New to APS

[Anonymous]

Our child just started at Arlington Public Schools this year. I will admit that based on this board and the chatter that I heard from the neighbors, we started the year cautious. After three months, I am so puzzled. It feels like I was dropped on a different planet and I am still trying to learn the lingo. There are so many emails (Friday Five, Peach Jar, Weekly Principal Email, Weekly PTA email, random committee things, PTA listers) that it feels like there is an abundance of communications, and at the same time my kid's classroom is a black box. It's almost like the district is sending out a ton of info about whatever district-wide initiatives they are working on, but I don't feel like I know much about what they are doing in class, how our child is doing specifically. Worse, after speaking with the teacher, I get the feeling the teacher does not have an idea who they are.

Does anyone else feel like that? Trying to understand how much of this is the transition from pre-k to K, vs. the school, and how much of this is just that this is a big system and they are not very organized.

[Anonymous]

Did you have a conference in October?

[Anonymous]

Adding: I can only imagine that if the teachers are getting the same type of messages from the District, they are probably feeling equally pulled in a ton of directions? I don't want my question to be teacher bashing.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids in APS, each teacher sends out a weekly newsletter about what was done and what is coming up. I find teacher conferences very helpful if you have specific questions. Which school are you in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 kids in APS, each teacher sends out a weekly newsletter about what was done and what is coming up. I find teacher conferences very helpful if you have specific questions. Which school are you in?

The more important questions is what school are you at? I've never had an APS teacher send home a weekly message about what kids did that week. This is our 7th year with 2 kids at 2 different elementary schools.

Sorry OP. What you describe sounds pretty normal. Parentsquare is an improvement but would love a weekly email from the teacher about what they learned. It's a black box and hard to know when there's a problem or it's just your kid going through a phase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 kids in APS, each teacher sends out a weekly newsletter about what was done and what is coming up. I find teacher conferences very helpful if you have specific questions. Which school are you in?

The more important questions is what school are you at? I've never had an APS teacher send home a weekly message about what kids did that week. This is our 7th year with 2 kids at 2 different elementary schools.

Sorry OP. What you describe sounds pretty normal. Parentsquare is an improvement but would love a weekly email from the teacher about what they learned. It's a black box and hard to know when there's a problem or it's just your kid going through a phase.

We are at Cardinal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you have a conference in October?

Yes. They shared the assessment grades - no areas of concern. But when I asked regular parent questions: what do they like at school? how are they doing? who are their friends? anything you would like us to work on at home? -- lots of blinking, blank stares, went back to they tested fine, no concerns.

So, I tried to fill them in .... here are some things you may not know about Suzie. Here the things Suzie has a hard time with at home that she is working on. I left feeling like Suzie is testing fine, she does not give the teacher trouble in class, so nothing to see here. Not terrible, but also not ideal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 kids in APS, each teacher sends out a weekly newsletter about what was done and what is coming up. I find teacher conferences very helpful if you have specific questions. Which school are you in?

I have only heard of ATS doing weekly updates. Are there other schools that do this?

[Anonymous]

Our teacher at Oakridge sends out a weekly newsletter. She goes through what they did for the week by subject, questions we can ask our child about their learning and things we can do at home together. I think this is teacher specific and we feel lucky to have someone who takes the time to do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you have a conference in October?

Yes. They shared the assessment grades - no areas of concern. But when I asked regular parent questions: what do they like at school? how are they doing? who are their friends? anything you would like us to work on at home? -- lots of blinking, blank stares, went back to they tested fine, no concerns.

So, I tried to fill them in .... here are some things you may not know about Suzie. Here the things Suzie has a hard time with at home that she is working on. I left feeling like Suzie is testing fine, she does not give the teacher trouble in class, so nothing to see here. Not terrible, but also not ideal.

Hmm, that doesn't sound normal. Usually the first conference is all about getting to know your kid (we've been in APS for 10 years with multiple children).
I'd be interested to know who the teacher is. There's one K teacher at Cardinal who had a terrible reputation at their previous school in another grade. She actually told a sub how much she disliked her class and often was overwhelmed by the kids. I could picture this person just sticking to assessment data and not connecting with the kids.

[Anonymous]

We also get weekly newsletter (claremont). The teacher's don't say what MY specific kid is doing but the newsletter says what the class as a whole is doing.

Also, I haven't had that experiences at conferences they are generally able to tell me how the kid is doing socially and academically. All that being said (and I can't tell if this is the case with your kid) but there is a big transition for parents from daycare to elementary school. You will NOT get the same level of communication as you got in daycare. I think it can take parents a bit to get used to.

My friend is a teacher and does write lengthy weekly reports about how each kid is doing individually, but people also pay 60K in tutition for the privilege of her doing so

[Anonymous]

I think what you’re experiencing is heavily influenced by the transition from pre-K or preschool environment to kindergarten. Your teacher might not be great or she might have a lot of big personalities that monopolize a lot of time. I’ve definitely had students in the past where there just isn’t that much to say about them. They are perfectly fine, on target no real social issues. We aren’t actually allowed to say anything about who they play with etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our teacher at Oakridge sends out a weekly newsletter. She goes through what they did for the week by subject, questions we can ask our child about their learning and things we can do at home together. I think this is teacher specific and we feel lucky to have someone who takes the time to do this.

This. It’s very teacher dependent. We’ve had multiple teachers who don’t and those who do. Our oldest’s K teacher, while excellent, did not give a weekly report. Our second child’s K teacher did a weekly report, and I found that transition much more comfortable (for us, the parents) coming from Pre-K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also get weekly newsletter (claremont). The teacher's don't say what MY specific kid is doing but the newsletter says what the class as a whole is doing.

Also, I haven't had that experiences at conferences they are generally able to tell me how the kid is doing socially and academically. All that being said (and I can't tell if this is the case with your kid) but there is a big transition for parents from daycare to elementary school. You will NOT get the same level of communication as you got in daycare. I think it can take parents a bit to get used to.

My friend is a teacher and does write lengthy weekly reports about how each kid is doing individually, but people also pay 60K in tutition for the privilege of her doing so

We had a child with social difficulties and her kindergarten teacher told us she couldn't discuss how our child was doing socially because it would require her to share information about other students and that's not allowed. She told us to ask our 5 yo.

We've also had teachers who didn't want to discuss academic progress beyond "on track." We got almost no information from that teacher.

I don't think so that's the norm, but there is a huge variation in what you'll be told from school-to-school and teacher-to-teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We also get weekly newsletter (claremont). The teacher's don't say what MY specific kid is doing but the newsletter says what the class as a whole is doing.

Also, I haven't had that experiences at conferences they are generally able to tell me how the kid is doing socially and academically. All that being said (and I can't tell if this is the case with your kid) but there is a big transition for parents from daycare to elementary school. You will NOT get the same level of communication as you got in daycare. I think it can take parents a bit to get used to.

My friend is a teacher and does write lengthy weekly reports about how each kid is doing individually, but people also pay 60K in tutition for the privilege of her doing so

We had a child with social difficulties and her kindergarten teacher told us she couldn't discuss how our child was doing socially because it would require her to share information about other students and that's not allowed. She told us to ask our 5 yo.

We've also had teachers who didn't want to discuss academic progress beyond "on track." We got almost no information from that teacher.

I don't think so that's the norm, but there is a huge variation in what you'll be told from school-to-school and teacher-to-teacher.

Well, i don't know what that teacher is talking about. There are plenty of ways to discuss how kids are doing socially without naming names. For example, last year when my kid was struggling the teacher told us. He is quiet and doesn't seem to talk to many kids. I think he could benefit from a lunch bunch or some guided social interaction. This year she said "he talks to everyone and seems to laugh and have a lot of fun with the other kids"

I don't get why teachers make this so difficult sometimes! There are certainly ways they can talk about these things. I think some people are just good at communicating with parents and some aren't. I have had teachers who are amazing with the kids and suck with parents. Just the way things are I guess.