DD7 enters 2nd grade in two weeks. She attends a charter with a gifted standards focus, where we homeschool every Friday and extra days to add up to about 25% of instructional days. The past two years she's had long term subs coming and going due to teacher maternity leave. And both years we've ended up finally requesting a meeting and hearing new info about math instruction and how she was doing, in the spring. We are adamant that we not let things drag out any longer. But we don't want to jump on the second grade teacher before she gets her own crack at things! DH is incredibly frustrated with the school not doing more to really know DD and challenge her. But he gets most of his knowledge of the school filtered through me. I'm starting to worry DD is not meeting her potential (she read Shakespeare for kicks last summer. DH insists she's a "genius" and I'm probably just too close to her to see what's normal or not. Anyway!) DD clearly is gifted verbally and she's been patiently waiting while everyone learns to read, and doesn't really complain but jumped at the Emily Dickinson I left strewn out after she mentioned the poems on offer at school are silly/babyish. And I do find it odd (but not surprising) that no one from school has ever talked to us about DD's abilities or how we could adapt stuff for her, unless we started the conversation. The one thing last year's teacher noted was DD needing to work on not freaking out but calming herself, finding a solution, etc (DD would need to do this very occasionally at school, when rushed, etc, and did improve.) Again, this is a school with a focus on differentiation, the gifted icons of Sandra Kaplan, etc. The staff just attended a gifted conference this month so hopefully they'll be receptive!
So DH insists we hit the ground running this year. We want to have a meeting where we just establish that we want to communicate more. We want to know what assessments are happening (and what they mean, what we should do if DD misses zero questions, as apparently was happening last year, so we never got personalized math communication like others it turns out), what math instruction is going on, and how we can get her help adapting work for DD. I'm done making DD do the easy work and then trying to convince her to tackle more, which she's asking for, but cuts into precious time to play. But I can't adapt what I don't really understand, and I still keep finding out key info about instruction it seems. DD is also much more receptive lately to learning suggestions from anyone besides me. Or at least with me, she unloads her anxiety (like not wanting to write stories for fun anymore because they don't turn out like how she imagines, but all babyish. Ya know, rather than like the prose of Dahl or Rowling!) I'm hoping the teacher will actually make DD reach a bit, inspire her with a few new ideas!
Long story short (too late!) here's my draft:
Dear Mrs. Second grade teacher,
We are so excited that DD is going to be in your class this year! We are really looking forward to working with you, and hope to communicate about what we can work on with DD, and how we can all help challenge and inspire her this year. We're very interested in meeting sometime before too long to discuss learning goals. We have felt a little lost (first child going through school, lots of long term subs, and hey I'm still learning how math is taught these days!) and we really want DD to have a great year. Thank you so much ahead of time for all that you do!
Best Regards,
Us
DH says it's way too vague and kind. I'm hoping to be clear but positive. It's a small school and the teacher works closely with the other grade level teachers. I don't want to go in ragging on what went down. Anything jump out at you?
Psyching myself up to type in the email address and hit send before the weekend!
