Man in the yellow hat
Footballguy
Just looking for your thoughts and advice on how to move forward from here.
We're three weeks into the school year. My kids attend a small Catholic school. It's a more rural area, and the school has been operating since 1850 or so. My wife went there, here dad went there, etc.
I have twins in sixth grade. Based on last year's testing, one of my sons ended up in the advanced math class, the other in the basic math class. Two different teachers.
Last week Wednesday, my son in the advanced class came home and send his math teacher may be calling us. He said he misplaced his math homework and had to stay in from recess to work through it with the teacher. I asked him what else his teacher would say, and he had nothing to add.
We did not receive a call.
On Friday, we received an email mid day that said my son was disorganized, and that the teacher no longer wanted him in the advanced class. He was adamant that he needed to be moved to the other class. This teacher had already discussed it with the principal and other teacher.
My initial reaction was anger. The communication was very poor. Parents need to be made aware of issues before they lead to this type of action. That was not done in this case. If we know these things are happening, we can help fix it. I responded with a request for an in person meeting, which happened yesterday.
In the mean time, we talked with my son and put some rules in place to help him stay organized. In the days that followed, he received an A and an A+ on the next two assignments.
We met yesterday morning, and the teacher boiled it down to this. He's old school and hard nosed. If you can't meet his expectation, you don't belong in his classroom. It's the way he was taught and it worked for him. He came from 25 years in industry to teach for the last 5, and expects that kids are mature enough to handle this. He then went on a speech about college prep and how kids need to get on board with this now if they have any hope of attending college. This is 6th grade.
I remained calm, but pointed out that we didn't ask for him to be put in this class. He was placed there based on how he tested. I went on to say that once we heard of the issue, we made some changes that seemed to help, as evidenced by his grades since.
He went on to say he doesn't give third chances, so that's it from here. When we left, the plan was for him to go through the two part test with the advanced group to see how it goes. Part 1 was yesterday, and he got 14/15 correct. Part 2 is today.
All in all, I'm not sure how to proceed here. The guy admitted he acted out of anger because my son misplaced his assignment, though he certainly wasn't apologizing. He also seems convinced my son won't improve, and was very reluctant to keep him in the class.
The flip side is, if he gets moved down, he's going to coast. He has natural ability, but tends to coast if he's not challenged.
I guess I'm venting more than anything, but would you have done or what would you do from here? I'm really not pleased with how this was handled by the school. School's always complain about parents not being engaged, but in this particular case, we were completely excluded. I have a hard time understanding why weren't notified and asked to help rectify this.
Thanks.
We're three weeks into the school year. My kids attend a small Catholic school. It's a more rural area, and the school has been operating since 1850 or so. My wife went there, here dad went there, etc.
I have twins in sixth grade. Based on last year's testing, one of my sons ended up in the advanced math class, the other in the basic math class. Two different teachers.
Last week Wednesday, my son in the advanced class came home and send his math teacher may be calling us. He said he misplaced his math homework and had to stay in from recess to work through it with the teacher. I asked him what else his teacher would say, and he had nothing to add.
We did not receive a call.
On Friday, we received an email mid day that said my son was disorganized, and that the teacher no longer wanted him in the advanced class. He was adamant that he needed to be moved to the other class. This teacher had already discussed it with the principal and other teacher.
My initial reaction was anger. The communication was very poor. Parents need to be made aware of issues before they lead to this type of action. That was not done in this case. If we know these things are happening, we can help fix it. I responded with a request for an in person meeting, which happened yesterday.
In the mean time, we talked with my son and put some rules in place to help him stay organized. In the days that followed, he received an A and an A+ on the next two assignments.
We met yesterday morning, and the teacher boiled it down to this. He's old school and hard nosed. If you can't meet his expectation, you don't belong in his classroom. It's the way he was taught and it worked for him. He came from 25 years in industry to teach for the last 5, and expects that kids are mature enough to handle this. He then went on a speech about college prep and how kids need to get on board with this now if they have any hope of attending college. This is 6th grade.
I remained calm, but pointed out that we didn't ask for him to be put in this class. He was placed there based on how he tested. I went on to say that once we heard of the issue, we made some changes that seemed to help, as evidenced by his grades since.
He went on to say he doesn't give third chances, so that's it from here. When we left, the plan was for him to go through the two part test with the advanced group to see how it goes. Part 1 was yesterday, and he got 14/15 correct. Part 2 is today.
All in all, I'm not sure how to proceed here. The guy admitted he acted out of anger because my son misplaced his assignment, though he certainly wasn't apologizing. He also seems convinced my son won't improve, and was very reluctant to keep him in the class.
The flip side is, if he gets moved down, he's going to coast. He has natural ability, but tends to coast if he's not challenged.
I guess I'm venting more than anything, but would you have done or what would you do from here? I'm really not pleased with how this was handled by the school. School's always complain about parents not being engaged, but in this particular case, we were completely excluded. I have a hard time understanding why weren't notified and asked to help rectify this.
Thanks.
