I really appreciate the suggestions. For the past year I’ve been pushing myself at work to always, always tell people what I want them to DO, because that’s how corporate culture works. So it’s awesome to get the feedback that that isn’t how it’s done when dealing with a school.
Also, I take to heart the comments about acting now - not only getting our kid out of that class, but letting her see that we’re doing something about the situation.
The great news is that the other first grade teacher taught our older one, and we really liked her. Now to float the idea to the kid without making any promises about exactly how things will go.
See, I think it is about telling them what you want them to do - but what you want them to do about *your *specific problem (your child’s situation), rather than about the overarching problem (the teacher sucking).
Loads of luck. I hope it all gets sorted as soon and easily as possible.
Teacher for 17 years here with the school’s reaction.
Forget asking about any huggy-feely training. It is not the corporate world and any training we get on dealing with parents, handling counseling issues with kids, management skills (if an administrator) is strictly learn on the job.
If the principal/district/school board want to keep the teacher, nothing you say will get them fired or even officially reprimanded and they WILL be protected. At best, they might get a brief, “Don’t piss off that parent again.” If they higher-ups don’t like the teacher then your letter is just an excuse to toss them.
What you need to know (talk to other parents) is if this is a one-time thing or long-term targeted to your child or with everyone. My son had a teacher that didn’t know what he was talking about, insulted me to my face in a meeting accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about (he didn’t know the pedagogy he was alluding to was the subject of my Ed.D. dissertation) and said in front of other people that he believed in “motivation through humiliation” and refused to teach my son. Part of the district’s reason to not even reprimand (see number 2) him was that he was popular with a lot of other students/parents.
The teacher will react by either kissing your kid’s ass for the rest of the term or making their life miserable but just thisshort of breaking the rules the principal will implement to make you happy. Stuff like, “I’d ask how your mom is doing but I’m not allowed to talk about that.”
Talk to the principal now. Switch your child to another class if you can. If you can’t, at the hint of another incident, use the “L” word (lawyer). You are your daughter’s advocate. Don’t take any shit over this.
If you’ve never, ever said anything at work that, taken a bit out of context, could be seen as at all disrespectful, flippant, or anything else, (and be honest; you’ve never had a bad day at work and vented at the wrong time?) then send that letter.
Otherwise, I’d take out the words like ‘unforgiveable’. Relate the incident, and why you think it is inappropriate; and more importantly relate that your child feels scared to say things to the teacher (which is IMHO the important thing here), and leave it up to the school to figure out what to do if anything. Unless you’re an experienced teacher and school administrator, of course.
We know the L word is an idle threat. And remember we have lawyers on staff and you can’t afford to take them on so go ahead and sue us.*
*Adapted from the superintendent from the incident with my son alluded to above.
I would take the part about how the teacher didn’t help your daughter deal with her bossy playmate out of the letter. It doesn’t have anything to do with this latest issue.
And after this -
I can’t see why the school would, or should, care what you want to happen.
It might be interesting to see if your daughter has the same or similar issues in another class.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the input on this. It’s really helped me clarify the issues involved and what the ramifications are.
Now, if only the facts of the situation could be clarified as well! I feel very torn about what to do at this point. On one hand, I feel guilty for leaving my kid in this class as long as I have. We’ve been back and forth a lot with the teacher and all along I’ve been able to feel like we were handling the problem, but looking back on the whole story makes me wonder if we shouldn’t have just asked for a move much earlier.
On the other hand, I’ve talked to Claire a couple times in the past few days, trying to get a picture of her perspective. And of course, **now **she says that she’s doing fine, she feels like the Zoey situation is under control and she knows how to deal with her, and she feels like the teacher is OK. Not great, but OK.
I’m glad to hear that my kid isn’t in the same distress she was, but it really has me on the fence now - is the situation really not as bad as it had been? In that case, I feel like broaching any of this is like whacking a hornet’s nest that’s right next to my kid’s head, for no real return. Is she actually just better off without upheaval and potential retaliation from the teacher? I don’t want to sort out my own butthurt on my child’s back. But then I worry and feel guilty about leaving her where she is.
I will say this - as clearly inept and inappropriate this teacher has been about interpersonal issues, she has been (weirdly) totally square and upright when it comes to academics - Claire’s grades have been rising throughout the year, the teacher re-assessed her reading level and moved her up, etc.
Overall, I think I’m leaning toward leaving things as-is and riding out the next 8 weeks, after which we’re switching schools anyway. Ugh, this would be hard to deal with even if I had all my brain cells functioning at non-poisoned levels!
Why not go right to the teacher? I’m not one to think of teachers as heroes or buy into the teacher hagiography, but for the most part they are good people trying to do a hard job. You are upset with her for what seems like a very good reason, but if you were in a similar situation wouldn’t you rather be asked about it directly, instead of having a parent just assume your going to be a vindictive and horrible person?
If you are not satisfied with her response you can escalate at that time.
At that point, the L-word (L-word? Really?) should no longer be an idle threat. Have a lawyer send a letter asking for clarification of the issue.
In other words, you attempted to bluff, the superintendent called your bluff, you still have the option of raising the stakes. Go over the superintendent’s head and let the school district (or whatever the hierarchy is) deal with the issue. just a thought
In my case, I didn’t threaten a lawsuit but I did talk to a lawyer. The superintendent had an attitude that even if they were wrong (like with a lot of IEP’s) go ahead and sue us so ANY parent complaining at that level about teacher misconduct was told to go fuck themselves and go ahead and sue the district and we will bankrupt you. Now get out of my office. The school board supported the super 100%.
That’s unfortunate. My school district had been successfully sued in the past, so they have a very different perspective. The money for them to fight the lawsuits, and the losses, resulted in less money for the school district to spend on salaries, and improvements.
I agree with this. You said that there was an email exchange, but it was never mentioned in the letter. The first thing our principal wanted was that any issues be discussed with the teacher first. If that happened, and the teacher didn’t change or got worse, then you have a better shot at getting action. Then you can say that the comment was the last straw. Otherwise, the teacher might say that she had no idea that there was an issue, that the comment was a joke, and apologize, and go on her merry way.
Your letter is full of huge levels of personal anger on behalf of your child and you really need to step away from that and any condescending training suggestions. If the teacher is casually mentioning your medical status out loud in class to her assistant that needs to be stopped immediately, but most of the rest of the letter sounds like the teacher is responding negatively to what she perceives as some kind of borderline manipulative mean girls behavior she sees your daughter as instigating.
This stuff happens all the time and parents are mostly oblivious to it because they don’t see the total group dynamic of what’s going on, and to be frank the teacher is in a better position than you are to understand the overall context of that behavior. Her view of what’s going on in the classroom is a lot more complete than yours is, and if she thinks your daughter is being a bit of a brat with respect to being a inclusive playmate you might want to pause and think about how your daughter’s behavior looks from her perspective. Yes, it’s naïve to think that all the kids should be inclusive but it’s hardly a mortal sin.
It obvious that little girls have their favorite buddies and you aren’t going to force them to be fair, or inclusive, or nice to girls they decide to shun, but it really isn’t an issue you should be going to war over. Correct the motor mouth re your cancer and leave it at that. The rest is all you getting wound up about a scenario where you do not have the complete picture.
Seems like an overreaction to me. The teacher is in the wrong, maybe just oblivious, maybe not, and feeling angry about it is understandable but the email about homework seems weirdly casual and unnecessarily detailed to me.
Dynamics can be quite unusual in the last year of school; the kids are excited/fearful/nervous about leaving a school and feeling lots of emotions about going to ‘Big School’. It’s quite possible the teacher is trying to cope with all of the emotions going on, trying to keep calm and also maintain their academic discipline. The closer it gets to the summer holidays - and it doesn’t matter what age or socio-economic background the students are from - the harder it is to do this. You have to keep them occupied on the academic side, and also stop them lashing out at one another or, generally, getting too emotional and hyped up.
Possibly the teacher thought saying “Yada, yada etc” would allow the class to know Claire’s going through a tough time, plus doing it so rudely and unsympathetically might encourage her friends to ‘balance out’ the injustice. Or something along those lines. Or she just blurted out the first thing that came to mind in a fit of stupid. Either way I think it was a very bad miscalculation, and should be brought to the attention of, at least, the teacher immediately. A letter or email is a good start, making a short reference to the incident and say you’d like to meet up to clear the air. Claire will see you taking action, although she doesn’t have to be in the meet as you’ll be talking about her and not to her.
You could meet Claire after school and ask her to wait while you a) “Give the bitch a piece of your mind.” (bit strong?); b) “Have a talk to that Ms S.”; c) “Have a little discussion with Ms S. about the other day.” Once Claire sees you’re taking action on her behalf, that’s a big thing for her just there. As she won’t be privy to the discussion with Ms S. you can say what you feel to the teacher, under a mutual agreement of privacy. You could even take in your longer, more detailed letter to use as a reference and to lay out your full concerns, face-to-face.
I’m a little biased, having taught that age group for several years, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. I don’t think getting a lawyer involved for the last two months will make any positive difference, once Claire’s out of school she’ll be preparing for her new school; any continuing litigation might focus you and her in the wrong direction.
I agree with your later update that you should wait it out. I agree that teachers shouldn’t be bullying little kids, but it’s a good “sticks and stones” teaching moment, as long as Claire’s not overly bothered and as long as nothing like this happens again.