Tackling the system
This morning I went to Link’s school to discuss his class placement. He wanted a male teacher, I felt like it would be a good thing. Last spring I put in a request to that effect. Last week I found that he’d been assigned to a female teacher rather than the male teacher in his grade. I really needed to understand why my request was ignored and I needed to understand how this whole class selection process works.
I prepared in advance for this meeting. I dressed nicely on purpose because appearances matter. I wanted to walk into the meeting and send a message that I was a competant, caring parent who honestly wanted to understand. I also wanted to send the message that I truly value the administrator’s proffessional input. I went in person because I wanted to stand out from the throng of parents who were submitting written requests for changing their child’s placement. I very definitely did not want to start a war over this. I’m going to have to work with these teachers and administrators for another 10 years. I don’t want them labelling me as a problem parent because I may require their help in the future. The time may come for me to start a war, this issue may be the cause for which I start the war, but I don’t want to arrive with guns blazing when diplomacy might gain my point.
So, in a very careful frame of mind I went into the meeting. I learned several things both good and bad. First I learned that Link’s scheduled teacher is young, female, and very energetic. The male teacher for that grade is soft spoken. This information caused me to re-evaluate my request. Link has responded to energetic male teachers and his female teachers have all been soft-spoken. I think that the energetic/soft-spoken dynamic is more important than the male/female dynamic. Link needs an energetic teacher, one he can’t tune out. I’d love for the teacher to be male and energetic, but that isn’t an option for this year. It turns out that he already has the best placement possible. I declined to move him.
I knew walking in that class placement is a highly charged issue. I met with both the principal and the placement administrator. I could tell that they were prepared for a battle. They’ve fought battles before. They have to deal with hostile parents every single year. I could see that they were trying to be open and helpful, but they were ready to entrench and defend if necessary. Once they realized that I had no intention of going ballistic, they went beyond the call of duty. The placement administrator went to the point of walking me down to Link’s future classroom and showing me how it was being set up. The administrators really do care for the welfare of the children, but they also have to defend themselves and their system from aggressive parents. Sometimes parents interpret this as caring for the system more than the kids.
The bad things I learned were about the system itself. I placed a request last May. By the time I was allowed to place that request classes had already been assigned. Class lists were set last May, but no one would tell any parents what they were until August. This morning I got to see the request sheet. My request was near the bottom of the list and dated for July. I turned it in in May, it must have gotten lost somehow. The administrator hastened to assure me that my request had not been ignored. She really didn’t like me using the word ‘ignored.’ She informed me that none of the requests had been considered yet. I let this tidbit pass without comment, but I wonder why they bother to allow requests at all if they won’t be considered until after class lists are published? The answer is that they don’t like to allow parent requests. Parent requests create lots of administrative problems and extra work. But they also can’t exclude parents entirely, so they have a week were placement requests are allowed. This allows parents to feel that they are doing something, but the request may or may not have any effect on class placement depending on space, move outs, move ins, and other factors.
Another disturbing thing is that I am unable to find anyone who takes responsiblity for assigning the teacher my son got. Last year’s teacher implied that it was done by computer. I know that the teachers at each grade level have a meeting about placements, but last year’s teacher didn’t know anything about the teachers for the next grade level because they were all new. How are they supposed to make considered placements that way? Can it really be called a placement meeting when what the teachers are really doing is merely tweaking a computer generated list? The administrators imply that class placement is based on this placement meeting, but the teachers I’ve talked to imply that the placement is based on an administrator list. Everyone implies that someone else is in charge. I wonder if no one is really in charge or if they are all trying to be professionally courteous and not give parents anyone to specifically attack. I would be much happier if I believed that someone at the school was really looking at the needs of my son and making a considered decision about which class he should be in for the next year. I don’t feel like that is happening. I got lucky this year, at least I hope I did. This is not my year to go to battle, but I won’t be forgetting what I’ve learned about the system.