communication from teachers - how much to expect?

[Anonymous]

Curious about others' experiences with teacher communications now that we're nearing the end of week 2 of school. My DCs are in different grades at the same ES. One child's teacher communicates daily through updates on her classroom page (lots of details about the day, notices for parents, etc.). The other teacher has not created her classroom page yet, has not sent any beginning-of-the-year note home with my child; there has basically been no communication. These are 1st and 3rd grades. I understand that not every teacher approaches communication in the same way, but I'm surprised to see such a difference in these two approaches.

[Anonymous]

After seven years and two kids in MCPS classes, I've never seen any teacher update the classroom pages more than a couple of times a year. I've never once gotten a beginning of the year note. What we get is back to school night where you hear what to expect, data notebooks, Friday take home folders, which may have a note about your kid if there was a problem, reflection sheets when they get in trouble and math assessments. If you e-mail you can expect a response about the particular issue. But reports about what they are doing? Not in my experience. I think they figure your kids will let you know or that you'll figure it out based on the homework.

[Anonymous]

At our MCPS elementary we received a welcome note and schedule at open house (or 1st day if not there) and teachers had pages on schoolnotes.com that were updated at least once/wk. Got spoiled by that...we've moved to another district and have no idea what's going on.

[Anonymous]

I have seen everything from a regular newsletter (1x a week) to nothing all year. I really appreicate the teachers that make the effort particularly in the early years.

[Anonymous]

Both my DC's went to the same MCPS ES. We got a weekly email blast about what the class was doing generally that week....any child-specific issues were addressed by email on a "need to" basis.

Honestly, I did feel that I needed daily reports and stuff. Because I was the homework police in our house, I had a pretty good idea on how things were going.

[Anonymous]

We get a weekly email blast about what they will be doing the following week. Personally I would prefer to know what they worked on and what they planned to work on. If I have a question I have found the teacher's are great about replying by email. I review the daily folder that comes home. I can see from that the topics they are working on- I can ask DS for explanations or if I'm not getting the response I want from him then I ask the teacher. Generally I take the road that no news is good news. When we work on homework if I see my child struggling with a topic I ask the teacher. I don't think that I need a daily update but I certainly like the weekly and more if needed approach.