I’ve recently found out that my son hasn’t been turning in all his math homework assignments.
My son has since got an earful from yours truly. So that part is taken care of.
I was thinking about asking his teacher if she would send me a short text message if he does this again in the future.
Is that out of line? I feel slightly guilty for asking because I know these teachers have a lot on their plate and no shortage of students. Also, I don’t want to come across as one of “those” parents who thinks their child is a special snowflake.
IANAT, but no, I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Most teachers will do anything within reason to help their students succeed, and I think this is within reason. My son’s teachers sent him home with a paper every day that has his homework assignments written on it, and everyone has signed, and I sign that I’ve seen it and send it back, because he was not doing his homework and telling me he had none. What you’re asking for is much less complicated than that.
Does your school utilize Infinite Campus or other similar tracking programs? Find out because there’s a lot of info you can use to track your son’s assignments/grades etc
Perfectly reasonable request and most teachers will comply without complaint. It doesn’t make your kid a special snow flake in any way, so don’t worry about that. Pretty sure most teachers have to deal with far more unreasonable requests from parents.
I’ve been dealing with my son not handing in assignements on time either. Good kid. A pleasure to have in class according to all his teachers. Never any behaviour issues. Makes friends easily. Simply can’t be arsed to hand in assignments on time.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to have a talk with him about this issue…:smack:
Generally, I think it’s more reasonable to ask the teacher if it’s ok if you contact her and ask if something was turned in. It’s much easier to remember to respond yes/no to an email/text than to keep track of which kids need to have which parents notified which way under which circumstances. So you text her Tuesday afternoon and ask if Tuesday’s homework was turned in.
That said, I am POSITIVE that your son’s district has a program that will give you access to his grades. It is probably even possible to set it up to notify you by text under certain circumstances. If Dallas does that, you guys surely do.
No problem at all. In fact, I love parents that WANT to know about their kids’ work.
Short e-mails are gold, they save teachers’ and parents’ time instead of them coming to school to talk for five minutes.
Don’t forget to thank the teacher when you get them.
I think it would be better to contact via email asking if an assignment had been turned in. I wouldn’t feel comfortable texting as a teacher, and it’s much easier to respond to a request than to try and remember to do so at a later date, a standing request, so to speak.
Most teachers would even be happy to send you a weekly progress report until he gets his act together. Instead of texting, maybe offer to send her an email each Friday that she can respond to at her leisure with specifics.
Yes, look into this. This is what my daughter’s school uses. Now that she is in high school, she uses it herself to keep track of her grades and assignments. She had a bit of trouble at the beginning of middle school with turning her assignments in and finishing her homework, but, using these sorts of tools, she has become very responsible for herself.
My kids school used a similar program. We could see on a daily basis how he was doing in class, what assignments were and weren’t turned in, etc. He very quickly realized that it was much, much better to get his work done and in.
I warned him, when he went off to college, that the college didn’t have any system like that, and he would have to be responsible for making sure everything was done and turned in on time. He seems to have managed the transition.
Parents ask for this frequently. I have like 10 kids I’m supposed to do this for. I often forget, so I give the parents my cell phone number. That way the onus is on them.
I would want to email you rather than text you. I don’t give out my cell number to parents. Also, as a previous poster mentioned, if I have 120 kids in my math classes it’s easier to respond to an email asking if your child turned in his homework rather than to remember which kids have a parent who needs an email.
We’re going through this with our 13-year-old. Now he has to show us his homework every day or prove that he doesn’t have any. His school has several ways to track this: Teachers post daily assigments on class webpages, there is a program (Parent Connect) that allows you to see the scores for each assignment and track grades), and, finally, the kids are supposed to write everything down in a daily planner they are given at the beginning of the year.
We have also found that teachers are willing to work with us further as well by email, if we show that we are willing make the initial effort of using above resources.
As a teacher, I would ask that you do as several other teachers have asked and email the teacher every Friday. Don’t put the burden of reporting on the already busy teacher. You want the report, you be proactive and ask for it regularly.
Our district uses Aeries/ABI by Eagle Software and are quite happy with it. Parents get a (fairly) real-time look at their students grades, and there are trending arrows to show improvement (or not.)
Provided the kid is under 18, I see no problem. If he were over, then it might even be illegal for the teacher to do that (it is in Quebec). Invasion of privacy and all that.