This may be obvious (or not possible at your school), but assuming your D stays at her current school, you should go all out to steer her to the "best" teacher for her next year. Different schools do this differently, but after K our school goes primarily on the recommendation of the previous year's teacher for which teacher your child should be placed with the next year. Some years I have gone around in the spring to meet the next grade's teachers I didn't know to try to get a feeling who would be the best fit for my Ds. Then I try to bring up at spring conferences, asking the teacher what they think about next year's options. Assuming they don't say something that blows any theory I have developed, I then pitch my case for why D should be with one teacher or another... I always say that I know they can't promise and that a lot of things go into making up a class... I also make a point NOT to request any pairings with her friends; too many variables and they may choose to honor the "friend" pairing instead of the teacher request.
There is also a process to "formally" request a teacher by writing a letter to the principal, but we try to avoid that (after the principal rejected our written request for 2nd D, and placed her with a teacher that was a disaster for D...). Parents in the know at our school use this informal approach instead, usually with positive results.
The trick, of course, is to figure out which teacher will be a good fit. I also quiz parents of older kids about teacher's styles (but often get conflicting info :)). I can tell a lot about the teacher from how the classroom is decorated, what books are on the shelves, what the teacher says about the curriculum for the next year.
