05/14/99

Investigate Your Child's Complaints

The words "parent involvement" surface repeatedly in discussions about improving education for our children. The following letter from a SNET parent dramatically illustrates the importance of listening carefully to what children report about school events and then gathering information about questions or concerns before taking action.

"If I can help any parent with this story, please go ahead and print it.

"Our son began the year with a veteran teacher who had little to no classroom management skills. When we met her at the parent Open House in October, we were unimpressed. She was not well prepared and showed little interest in meeting the parents of her students. As a result, we decided to observe this fifth grade firsthand. Our son had told us some unbelievable stories about kids yelling out and even leaving the class without permission.

"What we saw substantiated our son's version of chaos. The students were disruptive and rude, behavior that went completely uncorrected by the teacher. Within weeks, she left. Then the fun began.

"Between the end of October and the beginning of December we suffered through six different substitutes. On December 7th a "permanent" sub was hired. He had NO teaching experience, and it certainly showed. Our son cried, begged, and threw tantrums to avoid having to go to school. His homework papers were never returned to him with corrections and he could only rarely tell us what he and his classmates had studied on any given day. It seemed like most of his time in class was spent in meetings "processing" (his word) the behavior of his classmates.

"Several more observations by us again proved him right. All along the new principal reassured us that everything was under control.

"Just give it more time," he said.

"We did; it didn't get better. When the permanent sub quit a week later, we decided to remove our son from this school in order to salvage some part of the year. This was a painful, emotional decision to make: our school and its leader had failed us.

"We are left with a residual mistrust of the administrator and a heightened awareness of the critical necessity to know what is going on in our children's classrooms. You see, there are still 17 children left in this situation whose parents either don't believe their children or are not able to do anything. One other boy was removed from the class by his parents, too.

"We feel guilty for leaving our child there for as long as we did. And we are exhausted from the four-month battle.

"In the new school, things have settled down wonderfully. Our son has joined the school band, entered a program called TAG (Talented and Gifted) and surprised himself with a 95% on last week's spelling test. I even caught him reading a book! And we're all sleeping better at night. However, the victory is bittersweet, because his two brothers remain in the school he just left. Hopefully our "watchdog" reputation will prevent an educational disaster from happening to them.

"In retrospect, had we not questioned, demanded answers, observed and documented what we saw, our son could still be in the same situation. "Please note that our three calls to the superintendent about this matter were never returned."

- from a parent who learned a tough lesson

Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.