Terrible Elementary Teacher - what to do?

[Anonymous]

OP here again. Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful responses.

Does anyone know if virtual academy is an option if we have to go the home schooling route? My child is telling me he doesn’t think he can make it in her classroom through the rest of year. My husband and I both work full-time.

Does anyone know of private schools that would even consider late enrollment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful responses.

Does anyone know if virtual academy is an option if we have to go the home schooling route? My child is telling me he doesn’t think he can make it in her classroom through the rest of year. My husband and I both work full-time.

Does anyone know of private schools that would even consider late enrollment?

I would call all the private schools that are close to you and see if they have a first grade opening. They might if someone left late in the summer.

If you need to homeschool, there are some online schools that you can use. Join the MoCo homeschoolers Facebook page and ask there for recommendations. It will take a more hands on approach from you to manage the technology, but if you work from home and are willing to hire a few tutors you can make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. A more effective strategy is to open your wallet and hire a tutor, or tutor yourself.

Did you even read OP's post? This is not a matter of content per se.

OP, just want to say I'm sorry, and I hope you are able to find some way to support your kid at the ES or somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I realize there is a teaching shortage, but what can a parent do if your child is placed with a newly hired, horribly mean teacher? My child who is a soft spoken, happy kid with straight As starts regularly crying and telling us how miserable he is with his teacher? We, along with many other parents in the classroom, have complained separately, met with administrators at the school. Then what? I’ve been trying to wait for things to improve within the classroom while also telling my child that “everyone has a bad teacher” sometimes and the likelihood of having another bad teacher next year is low. However, today my child had a complete meltdown at dinner about how his teacher gives him dirty looks all day, won’t let the kids use the bathroom, and berates children in the classroom. We’ve already met with the teacher 1:1 and the school administration team. Nothing has improved in the last two weeks. My husband and I are starting to really worry this is creating some mental health issues for our kid.

Any advice? I’m starting to think either I see the continual decline of my kid while the school does nothing or have to transfer to private, homeschool - all options I really don’t want to have to explore unless given no choice.

Talk to the Counselor and tell them that your child is crying about school and struggling. You would like the Counselor to talk to your child.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a terrible reading teacher. We were at private school and the teacher was cliquey and attacked kids who weren’t part of the “in crowd”. She also had kids who attended the school. The more we complained the worse it got for my daughter. She told us our daughter couldn’t read which was patently untrue. It was so baffling and she wanted my kid dropped down to the low level reading class. She ended up with an 800 verbal SAT senior year of HS and I wanted to snapshot the SAT score and send it. Obviously, I didn’t.

Nothing happened and at the end of the year we wrote a letter regarding all of this teachers appalling behaviors to the principal. A decade later this horrible manipulative person is still at the school now a full time teacher and is often featured on their FB page.

There is probably unfortunately nothing you can do unless you go all the way up and that will probably involve legal costs other than switch schools.

[Anonymous]

And all the other suggestions people made talk to the counselor etc just made things worse. Since my kid was in a lower grade, I just took grades that year with a grain of salt, I told my kid that too, and just supported my kid the best I could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter had a terrible reading teacher. We were at private school and the teacher was cliquey and attacked kids who weren’t part of the “in crowd”. She also had kids who attended the school. The more we complained the worse it got for my daughter. She told us our daughter couldn’t read which was patently untrue. It was so baffling and she wanted my kid dropped down to the low level reading class. She ended up with an 800 verbal SAT senior year of HS and I wanted to snapshot the SAT score and send it. Obviously, I didn’t.

Nothing happened and at the end of the year we wrote a letter regarding all of this teachers appalling behaviors to the principal. A decade later this horrible manipulative person is still at the school now a full time teacher and is often featured on their FB page.

There is probably unfortunately nothing you can do unless you go all the way up and that will probably involve legal costs other than switch schools.

Just for clarification the grade was lower elementary when my daughter was told she couldn’t read. Obviously SAT score was close to a decade later.

[Anonymous]

I understand that this teacher sounds horrible. I also understand we haven't even hit the end of September.
OP, definitely you and other parents should keep communicating with administrators, but five them a chance. They are probably going through a process.
1. Classroom observation
2. Coaching
3. Intervention
With escalating measure, including yes, teacher removal, if needed.
It is also a reality that the likelihood that any student will have to at least temporarily deal with a situation like this will remain as long as we have a teacher shortage.

[Anonymous]

I’m so sorry you are going through this. My child had a horrible preschool experience and it was a while before I understood how much damage was done. So my top line recommendation is to take your child seriously and make it clear you understand the level of problem they have and you are taking it very seriously. And don’t say things like everyone has a bad teacher, that is very minimizing to their experience. I would give things a little longer at the school but start putting support in place now, like finding a therapist to help them deal if they were previously happy and now are having meltdowns. Yes I’m serious. The thing your kid needs most of all is reassurance that they are a good kid and they have your support. I would say talk to counselor too but they have too much on their plate to do much actual counseling. But let her know you would like to know how your child is being supported as they deal with this situation. And have every single other family do the same. Eventually they will have to have some one in that room supervising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful responses.

Does anyone know if virtual academy is an option if we have to go the home schooling route? My child is telling me he doesn’t think he can make it in her classroom through the rest of year. My husband and I both work full-time.

Does anyone know of private schools that would even consider late enrollment?

Yes to VA and privates. Some privates may have space. With VA, it takes a lot of parental involvement to make it work except if your child is extremely self-sufficient. Private may be a better choice. Contact VA and apply. They have aa smaller lower school this year so they may have space but usually they like to wait till the quarter or semester to take kids in except in special situations.

Other option is to send to school but supplement at home. We had to do that most years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry you are going through this. My child had a horrible preschool experience and it was a while before I understood how much damage was done. So my top line recommendation is to take your child seriously and make it clear you understand the level of problem they have and you are taking it very seriously. And don’t say things like everyone has a bad teacher, that is very minimizing to their experience. I would give things a little longer at the school but start putting support in place now, like finding a therapist to help them deal if they were previously happy and now are having meltdowns. Yes I’m serious. The thing your kid needs most of all is reassurance that they are a good kid and they have your support. I would say talk to counselor too but they have too much on their plate to do much actual counseling. But let her know you would like to know how your child is being supported as they deal with this situation. And have every single other family do the same. Eventually they will have to have some one in that room supervising.

A therapist isn't going not make this a better situation. And, with preschool why wouldn't you switch preschools vs. a therapist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that this teacher sounds horrible. I also understand we haven't even hit the end of September.
OP, definitely you and other parents should keep communicating with administrators, but five them a chance. They are probably going through a process.
1. Classroom observation
2. Coaching
3. Intervention
With escalating measure, including yes, teacher removal, if needed.
It is also a reality that the likelihood that any student will have to at least temporarily deal with a situation like this will remain as long as we have a teacher shortage.

Do not do this. Any complaints and the teacher or principal can target your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are not going to like this answer but this happened to our son in 1st grade and we pulled him out and homeschooled him. We moved to a small private after that. We were very unhappy with the teacher and the curriculum in MCPS and just didn’t see how we were going to make it work long term. The move has worked out well, although I wish I didn’t have to spend so much money to get the education I excepted when I moved to MoCo. I do think other elementary schools in the County are better and we hit a school in crisis just before it hit bottom. It seems to be getting better but we are now settled at our private and will just stay.

That's the opposite of my experience. The teachers we had were completely professional and the curriculum was wonderful. Sure I get some people will never be happy with anything though.

You were lucky and just because you had good teachers does not mean your experience is everyone's. The curriculum in MCPS is very weak. We only had one good teacher and had to supplement through ES.

[Anonymous]

I am a teacher. Let me start off by saying, you must remain calm. I would invite a parent inside of the classroom. This would allow you to see how I structure my classroom, my day, transitions, bathroom breaks, etc. You not only get a read on your child but others in the classroom environment as well. I am not saying your child is lying but a student could read a physical cue to another child (with whom needs it due to accommodations) as a mean glare. A student may hear a teacher tell a student to wait two minutes until you go to the bathroom so you can give out directions to all as refusal to go to the bathroom. So again, ask for an observation. Report observations to the principal, counselor, etc and ask for an action plan. Don’t just voice your concern, request action and a time frame to see improvements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry you are going through this. My child had a horrible preschool experience and it was a while before I understood how much damage was done. So my top line recommendation is to take your child seriously and make it clear you understand the level of problem they have and you are taking it very seriously. And don’t say things like everyone has a bad teacher, that is very minimizing to their experience. I would give things a little longer at the school but start putting support in place now, like finding a therapist to help them deal if they were previously happy and now are having meltdowns. Yes I’m serious. The thing your kid needs most of all is reassurance that they are a good kid and they have your support. I would say talk to counselor too but they have too much on their plate to do much actual counseling. But let her know you would like to know how your child is being supported as they deal with this situation. And have every single other family do the same. Eventually they will have to have some one in that room supervising.

A therapist isn't going not make this a better situation. And, with preschool why wouldn't you switch preschools vs. a therapist?

No the therapist isn’t going to make it better. In our situation the school convinced us that our child had severe issues and the problem was with her. Luckily the therapist helped us figure out that was not the case but my child’s overwhelming reaction (like OP’s) was the first sign of the general anxiety disorder diagnosis she eventually received a couple years later. If a previously happy kid is having serious meltdowns on the regular, that’s something to take seriously. But moving schools is also really tough on some kids.