Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional How to approach school about choice of teacher

Hi All, As many of you know my son has an IEP for EDS/anxiety and probably adding to that dysgraphia (or as the school likes to call it "disorder of written expression") as well as a gifted iep. Anyway, despite our differences re iep, accommodations and other issues as to whether DS "really" had a disability, etc. (and to be fair, I am not sure how much of that was the teacher and how much the teacher was doing at the behest of the administration/principal). I thought DS's 1st grade teacher was a decent fit. DS liked her and what was the most important thing was her willingness to be flexible. She also seemed to like him. I am not so crazy about DS's 2nd grade teacher. She is more into obedience, more rigid and chooses "teaching rule-following" over doing what actually results in learning. DS is okay with her but not they don't click. I don't think she gets him at all. The 1st grade teacher over-emphasized the positive - to the point of masking disability. The 2nd grade teacher, however, tends to over-emphasizes the negative. One weird example: she is doing "on task/organizational chart" with DS in which he gets stars for being able to stay on-task and do all of his organization tasks without being told over and over again, etc. Well, he's being doing really well with it - his chart is on average 28 stars (sometimes 27, occasionally 26 - I think once or twice he got 25 - no more than twice). Well, at the P/T conference she said "he's doing well staying on task and organized he usually gets 25 stars." I had copied the daily start report and just was like "yeah , it seems to be going well ..."and then I sat and read off each daily total, which were overwhelmingly 28s and higher. Just to, in a non-confrontational way, point out that actually he usually gets 28 stars and higher. I know it seems trivial but that's how she is, ykwim? She likes to take him down just a touch - downplay his strengths or accomplishments. She even does it right to him. Like DS said to her something like "I am a good reader, right?" And she said "well, you need to work on your fluency." He's the highest reader in the class AND all of tests show that while his fluency isn't as high as his comprehension it is very strong for his grade level. I mean couldn't she have just said "yeah, I appreciate your hard work - it pays off, doesn't it?!?" or something like that. Did she really have to use that as an opportunity to "take him down a peg." She was the one who was trying to argue that DS didn't really have a good command of particular math concept because he got a particular word problem wrong (she spent a phone call trying to convince me DS wasn't as good as I think he is in math, basically) and it turned out that SHE had the math problem wrong and my DS had it right. She is also the one that gave the really bad BASC report. And when questioned about it, she had made a lot of assumptions (negative) about DS and just over-exaggerating negative behaviors, misinterpreting what the BASQ was asking for, etc.

Anyway, I digress. My question is ... since we have all of these meetings all of the time and an iep, I would think I could probably at least have some say or we could have a discussion about who DS's teacher will be each year, no? Which of the five will be a good fit? I never bring it up and just sit around hoping all summer he'll get a good fit. I am not sure I want to keep doing that anymore. I have been asking around and looking up the 3rd grade teachers' backgrounds and I want to at least have a discussion about who DS gets next year. Or who he will not get, at least. Do others here do that with their 2e kiddos and school? How do I approach the school about it? or would I be over-stepping if I did that? I want to approach it in the right way.

I was told by another parent that if a kid has an IEP the parent can request a certain teacher. Last year DS just had an IEP for speech articulation so I really didn't think that any requests I made would be taken seriously. But parents are allowed to put in forms describing their child (without coming right out and demanding a certain teacher), then presumably the principal makes a match. I also know the teachers meet and discuss which teacher should get what kid and basically put in their own requests. DD's kindergarten teacher liked me and liked DD, so not surprisingly, she ended up with DS the next year. I don't think it was a coincidence. The next year, I suspected that DS would do poorly with one of the first grade teachers (who is very strict and not very warm), and so I put in an input form stating that DS would do the best with a "warm and fuzzy" teacher trying to avoid that strict teacher. Boy was that a mistake, because the teacher he ended up with had absolutely no interest in teaching academics! All she wants to do is sit around and play the piano and have pow wows with the kids, I think. Any parent who wants appropriate work is "pushy". So DS did not end up getting the teacher that DD had (who was fine), he got the warmest and fuzziest, who was also the most passive aggressive and hostile, ironically, and it was a disaster. If you know who you want your DS to have, you should make it clear to the principal. If you don't, all you you can do is say what kind of a teacher you are looking for and hopefully they'll do the right thing.
This other parent with the IEP--she always got the teacher she requested for her DS. I had no idea the teacher that DS ended up getting was so bad (at least a very poor fit for us), so I'm not sure how I could have avoided the situation. Even the principal didn't seem to be aware of how she refuses to differentiate. I did put on the input form that DS needed a teacher who can differentiate. It was just really bad luck.

LOL!

My daughter had an IEP till she was in 11th grade. One of the topics in the yearly meeting we had was working out who would be the best teacher for her the following year. She was in a K-8 and sometimes there were really only two choices. Once she hit H.S. this was no longer really possible.

If you don't have a teem meeting planed, I would contract your resource specialist or the principal.

Thanks Blackcat and others! I don't know who exactly I want him to have because I just don't know the teachers at all. (Wish I could meet them all and chat with them!) But, like I said, I have been asking around. There is definitely one teacher that I do not like the sounds of. And there is one I hear good things about and she has a special-ed background which usually translates into at least being open to or comfortable with the idea of accommodations, etc. I specifically ask if she is "flexible" teacher and have been hearing "yes." I am in district where people tend to "rave" about all the teachers anyway. But I've been learning who'll give me the 'real' scoop and also learning the right questions for us. Like, I had a bad feeling when I heard the present teacher was "strict with their behavior, but fun!" ... strict for us usually means inflexible. Strict seems to mean "making sure the kids only pick books from the certain color basket because that is the rule" regardless of the effect this has on their reading. I also heard she has "high expectations" that apparently translates into the tendency to take a kid "down a peg" because she clearly downplays my son's gifts/strengths a lot to both me and my son - not good at least for a gifted kids as it seems to result in "never being perfect enough" ykim? She is not horrible but I would definitely like someone better next year. So, I guess I am just asking for a discussion on the issue with he administration... Not necessarily the ability to dictate the teacher (unless I KNOW who'd be good definitely - then I'd be more than happy to be a dictator LOL).

LOL, that is great! And, on a serious note, good advice. Thanks!

DS's current teacher really took me aback when I first met her in that she seemed very no nonsense and like she might be very strict. I was worried. But she turned out to be very warm to the kids, and was always watching out for DS, for instance she made sure he was fitting in and making friends. DS likes her a lot. Maybe the first grade teacher who I was worried about being "too strict" would have been fine too, for all I know. His current teacher has no problem with doing what is necessary, in order to give DS the correct level work, even though it's not normally done in the district. She did turn out to be the best teacher he probably could have had. It's hard to figure out--that's for sure. We have also run into the problem where everyone raves about all the teachers and I find it so hard to fathom how clueless and overly optimistic parents seem to be. Way too Pollyanna about everything. I guess if parents are negative (or realistic) it creates too much cognitive dissonance.

Incidentally, not sure if I shared this with the all of you. But, remember when they decided to provide my DS with a discreet one-on-one for scribing support during certain times of the day? Well, there was a lot of discussion about that they type of personality that para should have due to how horribly most of the paras have behaved towards my son and they gave him someone wonderful. I got to meet her and DS likes her and she is just plain nice - not jaded, and not resentful that the kid needs special help and all the while seeming to also recognize that he is bright. In fact, one the first things she said to me was "he is so bright and such a deep thinker, I really like working with him." Hoping he gets her next year too ...

"Thank you as always for helping DS to have a successful experience at your gloriously awesome school"
. [/quote]

Love this!

Seriously, though, I was just explaining to my children how important is to say nice things, especially when you are asking for something, or know you will be asking for something in the future.

At our school we do discuss teachers for the next year in the GIEP meeting, but not by names. So I might request a kind, nurturing teacher who is willing to differentiate for one of my children, and for the other, I will emphasize the willingness to differentiate is the most important thing, in addition to having some intellectual peers in class, if possible.

If you like the para, I would ask if she could work with him next year.

In my experience, it definitely is a "no-no" to request a certain teacher. I doubt they even write down the request and they publicly state that they cannot promise anything.

I think, like some others posted, that expressing what styles of teaching or types of personalities work well with your child is a good way to open that door. Ask for a teacher who is interested in children who are gifted or who they think will embrace the challenge, etc.

In our schools, although I do not think this is publicized, they do make the class lists at the end of the school year, or very beginning of the summer, so now is the time to talk about it, even if you have very little influence.

ETA: I will also echo that in talking to parents I have always found parents who rave about a certain teacher and other parents who really hated the same teacher. Sorting this out seems like an impossible task. I often would rather leave it to chance, kwim?

Hmm interesting. There is an in-service day on the 20th of the month ... I wonder if that is what it is for... We have a meeting on the 7th re assistive technology I am definitely going to raise the issue then. It is a lot to sort through but I definitely don't want to keep leaving it to chance ... I left the para choice to chance and it was disastrous every time but when I made my voice on the type of temperament the para was to have they provided someone really great. I think a discussion about it could be helpful... Thanks all!

Irena, I don't have much in the way of good advice here, but want to wish you good luck with it!

FWIW, our elementary school allowed parents to request teachers, so we did make a request every year. It was probably an easier situation than yours in some ways - we were at a small school (only 2 teachers per grade level), and there were many involved parents so it was easy to get tons of parent perspectives on the pros and cons of each teacher. There was also a bit of cross-teaching going on, so sometimes I'd have already had the chance to have my child exposed to a certain teacher.

That said - when it was time to turn in our request forms, I made sure that what I wrote in the request highlighted what type of teaching style etc worked best for my child rather than just stating that we wanted to request teacher X.

I also found that feedback from other parents varied widely (as another poster mentioned above)... and many times feedback from other parents that I trusted didn't work out the same way for myself or my child if we ended up with that same teacher - for all sorts of reasons, and the 2e piece complicated everything.

That said, overall, I think that in general most parent feedback was reliable re the things such as accessibility of the teacher to parents (were they willing to meet with you, listen to your input etc), were they set in their ways, were they strict or were they so mellow their class was out of control - those types of things.

Good luck - I hope your ds gets a wonderful teacher next year

polarbear

It's wonderful when a child and teacher are well-matched, but when creating classrooms, the school also considers the dynamic of the group. Although, we had a year when the teacher would have been fine, but somehow the dynamics across the entire 2nd grade were disastrous. You could tell on the first day that things weren't right. DS came home in tears a few days a week gasping "I just want to learn." Halfway through the year, they regrouped by math readiness because no one, least of all DS, was learning, and things improved. The next year, not only did he have a wonderful teacher (and start the accelerated math and LA classes) the class make-up had everyone smiling on the first day of school, and it lasted all year.

We get to request but it isn't guaranteed so it is best to put a couple of options. The problem is it is hard to know- I know several people who recommended last year's teacher (I didn't put in a request because I didn't know any of them) but he was a terrible teacher for ds. The kids find out their new classes a week before the end of school.

Our elementary school put a lot of thought into DS's teachers, and it was always part of the IEP meeting -- although I didn't really have much say in it. They knew what they were looking for, and they knew their teachers, and it turned out fine. I had only one request, and that was already decided three years ahead of time -- the fifth grade teacher that he went to math class with, starting in second grade. They got along so fabulously that it was just a given that he would be in his class in fifth grade.

I requested DD get the same teacher that DS had in first grade, and she did -- whether they took it into account or not is a mystery. Unfortunately, I said "I'll never ask for anything else" and now I'm regretting that because her teacher this year is not a good match and may be moving up to third along with her next year. We'll see if they let me go back on it.

Officially, they do not take requests. DS was a special case, with his IEP and ALP and stuff.

Personally, I don't see why they have this policy -- it would make more sense, to me, to let parents make requests and match as many as possible, then fill the classes with those who didn't have a preference. But what do I know.

Here it just isn't done-- you can't mention specific teacher names. There are too many parents who'd push to have the teachers with good reputations. I can understand why they don't want to deal.

We have had private conversations with the current-grade teacher to make sure she understands what we think DS needs (again, no mentioning names). And I think the staff is aware of many issues and usually eager to place kids correctly.

I just always assumed that it would make it harder to distribute the workload fairly for the teachers if there were an uneven amount of kids in a room with IEPs or other special circumstances. I don't know all the reasons, but this is a good reason, imo.

Our school is moving toward team teaching. Last year, he split time between two teachers. This year, it's between four. So in our case, asking for a specific teacher would not have worked.

When he was in Kinder, I did ask for a meeting with his teacher at year-end (she encouraged parents to meet with her for an end of the year wrap up so you would know what to focus on over the summer --- loved her!) I asked her then if she knew which teacher he might get. She told me they hadn't made their recommendations yet at that time. We discussed his personality, ability/willingness to listen/follow directions, etc. and I asked her to *please* consider the teachers' personalities and recommend whichever she felt would handle him and his needs the best. We had a great experience with his first grade teacher, so I think she chose pretty well.

Maybe that's a way to approach the teacher? Perhaps not outright ask, but lead them to the water you want them to drink by showing how your son and the teacher of your choice are a great match.

I know that you have had lots of issues with the school. Is there a staff member that you trust with whom you could discuss the best way to approach this with the team? I think that it is a good idea to raise the issue. Maybe you could ask them to add this to the agenda to give the team some warning that you would like to address this topic? You don't want the assistive tech people to feel like their meeting has been hijacked. They may tell you that they'd rather schedule another meeting but that's better than them feeling like they've been ambushed.