Advocating For Your Child's Education

When we first moved here, I heard from experienced parents about the phenomenon known as teacher requests. Apparently, some schools allowed parents to request certain teachers for their child. Other schools offered “student concern forms,” whereby a parent listed certain concerns that might affect their child’s placement.

I heard the most compelling testimony regarding this issue from one mom who had several relatives working in schools scattered throughout our district, as well as in the district office itself. She shared that after using her connections to request teachers for her daughter the first couple years, she decided to see what happened if she just trusted the process. She was pleasantly surprised by the results and never returned to making requests.

Therefore, when my daughter started kindergarten, I did not fill out a concern form. I just talked with the interviewing teacher about my hopes for my daughter and shared a few observations about her characteristics. We did not request a teacher for first grade either, but both years, we had wonderful experiences with her teachers. 

Then I read a couple intriguing articles on Greatschools.org. The first revealed recent research that indicated there was a significant difference in the amount a student learns based on whether they were placed with high or low performing teachers. While that was not a shocking revelation, what was disturbing was the degree of disparity. 

The second article posed the more complex question of how involved parents should be in their child’s class assignments (special needs notwithstanding). To explore this topic more fully, I met with our school principal.  Besides being an excellent administrator, he has two young children of his own, so I felt he was uniquely qualified to address both sides of the issue.

First, he explained our school’s policy was to receive student concern forms, not teacher requests.  He showed me a thick stack of last year’s forms and pointed out that while some were valid concerns, others were thinly veiled teacher requests.  The latter were easily recognizable because the students’ teachers would confirm if the listed “concerns” were consistent with their observations over the last year.

Next, he started describing the placement process, which was quite extensive.  Imagine doing a seating chart for a dinner party of 100+ guests, except that besides marital status and relational conflict issues, you also had to take several other factors into account such as skill, achievement, and motivational levels. Then imagine repeating the process five more times (once for each grade level). 

This would give you just a taste of what goes into the process for our principal, who said that it takes at least an hour consultation with each grade level’s teachers and then almost a week to finalize the placements.  He must balance and evenly distribute several thorny elements, such as students with behavioral issues, parents with behavioral issues, not to mention gender, English learner, GATE, Special Ed and more.  If they are not well distributed, he risks compromising the experience of entire classrooms and burning out teachers.

So what can a parent do?  Here are some things to consider as you advocate for your child’s education.

• Realize that how you handle this issue is a lesson in and of itself.  As the second article demonstrated, children are astute.  Are you teaching your child to micromanage every one of life’s details or are you teaching them how to face life’s challenges with competence and grace?  One of the things that most impressed me about our principal was that he admitted he has never made a single request for his children because he wants them to learn how to handle life, not just control it.

• Realize that parental information can be skewed. As one generation of parents hands down stories to another, certain teachers can develop negative reputations, even after the point of contention has been addressed and corrected.  These opinions may come from the experience of a few parents whose parenting styles, values and children may differ completely from yours.  Withhold judgment until you have firsthand experience with a teacher. If you still have concerns, try politely discussing them with the teacher.  Remember you are both on the same team with the same goal—to help your child learn.

• Realize that your child’s education begins at home.  Often, we as parents are willing to advocate for our children, but less willing to actively work alongside them on schoolwork (of course, others go overboard in this role, so aim for a balanced approach). If your child’s teacher does not meet your expectations, a little time and effort on your part can go a long way.

Our principal suggested reading with children (even in a second language, if that is more comfortable) and establishing routines at home. Ask faculty to refer you to outside resources such as online educational helps and tutoring.  Certain grade levels are notoriously tough for all students, such as 4^th and 10^th grades. During these years your assistance can have an extra impact.

Although test scores are not a comprehensive measurement of teachers, all our . Whatever approach you take to help your child do well in school, consider us fortunate to live in a district where we can be confident our kids are getting an excellent education.