The past few weeks I’ve been noticing that my daughter has been coming home with very high grades in subjects that she struggled really hard with. My daughter struggles with anything that revolves around reading comprehension due to her disability. I noticed that she would come home with 100’s and 90’s on her graded papers but then she couldn’t recall what the subject was about and had little knowledge of what she had learned. Now of course most kids checkout when school is over because they work so hard during the school day, but I knew that this was more than that. I asked my daughter to give me an example of how her teacher helps her and she replied that on this particular paper the teacher gave her all the answers.
I then explained to my daughter that it is not right to take answers from the teachers even though she’s giving you the answer. I told her if that ever happens again she needs to come home and immediately tell us because teachers can get in trouble for this as this is called cheating. The teacher had no right to give her the answers, and while I know it takes my daughter a minute to process information, she probably got tired of her sitting there and thinking about it so she began to give her the answers.
I, of course, was not going to accuse the teacher, but I do know that my daughter is telling the truth, so I’m paying close attention to the situation. In the meantime, I asked her teacher to give me data or examples of how they are teaching my child to support the 100’s and 90’s that she’s receiving. Additionally, I asked who was working with my child and at what times throughout the day since my daughter indicated that she works with different teachers.
To my surprise, her special education teacher called me the next day after I sent the email to address my concerns. She tried to deter me from getting the information and instead stated all the things that are on my daughter’s IEP. I explained to her that I was very aware of my daughter’s accommodations on her IEP. What I wanted to know were examples of how they are accomplishing my daughter making such high grades and could she send home some of the work that she has assisted my daughter with and what she did to help her. She hesitantly said, I will get that data to you. It took about a week and she sent home four sheets of paper that she had copied and I could barely understand anything that was on it. It did not tell me what she did to help her or if she did anything to help her.
This week I got my daughter’s weekly folder home and she has the lowest grades that she’s had since she’s been in school this year. I’m pretty sure she got upset because I questioned how she was teaching my daughter, but she also knows that I know that she’s not being taught properly. I followed up with her and told her that the data she sent me was barely readable, and I did not see any notes as to how she helped my daughter. She then replied to me and said I have forwarded your concerns over to the principal. This of course is fine with me, and I am looking forward to speaking with the principal on the issues. However, I am not going to go alone and will be taking an advocate to get these issues resolved properly and effectively.
There are so many hard working educators out there that work with our children every day and this particular one really brings their profession to shame.