Reply to Help Me Not Lose My Cool w/ DS's Teacher -- rant

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Help Me Not Lose My Cool w/ DS's Teacher -- rant"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]At the beginning of the school year, I met with DS's 1st grade teacher and told her:

1. DS is internationally adopted (Haiti) and didn't come to our household until he was a toddler;
2. DS repeated kindergarten (one year at previous school before we moved and then 2nd yr of kindergarten at new school after we moved); 
3. I want to help DS succeed in school, and want to have open communication/involvement -- please let me know what you're observing, as he may need academic/educational supports, and this is probably the year that such needs will come to light.
Basically, I wanted to have a good working relationship with the teacher. I'm not expecting daily, or even weekly, communication, just for her to keep me in the loop on important observations.

When DS would come home from school and I would talk to him about his day, I'd learn he was misbehaving in school, but I never heard from the teacher. I then reached out and met with the teacher about it (at my prompting) and she said she was "wary" of DS from day 1 (??) and but that he's sweet she realizes, and now he just needs occasional re-direction and that I shouldn't worry and that if anything big happens, she'll be sure to let me know. She asked me not to prompt him with so many questions about his day, because she didn't want me making him anxious.

Well, I can see DS has issues with reading and math.  It isn't getting better.  He suffered early deprivations including no pre-natal care, low birth weight and early malnutrition.  At 12 months, he was the size my bio DD was AT BIRTH.  I took him for baseline psychological testing.  One part of the process was getting his teacher to fill out a questionnaire.  I just met with the doctor who went over the teacher's responses with me and the doc said the teacher seems to have a very negative opinion of DS, more so than any of the people surveyed.  Even though I haven't heard from the teacher in MONTHS -- not since I initiated that meeting in the Fall -- the teacher described DS as "oppositional, resentful, and angry" -- and she rated his "aggression" at a level that is more than double the statistical average for a 7 year old.  WTF -- why did she not tell me she felt this way?  The doc did not observe any such extremes in DS and thinks that because DS is a very, very, VERY dark skinned black boy in an all white school and all white class, his teacher may be more quick to write him off as a troublemaker when really he might have AD/HD and/or other LDs that could improve with intervention.  I am fine with her  formulating her an opinion about him even if it's not one I agree with, but for god's sake -- tell me!  I would have been involved a long time ago!! She assured me she would contact me if there were ever a reason to be concerned with his behavior at school and I feel like she's just written him off.   The doctor actually told me that if the other teachers in school are like this teacher, we need to "run" away to a new school.  I'm so pissed off at myself for trusting that this teacher would communicate with me.  I feel like I let DS down.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics