How to respond to daily reports of bad behavior from kindergarten teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the behavior sounds really bad. I understand the teacher wants inform you.

I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or not, but I actually thought that most of this didn't sound that bad and like things that would happen during Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the behavior sounds really bad. I understand the teacher wants inform you.

Op here. Wow, thanks so much for your helpful contribution to the discussion.

I know he has behavioral problems. He’s medicated. We do hours of private therapy a week. He has an IEP and BIP. I tried to get a different placement. I tried to get a one on one.

I don’t think it’s the teacher’s fault or that she has the power to make this go better. I’m really just asking how I’m supposed to respond to her reports other than acknowledging them and thanking her for telling me. If they were following the IEP or BIP then these things probably wouldn’t be happening to this degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get the principal to step in and come up with an intermediary solution while a different placement is being worked on. This is not good for your kid to be constantly not meeting expectations. There are all sorts of solutions. They can send an extra person into the classroom to help manage things, like a student teacher or the school psychologist or assistant principal. They can make your child principal for the day, and have them shadow the principal, to give them a break from the classroom environment, which sounds to be stressful. Or gym teacher for the day. They can pull your child out of the classroom if there is a particular time of day or triggering event that is difficult, perhaps having the school psychologist spend one on one time with them. They can brainstorm and come up with new and better figits, if that’s something that may be useful. These are all things that our public school did when DC was having behavioral problems in elementary school.

It depends on what you mean by misbehaves. If your child has a BIP seems like most incidents are disruptive somehow. Can you elaborate? Are you seeking a new placement?
These are good stop gap measures but first you need to figure out yourself what you think of the current placement and what your goals are here. Your goals cannot be to just stop the emails because obviously there's stuff going on that the teacher feels compelled to write about. Either the teacher needs help, your child needs help or your child needs a new placement.

OP here. The reported behaviors are:

-used glue stick as chapstick and put it all over his face
-ate play doh

Wow, this sounds bad. I understand the teacher wants to inform you.
-went into girls bathroom
-throwing paper towels on the ground
-scribbling on desk
-drawing on self
-taking another child’s food and/or water bottle
-drinking the teacher’s coffee
-repeatedly touching the classroom TV
-refusing to sit down at his desk or join circle time
-tearing his papers instead of turning them in or doing them
-putting hand soap in his water bottle and shaking it in order to create bubbles
-opening and closing the window in the classroom
-wanting to play with blocks instead of doing the classroom work

I am a veteran educator with much experience teaching supervising teachers and I definitely wouldn't be bringing up all of those things - maybe the ones I bolded, depending on context and frequency.

I think you are getting a lot of extraneous information. It also seems the teacher is feeling very frustrated with your child, given the level of communication. I think you are within your rights to ask for this information in a more consolidated form with only very urgent updates given daily, for your own sanity. Does the teacher ever share positive things? You can be blunt and say it is tough hearing negative things each day at pickup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get the principal to step in and come up with an intermediary solution while a different placement is being worked on. This is not good for your kid to be constantly not meeting expectations. There are all sorts of solutions. They can send an extra person into the classroom to help manage things, like a student teacher or the school psychologist or assistant principal. They can make your child principal for the day, and have them shadow the principal, to give them a break from the classroom environment, which sounds to be stressful. Or gym teacher for the day. They can pull your child out of the classroom if there is a particular time of day or triggering event that is difficult, perhaps having the school psychologist spend one on one time with them. They can brainstorm and come up with new and better figits, if that’s something that may be useful. These are all things that our public school did when DC was having behavioral problems in elementary school.

It depends on what you mean by misbehaves. If your child has a BIP seems like most incidents are disruptive somehow. Can you elaborate? Are you seeking a new placement?
These are good stop gap measures but first you need to figure out yourself what you think of the current placement and what your goals are here. Your goals cannot be to just stop the emails because obviously there's stuff going on that the teacher feels compelled to write about. Either the teacher needs help, your child needs help or your child needs a new placement.

OP here. The reported behaviors are:

-used glue stick as chapstick and put it all over his face
-ate play doh
-went into girls bathroom
-throwing paper towels on the ground
-scribbling on desk
-drawing on self
-taking another child’s food and/or water bottle
-drinking the teacher’s coffee
-repeatedly touching the classroom TV
-refusing to sit down at his desk or join circle time
-tearing his papers instead of turning them in or doing them
-putting hand soap in his water bottle and shaking it in order to create bubbles
-opening and closing the window in the classroom
-wanting to play with blocks instead of doing the classroom work

As someone whose DC didn’t have the motor skills to do a lot of that and got calls about hitting/meltdowns … those don’t sound that bad, if that makes you feel any better! It really sounds like they need a good incentive plan. Do they have one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get the principal to step in and come up with an intermediary solution while a different placement is being worked on. This is not good for your kid to be constantly not meeting expectations. There are all sorts of solutions. They can send an extra person into the classroom to help manage things, like a student teacher or the school psychologist or assistant principal. They can make your child principal for the day, and have them shadow the principal, to give them a break from the classroom environment, which sounds to be stressful. Or gym teacher for the day. They can pull your child out of the classroom if there is a particular time of day or triggering event that is difficult, perhaps having the school psychologist spend one on one time with them. They can brainstorm and come up with new and better figits, if that’s something that may be useful. These are all things that our public school did when DC was having behavioral problems in elementary school.

It depends on what you mean by misbehaves. If your child has a BIP seems like most incidents are disruptive somehow. Can you elaborate? Are you seeking a new placement?
These are good stop gap measures but first you need to figure out yourself what you think of the current placement and what your goals are here. Your goals cannot be to just stop the emails because obviously there's stuff going on that the teacher feels compelled to write about. Either the teacher needs help, your child needs help or your child needs a new placement.

OP here. The reported behaviors are:

-used glue stick as chapstick and put it all over his face
-ate play doh

Wow, this sounds bad. I understand the teacher wants to inform you.
-went into girls bathroom
-throwing paper towels on the ground
-scribbling on desk
-drawing on self
-taking another child’s food and/or water bottle
-drinking the teacher’s coffee
-repeatedly touching the classroom TV
-refusing to sit down at his desk or join circle time
-tearing his papers instead of turning them in or doing them
-putting hand soap in his water bottle and shaking it in order to create bubbles
-opening and closing the window in the classroom
-wanting to play with blocks instead of doing the classroom work

I am a veteran educator with much experience teaching supervising teachers and I definitely wouldn't be bringing up all of those things - maybe the ones I bolded, depending on context and frequency.

I think you are getting a lot of extraneous information. It also seems the teacher is feeling very frustrated with your child, given the level of communication. I think you are within your rights to ask for this information in a more consolidated form with only very urgent updates given daily, for your own sanity. Does the teacher ever share positive things? You can be blunt and say it is tough hearing negative things each day at pickup.

+100. This sounds completely unorganized. A day when he draws on himself (as opposed to taking other’s things) should be considered a good day. The fact that she’s listing all of these makes me suspect she’s overreacting to them in the classroom, which will make the behavior worse. Also I’m sorry but a 5 yr old drinking the teacher’s coffee just makes me laugh. This is a curious kiddo (opening the windows, drinking coffee, making bubbles in his water bottle) who needs a different approach. I’m sure he’s quite a handful but a teacher that purely views him as “naughty” is not going to work for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kindergartener misbehaves at school. Every day at pick up, the teacher gives me a new report of something he did wrong.

What is the appropriate response here? I am documenting her reports in follow up emails. I tell her “thanks for letting me know. We will talk to Larlo about it.”

He has an IEP and a BIP. The school isn't following either one. I am documenting their this in emails to the school. I hired an advocate. I tried to get him another placement before the school year started but the district refused. I tried to get him an aide to no avail.

This is taking a huge toll on my own mental health as I get sick to my stomach anticipating pick up all day long.

How do I respond to the teacher? Is just saying “ok thanks for letting me know” an acceptable response? I don’t understand what I am supposed to do. My child is medicated and receiving lots of therapy. I told them this was not going to go well. I hate hearing these daily reports when I feel like Ive done everything I can and I’m out of ideas.

I am sorry OP. This was DS and our family in K. All year. It did not improve.
In private, I was a wreck. Crying in the car on the way to work. I was anxious every time my office phone rang on an outside line. Or to open the backpack at night, which usually contained the complaints of the day. I was full of dread. I was blessed to have an understanding boss and wonderful colleagues.

I dreaded the pickups too. Got called into a few, "do you have a minute" surprise meetings. Most days DS traveled by bus to aftercare and I would get the notes in the backpack, or a call.

With each note or email, I acknowledged receipt of, and indicated response along the lines of, "Thank you for your note. These issues are unfortunately typical behavior responses of a child diagnosed with ASD/ADHD who is in the wrong educational environment, whose IEP (and other) is not being followed or fully implemented appropriately as we have documented numerous times...."

After a full year of the above, at the start of first grade we hired a [private pay]professional come in to the school for observations, and a report, and meeting. They circled the wagons. From there, we turned to a special needs attorney, as it was clear we were set for a deja vu of K. Finally by the end of 1st, we were provided options for another placement by the central office. A long road. Thankfully, DS doesn't remember much of those two years (still fresh to me!), other than he recalls he hated going to that school. Good luck and please take care of yourself. It was a very rough time for our family.

[Anonymous]

I should have added, document everything. Your responses should be in writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was teaching and new, I did this and was asked by my principal to stop. I did not realize that it was demoralizing to the parent. I am glad that I was told. I would advise that you email everyone on the IEP team weekly and say that you understand that there were X instances of whatever behavior happening this week and then say what should have happened as a result according to the plans.

You should ask the teacher to email you so you can find out what you need to know when you are ready to hear or, or she can use a daily communication sheet. Explain that it is hate to hear every day, just as you have here. She is likely overwhelmed and it makes her feel better to be passing the information on, but that’s not your problem. Ask to hear good things, too. I also imagine your kid is hearing all this negative information being passed on and that’s not okay. He’s doing the best he can.

At the end of the quarter insist on an in-person meeting to go over the placement. Go up the chain of command if you get stonewalled. Principals hate for central office or school board members to get involved.

I had the opposite experience teaching- I was told by my administration to document everything.

Telling a parent verbally at pick up isn’t documenting. The school is doing this to avoid documenting how they are failing your child.

I would tell them that you are collecting documentation for your attorney so you need them to email you instead of reporting verbally, and to include information about how the school implemented the BIP each time.

+1 I am the PP who spoke about our K experience. Let teacher know that while you appreciate the updates, please provide them to you in writing and no longer as casual conversation everyday. Get everything in writing.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, OP. I know exactly how you feel. During my son's K year, I would regularly get pulled out of the kiss n ride line to have "impromptu" meetings with the assistant principal. It took a huge toll on my mental health leading to anxiety. I dreaded driving up to the school just wondering if it was going to be another day of being signaled to pull into a parking spot. Eventually I would have our advocate on the phone and simply started requesting the school officially document any behavior rather than continuously pulling me out of the line to "chat." We too had requested different placement, a 1-to-1, etc, etc. They kept insisting they didn't want to officially document because they were allegedly concerned about creating a record for a child in K. Our advocate explained to us that in all actuality a record of behavior was exactly what was needed in order to have official documentation.

I'd request in writing to the entire team that they stop providing verbal updates and instead that any behavioral information pertaining to your child be officially recorded via email and if it reaches the level necessary, within your child's official file.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get the principal to step in and come up with an intermediary solution while a different placement is being worked on. This is not good for your kid to be constantly not meeting expectations. There are all sorts of solutions. They can send an extra person into the classroom to help manage things, like a student teacher or the school psychologist or assistant principal. They can make your child principal for the day, and have them shadow the principal, to give them a break from the classroom environment, which sounds to be stressful. Or gym teacher for the day. They can pull your child out of the classroom if there is a particular time of day or triggering event that is difficult, perhaps having the school psychologist spend one on one time with them. They can brainstorm and come up with new and better figits, if that’s something that may be useful. These are all things that our public school did when DC was having behavioral problems in elementary school.

It depends on what you mean by misbehaves. If your child has a BIP seems like most incidents are disruptive somehow. Can you elaborate? Are you seeking a new placement?
These are good stop gap measures but first you need to figure out yourself what you think of the current placement and what your goals are here. Your goals cannot be to just stop the emails because obviously there's stuff going on that the teacher feels compelled to write about. Either the teacher needs help, your child needs help or your child needs a new placement.

OP here. The reported behaviors are:

-used glue stick as chapstick and put it all over his face
-ate play doh
-went into girls bathroom
-throwing paper towels on the ground
-scribbling on desk
-drawing on self
-taking another child’s food and/or water bottle
-drinking the teacher’s coffee
-repeatedly touching the classroom TV
-refusing to sit down at his desk or join circle time
-tearing his papers instead of turning them in or doing them
-putting hand soap in his water bottle and shaking it in order to create bubbles
-opening and closing the window in the classroom
-wanting to play with blocks instead of doing the classroom work

As someone whose DC didn’t have the motor skills to do a lot of that and got calls about hitting/meltdowns … those don’t sound that bad, if that makes you feel any better! It really sounds like they need a good incentive plan. Do they have one?

To the “doesn’t sound that bad” posters…remember that this is one child in a group of 20+ and one adult. These behaviors are disruptive and not things you see most kindergartners doing. I know this because I taught K for over 20 years.
OP, I agree that you need to document and ask for a meeting sooner rather than later. It is hard to hear (and I personally wouldn’t report all those instances to you) but it is also hard to manage as a general education teacher with so many students.
Please do not as one post suggests, record the interactions with the teacher without her knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the behavior sounds really bad. I understand the teacher wants inform you.

This is the SN board.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP. A lot of good advice here, I just want to send solidarity. It is SO SO hard to hear this every day. It really affected my mental health as well. I hope you can get to a place with some of these suggestions where you don't have to hear this every day. It is so anxiety producing because it feels out of your control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get the principal to step in and come up with an intermediary solution while a different placement is being worked on. This is not good for your kid to be constantly not meeting expectations. There are all sorts of solutions. They can send an extra person into the classroom to help manage things, like a student teacher or the school psychologist or assistant principal. They can make your child principal for the day, and have them shadow the principal, to give them a break from the classroom environment, which sounds to be stressful. Or gym teacher for the day. They can pull your child out of the classroom if there is a particular time of day or triggering event that is difficult, perhaps having the school psychologist spend one on one time with them. They can brainstorm and come up with new and better figits, if that’s something that may be useful. These are all things that our public school did when DC was having behavioral problems in elementary school.

It depends on what you mean by misbehaves. If your child has a BIP seems like most incidents are disruptive somehow. Can you elaborate? Are you seeking a new placement?
These are good stop gap measures but first you need to figure out yourself what you think of the current placement and what your goals are here. Your goals cannot be to just stop the emails because obviously there's stuff going on that the teacher feels compelled to write about. Either the teacher needs help, your child needs help or your child needs a new placement.

OP here. The reported behaviors are:

-used glue stick as chapstick and put it all over his face
-ate play doh
-went into girls bathroom
-throwing paper towels on the ground
-scribbling on desk
-drawing on self
-taking another child’s food and/or water bottle
-drinking the teacher’s coffee
-repeatedly touching the classroom TV
-refusing to sit down at his desk or join circle time
-tearing his papers instead of turning them in or doing them
-putting hand soap in his water bottle and shaking it in order to create bubbles
-opening and closing the window in the classroom
-wanting to play with blocks instead of doing the classroom work

As someone whose DC didn’t have the motor skills to do a lot of that and got calls about hitting/meltdowns … those don’t sound that bad, if that makes you feel any better! It really sounds like they need a good incentive plan. Do they have one?

To the “doesn’t sound that bad” posters…remember that this is one child in a group of 20+ and one adult. These behaviors are disruptive and not things you see most kindergartners doing. I know this because I taught K for over 20 years.
OP, I agree that you need to document and ask for a meeting sooner rather than later. It is hard to hear (and I personally wouldn’t report all those instances to you) but it is also hard to manage as a general education teacher with so many students.
Please do not as one post suggests, record the interactions with the teacher without her knowledge.

OP knows all of what you're saying. The child already has an IEP and BIP. The school needs to follow it. OP has asked for a different placement and/or an aide. Also, all the "that's not too bad" posters likely also know everything you said because they have likely experienced it or their child had worse behavior and they are commiserating.

[Anonymous]

Ask teacher to save it for a weekly summary.

Reply to each email with a reminder about unfulfilled IEP requirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the behavior sounds really bad. I understand the teacher wants inform you.

Neither of my kids has behavioral issues, but some of these things are ridiculous to notify the parent about. Wanting to play with blocks instead of doing work? That’s not outside the norm. Walking into girls’ restroom? Context is everything. Was he being defiant and purposely ignoring the teacher’s directions or was he just curious about what the girls’ restroom looked like? Was he talking to another student and just wanted to continue the conversation? The majority of students are generally well behaved, but occasionally do something they shouldn’t. OP doesn’t need to be notified about things the teacher wouldn’t mention to anyone else’s parents.