling on it, pretend it didn’t happen. And go back to picking your son up, show him the importance of resilience.

Let it go and work on rebuilding your relationship with both the teacher and the school.
Sounds like you and your son have had a lot to deal with any you really don't need this battle as well.
Even if the Teacher said what you claim it sounds like advice rather than discrimination and throwing that word around is helping no one

How is you ds behaving when he comes out of school? Is this a hard part of the day for him?

Unless you want to change schools, which is totally your right, you need to keep cordial relations with your son's teacher.

So ensure you keep to school rules, pick up and drop him off at the right time and keep any necessary communication brief and to the point.

It sounds like it all got very emotional, which if your child was present, is not positive role modelling for him.

If you are having continual issues with the teacher you might want to take along someone who you trust to be with you when you next need to speak to them.

Im really not sure what the issue is. She made a comment, that is not discrimination.

You haven’t stated what the actual problem is in your post. How can you be scared of seeing someone at pick up? Maybe you need to look at your current treatment as it is perhaps not working to the correct level. And maybe seek therapy for the trauma, if not already accessed.

Let go of the victim mentality for the sake of your son. You can't win this battle.

Why have you posted about this again? Like PP have said, it’s advice, and it might be good advice, if thoughtless. If you being anxious is triggering your son then you need to do something about it. She’s not discriminated against you at all. You didn’t like what she said, yes it was possibly thoughtless but that doesn’t mean what she said wasn’t true, and just because something upsets you this doesn’t make it discrimination. Discrimination would be her banning you from the premises due to your anxiety. She’s just made a suggestion. Stop making it out to be more than it was and move on from it. Stop posting about it repeatedly.

Your son has another 12 years left at school so you are going to have to learn to let an awful lot go rather than dwelling on it and ruminating until you blow it out of proportion. Don’t be ‘that’ parent.

You say they both ‘snapped’ at you — that is quite subjective and loaded as a description, and the fact you’ve used it about both of them raises doubts for me about whether you might have been feeling oversensitive. Which would be understandable but doesn’t mean they’ve necessarily done anything wrong. To a person who feeIs sensitive, tone can come across really differently from how the next person might take it, or how the speaker thinks they are speaking.

It kind of seems puzzling, at least in the first interaction with the teacher, that she would snap at you or that she would flatly suggest you shouldn’t collect your child.

She was advising you not discriminating against you.

I think it would be helpful for you to let the matter go now and as a PP has stated work on rebuilding your relationship with the school The tone of your post I think does indicate that you were feeling anxiety at the time and have loaded some of this into your interpretation of the situation. You state for certain the the teachers are against you. I'm not sure they are and they will have the best interests of your child at the centre of their interaction with you.

I would take stock and after half term approach the school and your interactions with them with a fresh outlook - it might not be as terrible as you think. A reset for all of the stakeholders in your son's best interests.

What prompted the conversation to begin with. It sounds like you were discussing struggling with school ick up and your DC behaving poorly / being upset at home time - if that is the case it is entirely possible he is feeding off your anxiety. It was advice, she isn't privy to your personal circumstances, relationships with family / friends who could pick him up or whether you could pay for a professional such as a babysitter or childminder.

You've got an awful lot of school pick ups to do and you sound keen to look for a problem where there is none. Advice is just that, you don't have to take it if it doesn't suit your personal circumstances.

OP this sounds very stressful for you. I doubt the teacher meant to snap at you - teachers have that “voice of authority” thing, and if you are making a complaint against your dc’s class teacher then you can expect it to be quite formal, especially if you then complain that the teacher lied to the HT when the incident was investigated.

Honestly in this situation, I think you have to let it go. You are building up a huge construct in your mind, and you sound paranoid , you seem to be working this up into a huge thing … for what purpose?

Think about what the teacher is trying to achieve: a calm end-of-school-day for your dc. That’s all. She has no hidden agenda, I promise you. You are part of a busy, complicated school family now. The staff will have the dc best interests in their hearts.

If you are arriving at the playground in a state of high anxiety, is this ramping up your dc’s negative response? The teacher didn’t just come out with the comment out of the blue, there must be some context … what came before the comment? Sounds like teacher is worried.

You caught the teacher at the end of a busy day, when she has a dozen other parents’ emails and requests to deal with and at least several hours of work to complete - and you start telling her about your MH problems - it’s not the right time or place. That isn’t a classroom exit conversation.

To preface this, I have diagnosed anxiety and have done for over a decade.

If she did say that, it isn't discrimination. If she said that it's because she thinks your anxiety is causing your son's anxiety, which is very likely, and she's concerned about him. He is the priority here, not your feelings, though what she said wasn't particularly rude or hurtful anyway.

You're spiralling and need to step back from this. What you do is nothing - accept that your condition is causing you to way over-react here. Your feelings are valid but not proportional or reasonable.

Based on your OP alone, I think this is a major overreaction on your part.

What did you attend the meeting wanting?

What was the context of the conversation? If feels like there is a big back story missing

either way for your sons sake you need to find a way to move past this

It sounds you wanted the Head to sack your child’s teacher over a comment you may have interpreted wrongly. Who’s picking him up now if you say you can’t?

You’ve got a long road to go with school, pick fights if you want to or try and get along with people and build a positive relationship so you can support your son’s education.

A bit hard to follow, but you had a meeting with the class teacher to discuss the fact that you find her rude and condescending at pick up? And you said this in front of your dc?
Firstly, most parents very rarely speak to the teacher at pick up? Are you seeking her out regularly to raise things? I can see why she might think this is making your child anxious.
I think, kindly, the thing to do op is to reflect on what she said, and how your me tal health is impacting your ds, and what you can do t o minimise this.

I'm sorry but I don't think it sounds like discrimination. If someone said something they do makes them anxious then a standard piece of advice from anyone sensible might be to say 'well you could get someone else to do it?' they are not saying something negative against you due to your disability. It could've been the wrong thing to say and not helpful to you. But I honestly think you just need to move on. You need to be civil with the teacher unless you really think you want to switch schools.

As you say it's her word against yours so not sure what you hope to achieve here. And as others pointed out I don't believe this is actually discrimination, my understanding is you'd have to be put at some kind of disadvantage to be discriminated against, but she just made a comment

This sounds more like a miscommunication than anything. Why were you discussing your health was it relevant? Perhaps she was offering advice/solutions to a specific issue. Having suffered with these issues myself it's not uncommon to mistake help as someone having a go especially when you are already feeling increased anxiety about a meeting

When my son was struggling with serious separation anxiety at school drop off (sobbing and screaming and clinging to me) - I went to see his teacher and she suggested that we had got in to a cycle and that he was probably partly reacting to my anxiety about the drop off.

she suggested that, if possible, someone else might drop him off for a week to see if it helped.

perfectly sensible, rational advice. I’m a pretty anxious person in general and there is no doubt that I wasn’t masking my anxiety very well.

she wasn’t discriminating against me. She was making practical suggestions for ways to best help my son.

I struggle to see how your situation is very different…

It was a conversation, you are being oversensitive and overthinking. No wonder teachers are leaving the profession, being accused of discriminatory behaviour when they are only trying to help must be so demoralising.

Keep the school at arms length
They only care about your son.their job is not to listen about your difficulties.
Keep all conversation strictly about your son in future
And let this go ,it's not worth getting stressed about

I find it unusual that two members of school staff should snap at you within such a short space of time. Surely this is about your perception? Also why were you talking to the teacher about your anxiety?
If you were saying pick up makes your mental health worse it's a reasonable suggestion to ask if there's anyone else who could do it

What was the original problem about, the one before you disclosed your MH? What the teacher said wasn't discrimination btw.

What were you discussing when you brought up your condition. Were you asking for others to make adjustments? Without this context it is impossible to say whether her suggestion that someone else collects your child is possibly reasonable.

Eg at my dcs school a mother asked for private handover arrangements with the class teacher as she found the school playground too overwhelming, she was offered to collect from the school office as a reasonable adjustment but was unhappy as she wanted the teacher to be there - what about the other 29 kids!