Not impressed

Okay. So we're on week 2 of school. Caroline LOVES her teacher, and Jack is somewhat happy. He's had a rough time with his new teacher. Basically, come to find out, he's participating in the same power struggle/feeling out the newbie stuff he pulled last year at the beginning of the year. However, his teacher this year is new. Not necessarily new to the building, but new to teaching. She was a behavioral unit aide last year and moved into the classroom this year. It shows. Jason is tiring of hearing me complain about her and how she deals with things, but it's getting old saying that she's new.

Jack has had some hard learning experiences and the most recent one ended in him spending a day in ISS. The first week of school, I emailed Jack's teacher on Tuesday because I noticed that there was no behavior folder coming home. Still haven't heard back from her on that one. On Thursday, I get a phone call from her that says she referred him to the office for threatening a student (Jack cut in line, the boy cut back and nudged him just a little bit. Jack says, "Be careful or you'll get it." Okay, I get that one). Jason emails the teacher and asks if there's a communications/behavior folder that comes home on a daily basis. Basically, third grade's position on that is that the students sign a book and stand out 5 minutes of their recess if they get in trouble, and then the student is expected to go home and tell their parents. Say what? Really?

Then, we don't hear anything for a couple of days. On Tuesday, I see Jack and he says that he's had a good day. He had to sign the book for playing "lunch box slap" with another kid. No big deal, right? Then I get a message from Jack's teacher saying that she had sent him to the office for that, but the principal wasn't there today so he'd talk to Jack tomorrow. So now, Jack's got to wait 24 hours to find out what his fate is. Turns out, he's been pushing her buttons for a week and a half now and when she tires of dealing with it she sends him to the office (only problem with that is that when you go twice it's an automatic 1 day ISS placement). So now, my son gets to go to a whole day of ISS at another campus because he and another student were playing a game that she thought was "fighting" (they were hitting each other with lunch boxes in line and then bumped into some other students).

So Wednesday comes and Jack goes to speak to the principal. He calls Jason and they have a talk. The principal is quite surprised to hear that there is no communications folder in 3rd grade. Jason's basic point to the principal is that it should never have gotten to this point. Jack should never have been sent to ISS because of a game. When Jack was in 2nd grade his behavior folder came home every day and we were able to work with him on the behaviors right then. So he knew he couldn't get away with ANYTHING. The teacher was fighting a battle all by herself that she didn't have to, IF SHE'D COMMUNICATED WITH US. But as it turns out, she'd deal with it all she could and then send him to the office or the counselor (that's another thing we found out that we didn't know -- he'd been going to see the counselor on a daily basis). The other thing I hate is that Jack admitted being the instigator but they both said they were just playing and it wasn't fighting. But on Jack's ISS report it says he's placed in ISS because he was "fighting". I understand that pushing isn't tolerated either. I always tell my students that eventhough it's just playing, it could turn into something more because someone might feel the other went to far. But there's the difference, I talk to them first. I don't just send them to the office.

So now, Jason has an appointment with the principal and the teacher on Tuesday, which is fine with me. I'm totally not happy with her. For example, with the ISS paperwork that she sent over to the ISS school she was supposed to list what exactly it was that he was supposed to get done. All it said was, 'See attached" for Reading and Social Studies. Oh, and the Social studies assignment was interesting. 3rd grade studies communities, so basically they'll be looking at ours, but the social studies assignment was, "List all 50 states and their capitals." Well, she at least provided a US map with Capital cities. Now, I ask you, how is this communities? I even looked up on the TEA website under the Social Studies TEKS and didn't find anything under Geography that stated they needed to know those. It said they needed to know directions, but nothing about all 50 states and their capitals. So I'm hoping it's fluff work, you know - work he could do if he got done with all of the other stuff.

Jack did say he didn't ever want to go back there. So maybe there was something good out of all of this. Maybe his behavior will change, only time will tell. However, his teacher did not make a good impression with me so I don't think I'll be talking with her any time soon. I''ll let Jason handle it.