The school will state repeatedly that they want parent involvement. But you ask one question - as nicely as you can - and you get the feeling that not only that teacher, but now all the teachers, brand you as a “trouble maker” and take it out on your kid.
I’m unsure of how you’ve come to the conclusion of all teachers resenting you based on a feeling you’ve gotten from one question.
Care to elaborate?
In my experience, high school teachers want the information, questions, emails to come directly from the students, not the parents.
Ours was a bit weird about parent involvement. I In ninth and tenth grades, my child’s email was often ignored. The teacher would almost never respond. If I wrote the exact same question (I copied and pasted), the email was promptly answered within a few hours. One mom even said teachers targeted kids whose parents did not send emails - teachers assumed the parents didn’t care. Drove me nuts and frustrated my daughter.
Then spring of 11th grade, all of a sudden, parents were told not to email teachers because it was up to the students. Argghh!
By that time, D would cc me on all emails. Not because I wanted, but we knew that had a better chance of getting a response.
Does this happen at your school? On the parent night in the fall every teacher says “everything is on my website. I update it faithfully.” It varies by teacher how long this lasts. We have had 1 teacher out of 20 make it all year. Most of the rest barely make it past Christmas with a few holding on until Spring Break.
Why are YOU asking teachers questions? Shouldn’t anything be between the student and teacher? I can’t think of things any parent would need to bother a teacher with. If there are problems parent teacher conferences seem advisable.
I think it is better to train our kids to fend for themselves. We cannot act on their behalf after they graduated from high school. This is a good time to teach them the skills so they can support themselves.
I guess it all depends on what you actually asked the teacher…teachers can easily read between the lines even if couched in pleasantries. I think we need more info in order to assess the situation fairly. But if you don’t wish to elaborate and feel strongly that your question was entirely warranted and appropriate, go to the next level or ask for a face to face with the teacher. Also depends on how you asked question. If it was by email, the words can take on a more aggressive meaning than intended.
I can think of situations where parents need to get involved. Most of them are related to teachers who can’t be bothered to correct things in the online grading system when asked repeatedly by students. (Tests marked as 0s for “missing” when the kid was in class and took the test.) That happened to my son in Spanish both semesters last year; he spoke to the teacher in class several times and sent email to the teacher with no results. One polite email from me, and it got fixed that evening. It is seeming like I will need to send a similar email this year to an engineering teacher, but I’ll wait for my son to ask him a couple more times. (Labs he’s done twice and handed in twice because the 1st was “lost”.)
I didn’t ever send email to the English teacher who gives everyone except her journalism students blanket Bs on essays with no feedback on the paper other than to tell the whole class that they did poorly, and none of her verbal critiques applied to my son’s essay. He said she seemed vengeful and would just give him Cs if he or I complained.
That is odd. Thinking back, I don’t think my mom ever had to email a teacher regarding my academic progress, but she most definitely did care and hd every bit of information about my classes and progress! If anything, she would prompt me to handle it and guide me. What a silly assumption made by that teacher.
To,the OP…what were you asking?
I don’t ask for my Junior unless he needs my intervention. I sometimes advise him to get his GC to intervene if unfair grade like issue (only once).
My Freshman has Aspergers, so there is email pretty frequently.
For our special needs kiddos with IEPs or students with a 504 plan (does your Asperger child have one?), there is a case manager who should be your go to person for all questions.
Yes, he has an IEP and a team. Some Qs go through them, some direct. Just depends. Each of his teachers has been on the team at some point.
Our teachers also usually keep up the online homework sites.
I have never sent an e-mail to any of my D’s teachers since she entered high school. Its her job to talk to her teachers, not mine. Same with coaches.
I strongly hope this is a highly unusual HS and not college.
Yes, it’s a high school.
@ Erin’s dad. Why would it be “highly unusual” for a high school to gave a teacher that didn’t respond to emails. From what I’ve seen it happens all too often. If you meant that there’s an engineering teacher , well that’s become pretty standard around here in the last few years.
As I mentioned on the “I hate all the technology in school thread”, everything at D’ HS is online. Not only are all assignments and grades online, but they are updated as grades are given, homework and projects handed in, etc. There is a set time after a missed test or assignment to get it done-everyone is aware of this. Kids who aren’t up to speed are in that situation because they’ve ignored something. Two of D’s teachers send regular updates to any parent who signs up for text updates, another does occasionally. D handles all her questions and concerns regarding classes, for something involving administration, I do the contact with the principal or staff. We’ve been very lucky with this school.
My older D had a flake for an LA teacher one year that she handled on her own regarding “lost” assignments, but I had to take over with the even flakier math teacher and copy emails to the principal. Problem got solved quickly. But it was a much, much different school. I hardly think ALL teachers are ANYTHING, or that all schools do things the same way.
Yes, there is huge variety in how teachers use these online grading systems. One teacher enters grades during the same class when things are due and quiz grades by the end of that day. Other teachers have not entered grades since early April and school ends next week. Some teachers call things “extra credit” but don’t know how to make it not a regular assignment in the system, so the grade goes down if the extra credit isn’t done. Some teachers don’t seem to know how to weight categories of activities according to their syllabus. Like I said, I’ve only complained via email twice to the one teacher.