(no subject)

[mereilin]

Yesterday Danny slapped a piece of paper down on my desk and announced, "If you want me to go on the field trip on Thursday you have to sign this today." It was dated September 25.

A week ago, he brought home a Notice of Failure letter from his math teacher. He forgot to give it to me; his teacher happened to be in the office when I was at school for something else and mentioned it. It seems he hasn't been keeping track in his notebook of the 10 minutes a day he's supposed to be practicing math skills, and his teacher thinks this is important enough to count for a substantial portion of his grade.

He hasn't been putting his homework assignments in his planner or filling out the Independent Reading sheet, although he's been reading his head off and mostly -- I think -- getting his homework assignments done.

His homeroom teacher hasn't responded to the emails I've sent her -- not the one with his summer reading project, even to acknowledge that she received it; not the one where I asked her for clarification on the curriculum she sent home at the Open House; not even an acknowledgement when I emailed her to let her know he would be late for school because of a doctor appointment. Even though I said right in the email that if she wants me to know something important she'd better not depend on my son to tell me.

I'm waiting to see whether she sends a Notice of Failure home for the independent reading.

The thing that's particularly galling about this situation is that Daniel is supposed to have accommodations under a 504 plan. One of the provisions is that his planner is supposed to go back and forth from teachers to parents to make sure he's staying organized. I'm happy to make sure his homework gets done, but I can't do that if I don't know what it is and he's forgotten. I have a feeling he's falling behind and it's ridiculous because he's SO smart.

Today I sent an email requesting a review meeting. We'll see if his teacher responds to THAT.

Comments

[htnatch.livejournal.com]

You would think that they would teach teachers how to keep up, huh? What we found worked for Jake most of the time, when the teachers actually kept up their end, was for the teacher to sign his assignment book to make sure he had all the assignments down correctly ( I made up myt own pages at the beginning of each year and made sure the teacher(s) knew what they were to do). My part was to take his assignments, initial them that I'd seen them, take a manilla envelope, and list what I had put in it. The teacher initialed what was taken out (that was for middle and high school stuff). Occasionally I would fax assignments to the school, and call or go to the school to make sure that they went to the right place. Lots of work, but necessary until he got mature enough to deal on his own.

And good luck. And don't forget that they deal differently with mothers than fathers. Take a father along with you if you have to!

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

His math teacher has been very helpful and responsive, but if his 504 were being followed it would never have come to Notice of Failure.

I was at the library today to do some shelving and the psychologist conversationally asked me how things were so I told her. She's not happy. I copied her and the principal on the email I sent to request the meeting, but since they're all addresses I've never had actual responses from I'm not sure how effective that's going to be.

[trojankt.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is so frustrating. As a teacher, I can say that remembering to sign a kid's whatever every day was sometimes a challenge, especially at the end of the day when things were usually kind of crazy. One thing I did was have a set time for everyone to write down their homework, and walk around to check that it was getting done. Some parents wanted it signed by me to make sure it was all written down; these kids would ask me to do so - but I kept a list on my clipboard just in case they forgot. In terms of her not getting back to you, that's just unforgivable. I'm not always great about contacting parents about things going on in class, but if I parent contacts me, I always get back to them!
Good luck!

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

Thanks! He would really have benefited from a one-on-one, but he's always been able to produce grade level work so he wasn't qualified for an IEP. Now that he's being held more accountable -- without having any of the organizational skills -- things could very easily fall apart.

[iilii.livejournal.com]

Has she responded to any email you've sent? If not, that makes me think she isn't getting the emails at all, that there could be a typo in the email address or she no longer has access to that account or something. Of course, she could just be really, really bad at responding to emails....

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

She hasn't responded to a single one, but Danny told me she got the PowerPoint file that was his summer reading assignment. And that she couldn't open it. But she didn't reply to tell me the school computers don't have PowerPoint or can't read microsoft files or... ANYTHING.