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I talked to a friend who teaches at a highly rated public middle school.

Her take is that they send stuff home to be signed like this to prevent a lot of issues with some parents saying they did not know about problems or grades. Most of the problem parents are the ones who never sign the paper in the first place, but if they did not send it home, they would then drop in screaming that the school never told them.

Wow, ABQMom, your message was great. It made the point beautifully.

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Fairly recently, I got an e-mail from a parent who wanted to know how her child's report card grade of D happened. I wrote back, "Well, I wrote a D in her planner on this date, and sent home a D on her midquarter report on this date, and I see that you did sign her plan to bring up her grade from an F on this date, thank you for that. She did bring her grade up to a D at that point..."

While I certainly commiserate with the challenges of making parents accountable, I still think it ridiculous to hurt a child's academic score due to the failure of a parent to sign papers.

Interesting to hear the teacher perspective on parents signing things sent home.

But actually, I was originally referring to a 3rd grader, which is quite different from a middle schooler. Also I rarely "drop the ball" it was a one-off, the quiz went back the very next day after I looked at it, I just forgot to sign it, in part because it was a regular things for the spelling tests to come home and it suddenly stopped about 6 weeks ago, then suddenly started up again. No communication as to why from the teacher. Same with the multiplication tests. They came home a few in a row, then stopped suddenly. I found out that the teacher had switched to giving the quizzes verbally, based on a phone conversation with one parent in the class who didn't feel the written quizzes were appropriate for HER CHILD. Since she is a mathematics professor, I guess that phone call advocacy was good enough for sweeping changes for all 20 kids in the class, without informing any other parents. For me, of course, I have test data from the child study center of a famous university with EG/HG scores for my child with very explicit advice for how to best accommodate her, and which has been continuously snubbed. Because my state does not require the support of the gifted, I am out of luck.

So if a teacher values consistency and is going punish the 8-year-old child the very next day after a quiz comes home and isn't signed, on the "first offense" perhaps it would be a good example for them to set to be consisent or at least communicative with how they are doing things.

I have never, ever "screamed" at a teacher or even demanded anything from them point blank.

I agree with Dude's initial reaction to the child being punished for what the parent does, however there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it at this point.

p.s. my apologies to the original poster to taking part in making this such a meandering thread, and I hope she is able to get some accommodations for her son.

My DD12 was offended when the teacher asked that I sign her work this year. She told the teacher that her homework was her responsibility and not her mother's. She worked out a deal with the teacher that as long as DD remained responsible -- no signing.

When DD was in kindergarten, I still remember a student being held in at recess because the parents hadn't signed her communication folder. As the year went on, it became apparent to everyone, including the other parents, that the mom in question had some sort of substance abuse issue. I finally said something to the teacher about how it didn't seem like it was fair to keep this child in at recess continually because her mom was incapable of handling the admin stuff. The teacher snapped at me and proceeded to tell me that the mom also failed to respond to phone calls and repeatedly missed meetings. The teacher felt that she couldn't back down or she would be rewarding the mom's bad behavior (!?) Talk about a kid being punished for the failings of a parent. It made me cry.

I'll keep that not-signing thing in mind.

What really gets me (and maybe this is the "gifted" part of me, such as it is) is the inconsistency, with the teachers I've encountered, with the principal (his refusal to change my daughter's classroom last year based on "policy", no exceptions, was garbage because he did it for another parent who screamed and hollered at him. The inconsistency is true at the library, where they let some kids "slide" and get out more books when they haven't brought their original ones back, and other kids they cite "policy". And all the kids know who gets to slide and who doesn't. I know "that's life" but it's so prevelant that it's hard to catch a break from one example after the other.

Well I'm going to stop now and try and salvage the rest of the day. Can you tell I was at the school volunteering this morning? The teacher didn't say a word when DD checked out a kindergarten-level book. I tried to persuade DD to get something else, but she was very down, and now so I am.

YES. If you're doing it to yourself, it's not censorship, it's discretion. (If the government does it to you, then it's censorship, and it's another story.)

DeeDee

Things like this can really get to me if I let them, so I have to just ignore. There is always going to be somebody who gets something more (as well as someone who is getting less) - and the energy lost to getting upset over it just isn't worth it. If it's something you feel *really* strongly about, then it's worth putting together a good fight that might benefit everyone's child, but for the most part I've found that I have to just tell myself - that's there life, this is mine, I didn't get that one thing they did but I need to look forward for my child, do the best I can, and just move on.

polarbear