This past week, I have taken the opportunity to reach out to many of the parents of my students just to introduce myself and to give them an update on how their children are progressing in class. I cannot begin to tell you how many parents immediately get scared when I introduce myself because they think I am calling to give them a bad report about their child. Nine times out of ten I have to reassure them right away that this is a good call and that there is nothing to worry about. As an educator, it makes me wonder how often my colleagues are calling parents just to tell them that their children are doing well or simply to touch base. My experience has been that I get a lot more support and cooperation from parents that I contact regularly than parents that I only call to give complaints to. After all, nobody wants to hear bad things about their child all the time. I'm a parent and I hate when I get bad reports from my sons' teachers. The response to this round … [Read more...]
When Teachers And Parents Behave Badly…
This week, I sent a lengthy email to my son's teacher about how displeased I am at how she's dealt with a bully in the class who has targeted my son all year. It seems the teacher has turned a blind eye to a lot of the bully's behavior, in my opinion. I'm completely fed up with the situation and I CC'd a copy of the email to the school's Principal, who has yet to even acknowledge the email. Below is a copy of the email that I sent: Dear Ms. ______,This morning, as we were getting ready for school my son shared with me that he was again excluded from playing ball with the boys by ______. He stated that ______ went up to you and told you that his parents said he couldn't play with my son. It seems this boy is also rallying the other children to not play with my son maliciously. Let me begin by saying that I find many of the comments that you have made this year to my son to be deplorable. This includes saying that you were surprised the two boys were playing one day … [Read more...]
