Reply to Question to Teachers: What is it like dealing with parents?

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[quote=Anonymous]Great:
Sharing information. Particularly in private schools where we don’t have IEP’s and BIP’s that follow students from year-to-year, we don’t always know what your child is dealing with or how best to help. There are many ways in which you do know your child best, so giving us that info. can be really great.

Doing anything that establishes a relationship with a teacher. The onus is definitely on teachers to reach out. Yet, there are always families who go the extra mile to say hello at the beginning of the year at get to know us outside of communications about their children. Maybe they say “Thank you!” after reading a newsletter or email that they liked. That’s meaningful.

Helpful:
Realize what’s out of your teacher’s control. Teachers cannot change the curriculum once the year is underway. In fact, teachers often cannot change the curriculum at all. That’s a decision that gets made by a department or a district. Depending on the school, teachers may or may not have control over lesson plans. The school’s educational technology is similarly out of the teachers’ hands. I hope we also all know about student privacy by now. Teachers can’t tell you anything about another student’s academics, discipline, or health.

Approaching conversations with a spirit of collaboration is really helpful. Often teachers call a meeting with parents because something seems “not quite right,” a child’s behavior has changed or he does not seem to be achieving up to his potential, for example. Teachers will almost always try a few fixes from their toolbox before involving the parents; they don’t want to ring alarm bells unnecessarily. A meeting is a chance to start getting more information and working on solutions collaboratively. We don’t always walk away with answers, and that’s ok. Sometimes there are a few things both parties need to follow up on first. Hopefully, most teachers are emotionally mature enough to avoid making meetings feel like a “blame game.”

If you have a question about academic progress, bring work samples to discuss. Specific is always better than general or abstract. Your child’s teacher should also have work samples. You can email in advance and say you’d like to talk about certain assignments in the online gradebook. 
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