(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

[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.