I absolutely feel a propriety interest in my classroom. But as the wife, daughter, daughter in law, niece etc to those who are NOT teachers- I don’t see that as a difference between my job and theirs. People come in and out of my room all day long- kids, other teachers, occasional parents, and administrators. But the primary feedback I value comes from my students (who are after all there for the full experience) But that’s just me
No one said that parents are coming at teachers with a “list” of what they did/do wrong. However, many times the child himself tries to resolve a situation in which there is a legitimate grievance and gets blown off–maybe because in the teacher’s supposed concern for the “big picture,” he feels no pressing need to change a grading mistake for one student. After all, it’s just one wrongly placed zero for one out of a 100 students… Mistakes happen, no big deal. I am currently addressing a grading issue that my D tried to deal with herself, but was unsuccessful. The teacher just nodded and did nothing. No doubt the teacher was not all that concerned about it, but that one mistake lowered D’s grade and will keep her out of the highest level for next year. So my job is to help the teacher turn her focus away from those 1000 kids you’d have us believe she’s worrying about and pay attention to mine. It’s not that parents want to be picky or bothersome, but if a situation is important enough that intervention is required by the parent, then yes, the goal is to persuade the teacher to do what I think needs to be done. Since s/he was refusing to do it what is right and fair for whatever reason, then yes, I need to win that battle. And if I win, then the teacher must, by definition, lose.
Teachers have an administrator visit their classroom just twice a year, and for the rest of the time are not supervised. On the high school level, there are no parents or paraprofessionals wandering into classrooms, and it’s not as though they would have any authority over the teacher anyway or right to give feedback. Once when a teacher was not covering the curriculum and I asked the principal who reviews her lesson plans, he replied, “Technically I’m supposed to, but I don’t have time.” This is a lack supervision and has nothing to do with undue “scrutiny.” But if I have “scrutinized” someone’s performance in the private sector and have an unresolved issue with an employee at a store or bank or insurance company, I can ask to talk to his manager and receive some help and the employee is not going to whine to me or his boss I went over his head or be mean to my child as a result. Regrettably, this is not the case in schools.
@theGFG- I am a high school teacher. We certainly don’t let people “wander” - but you might be surprised how many people see my teaching in the course of a school year. Doing a little math in my head, between formal evaluations, “walk throughs” (essentially surprise Evals can be done up to 4 times a semester) PTO classroom involvement. (Strong at my school) guest speakers, and parent presentations- I would guess that I got “feedback” (formal and informal) over a dozen times last year. And lest you think that people show up b/c I have issues- I have the highest possible teacher rating (“accomplished” in my state) and it gets published in the newspaper. As do my student’s test scores- with MY name - not theirs. Talk about being given feedback- thanks…I get plenty. My husband is an exec for e commerce at his company- and I have never seen his sales numbers (good bad or ugly) in the paper…
Your district actually publishes individual test scores (assumedly standardized tests) in the paper? Under the name of the teacher? That is weird. How does that even work in high school?
Teacher effectiveness ratings and student scores are published on the ODE (ohio dept of Ed) website. Newspapers can publish that info. The local paper published effectiveness rating and % of students who passes OGT in subject area by name for all schools in my county last year. (None core teachers such as art/music/health etc have n/a published with %) Now I teach AP- all my kid’s pass the OGT. But- the % who pass AP are published as well - not by teacher name, by type of class. But since I am the only teacher in my district for AP euro, APUSH and ap world- it’s not hard for parents/others to figure out…
Parents are their children’s first and primary teachers.
Thus, parents have a right and a duty to be involved in the education of their children.
By “involved,” I mean more than “ran the bake sale.”
Some teachers get this.
Others do not.
I completely agree that parents are their child’s best teacher (and there is a mountain of evidence to back that) in an ideal world parents and teachers are teammates rather than adversaries in the adversaries in the educational process. I would say that in 20 years as a teacher and parent- I have seen an equal number of issues (problems) come from both sides. There are great teachers and poor teachers. There are great parent and poor parents.
I had to contact one of my S’s teachers this year and feared it would have a negative impact on my S. I ended the email on a positive note. The teacher loved my son and us in the end. 
I have always let my try and deal with it first. My S is a rising Senior this year. He has an internship requirement of 135 hours before the can graduate from the Engineering Academy. He has emailed the director and asked him personally for some recommendations on who to contact. The director told him he would email him suggestions. We still haven’t received anything. My son found something on his own. Now he needs the director to open up special website to Blog his work. He emailed him but we still haven’t seen anything. I’m going to get involved in a few weeks when the teachers are back. Since the director has to grade his Blog hopefully he won’t hold it against him when I email him. Of course I will end the email on a good note.
Please remember that IEPs and 504 plans cease upon high school graduation. Students must send in documentation of disability to receive accommodations that are specifically related to the disability. Check the school’s disability services website; information about disability and documentation is also available from ACT and SAT because they accommodate students with disabilities.
At college, the student will probably have an assigned disability service provider after registering with the office, but will not have a case manager other than himself or herself. Accommodations are tied to the functional limitations of the disability. Students do not get reminders about test dates or deadlines for papers, wake-up calls, reminders to take meds, reminders not party the day or weekend before a test and so on because these needs are not directly related to disability, except maybe the medication.
First-year students often do not seek out disability services until after the midterm. Kids are reinventing themselves and liberating themselves from parents and teachers==like we did… Then, kids flock to disability services when there is a problem with the test grade on a midterm or they want accommodations. Grades already earned are still counted for the final grade. There are usually no do-overs or erasing low grade or extra credit opportunities in college.
Parents can’t sign their kids up for disability services or discuss their student with disability services. Parental role no longer means participating in team meetings or advocating for their sons and daughters and so on. Instead parents parent someone who is young and emancipated and enrolled in college just as they wanted. You will, however, get the tuition bill
Unlike service accommodations in high school, accommodations in college are outcome neutral. Leveling the playing field in high school means your students are expected to earn comparable grades to classmates. Instead,college students receive accommodations that level the playing field by compensating for functional limits of their disability. They receive the grades they earn. Accommodations are not increased to compensate for poor grades, but the appropriateness of accommodations may be discussed if the student asks.
This may seem dire to you parents now, but kids generally get into the college routine. When your son or daughter graduates, don’t thank a disability service provider. Your child graduated because of their his or her commitment to getting a college degree. Disability folks work with your students to learn and use accommodations and to celebrate their successes and graduation.
I had to communicate with three teachers this year in order to place my kid at the right level. My suggestion was to give him the end of year exam for the pre-requisite course and then let the chips fall where they may. Two teachers agreed immediately, another pushed back. I was surprised at this inconsistency of response, as I felt that my request perfectly valid. Anyway after a bit of pushing from me the third teacher also agreed, exams were given, and the kid ended up 3-4 classes ahead of everyone else in his age group in 3 subjects. It’s a private school but I still faced resistance so I shudder to think what I would have had to go through if it was public.
@msdhoni - what grade is your kid? Are you talking about “testing out” of HS classes?
Yeah HS classes.
Then you are right that it might not have been possible at a public school. At least not the one where I teach. You have to take a class to get credit- and this state sets the terms for required courses etc. Students do take online classes to advance more quickly in a particular subject. And there are students who take an AP test without taking the class (my own D did so in European History b/c her school doesn’t offer it- and I teach it). If they score (as my kid did) they get AP credit for college, but not class credit. I am curious- what types of classes was your child testing out of?
Math, Latin, and French.
At my school you can test into higher levels of language. But if say you skipped ahead to French 3, you wouldn’t get credit for French 1 and 2. So if you need 3 years of a language (for honors diploma at my school) you still have to take 3 classes. Idk about math, but again, I can’t imagine getting credit for geometry/trig/whatever without taking the class. (Which some students do online or at a cc rather than in our building)
Public school here. My son skipped precalculus by testing out ( the local CC’s calculus placement exam is the standard procedure for this skip). No credit awarded for precalculus or for the alg1 and geometry taken in jr high. So, he still need 2 official math semesters to graduate, even having finished Calc BC, which is the highest math course at the school. “Official” excludes a lot of online advanced math stuff that isn’t accredited or accepted by the UC system.
My D had also completed algebra etc before HS- and therefore needed to find “more” molasses, she didn’t get 3 credits for what she did in middle school. She did 3 at her school (including ap stat) and one online over a summer for her 4 math credits required by the state. Some schools give HS credit for things like algebra and geometry if you do them in MS, my kid’s school did not
I will let the school figure all that stuff out. After all that’s why I am paying a tuition that is higher than that of the Ivies. Wasting time in class studying someone the kid knows already is criminal.
Your posts remind me of another past poster, indianparent.
All Indians look and sound the same to many Americans so no surprise.