DL: Needs to be Tutor and Parent friendly

[Anonymous]

Anyone running into these issues? We have a tutor helping our older child organize himself and I help our younger child and we face the same issues with both at different schools. I have given input to teachers respectively as well and it seems some just assume a child with ADHD magically paid attention to those crucial 2 minutes in class when things changed/
1. Assignment due date on google classroom is wrong

The teacher told them it changed since they didn't cover all the material, but did not change it online. ADHD child missed the 1 sentence where teacher said due date changed. Tutor or parent sees due date and then wonders why student does not have what student needs to be able to complete assignment. We don't have time to watch an 80 minute class recording to hear that 1 sentence and you cannot rely on a child with attentional issues to catch it.

2. Every teacher does office hours differently and even how they give instructions is different.

Some use google meet, some use blackboard. Some give instructions in writing, some on a video. If a class is team taught, some divide up the class and have separate office hours by teacher and some lump it all in with same teacher. Everyone shares this information differently. In one case the teachers did an intro video-20 minutes that included who they were, hobbies, overview of class and directions to reach office hours. Directions were not put anywhere else so if you missed that last 5 minutes, you missed it. If it's hard to navigate for a tutor or parent, imagine how it is for a child,tween or teen with ADHD.

3. Assignment instructions were changed in class without any written proof on assignment directions.

Tutor/parent make sure student followed directions only to find out teacher gave extra or changed instructions in class. This was never changed on actual assignment-the part the helper sees. Again, the adult providing assistance is not watching an 80 minute class to find the 30 seconds where you changed things.

People complain that there isn't a partnership with parents or we expect teachers to do it all when some parents really need to suck it up and hire a tutor. I am helping and we have a tutor. The problem is neither the tutor nor I are mindreaders. Things need to be set up in a way that allows us to have support. I don't expect teachers to be super-human and I value what they do. I think they are doing a great job overall, but I have now spent endless time and dealt with enough kiddo meltdowns to know there is a glitch here and I have brought it people's attention. Help me help you! Please make assignments clear and assume my child took a bathroom break during those crucial 2 minutes.

[Anonymous]

One of the issues that came up in the Spring was every teacher did things differently in middle school and it would be nice to have a consistent system....e.g. everyone use good classroom for assignments, everyone use google meet for office hours. Our admin kept saying "yes I can see how that would things easier" but it didn't change.

[Anonymous]

Provide de this feedback politely to teachers. Ask for changes to be made to the assignment. Does your child have a 504 plan? Pepper the teachers with questions if things are unclear- they will eventually remember they need to update the posted work.

Teach your child to pay attention to these little comments. Give him a stack of yellow index cards while he listens to class. If there’s an important change noted have him write down “Science class !!!!! At 10:53” That way the tutor can have a clue what time the change was announced even if your kid can’t write down what the change was.

Find a good student in class and pay her a stipend to keep track of these announcements for your kid!

[Anonymous]

NP- just chiming in that I'm not going to watch an instructional video on tech. If you need to do that, your choices are not intuitive and will fail with children.