[Principal] and [Superintendant],

It is with regret that I must turn in my two-week's notice of leaving [my school]. The special needs program has become unsafe, and I am unwilling to continue due to concerns of physical health for both staff and students. We have too few staff members to properly train staff on all the students, and this results in a lack of familiarity with student behavior plans. I myself have been placed with students who are much larger than myself and who sometimes need physical restraint. One of the cardinal rules of our [restraint] training is that you should not attempt to restrain someone larger than yourself. I have already injured my wrist, though thankfully it was not serious. I have been assigned to work with these students due to a lack of staffing.

The classroom in which I am placed has several students who react poorly to seeing or hearing another student enter into an episode. Some of them react poorly to seeing specific students grow aggravated in response to seeing a third student having a hard time. There is a sense that at any moment, the room could "go off." I do not enjoy working in a powder keg where other staff members have conceded there is the feeling that at times the room is unsafe. Some of our staff who are working with students who have a history of aggression are not even [restraint] trained. One such member ([other staff]) was injured this week by an aggressive student. Again, thankfully it was not serious, but the ambivalence the administration has responded to these injury reports with is utterly shocking. Until there is another staff member present to cover, [other staff] can not be properly [restraint] trained. This is dangerous.

There is also an issue of trust at [our school]. This year I have had the distinct feeling that the [1-to-1s] are not welcome, nor treated equally. I have been told that we are no longer trusted with keys to enter the building, in spite of the fact that we are some of the first staff to arrive. Our time sheets have become subject to extreme scrutiny- even though our appointed [weekly] meeting time was already approved before the school year began, the reaction to seeing it on our time sheets was that of scandal. Some of us arrive early to await the buses, which were historically arriving between 7:10 and 7:15 last year. Again, our bus duty time was subject to questioning. I understand the school must be careful with its finances in this economy, but I do not feel that taking money from those of us who work 1-to-1 with special needs students is an appropriate way to show that concern.

As I am already in the process of moving to [another town], I was considering this resignation before this year even began. Having seen the direction [our school] is taking special education this year, I have expedited my plans. I feel it is morally wrong to insist that we work with a skeleton crew - there is no time for our lead teacher to actually teach, and so our students are not receiving the best education possible at [our school]. One more staff member in our room could have fixed this, but it was made clear that we would receive no such person.

At our most recent meeting, it was discussed that the administration feels we (the [1-to-1s]) have no right to complain about our situation, because we knew about it before the year began. We learned about our room literally the day before school opened to students - on our meeting day. That is hardly enough time to log our concerns with the setup of the room, and certainly not enough time to consider being due notice.

In short, I feel there is a clear and present resentment towards the special needs program at [our school] and I can not in good faith continue my work within such an atmosphere. There is a lack of concern for safety and general pervading sense that we are not a real part of the school. After [superintendant] speech at the start of the last school year highlighting our efforts to update and modernize the special needs program, I had high hopes. Now, it appears we are beginning a slide backwards.

Please consider this my notice of two weeks before I leave the program. Someone must be found to take my place ASAP so that they can be trained in both restraint and to work with the students in our room.

Regards,

[me]

[this has been edited to remove identities and locations and stuff. but yup. i quit.]