Grinity, how did you get the privilege of handpicking our teachers?
Sadly, the handpicking never actually happened for us. We randomly got a terrific one for 3rd grade, and she reassured me that there was someone 'similar' for 4th grade - but in the end we didn't get the teacher, and ended up leaving that school at the end of 4th grade. I did ask the principle what was the qualities that the 3rd grade teacher had that would be 'ok' to request on the paper that gets sent around at the end of the year.
Princ said that Mrs. 3rd has a 'tremendous fund of knowledge' and that would be ok to request, as in "We have noticed fewer behavior problems when placed with a teacher with a tremendous fund of knowledge." It still didn't work.
But a few years later when we returned to that district for 8th grade, I said: "We have noticed that there is a more positive social adjustment when he is placed with several children who excell academically, such as 'Sam X'" And that got him a wonderful placement in a school that claims to have totally heterogeneous classes. ((shrug))
Good luck!
Grinity
