You know the kind. The one some teachers love to hate. The one they call the pushy mom. I wasn’t always THAT mom. In fact, I never wanted to be THAT mom. So how did this happen?
Well, the short of it is this: I did what I thought was best for my child and it’s not working. And there’s at least one teacher involved, who thinks I am the pushy mom. And it’s been bothering me for a month now. And I need to get it off my chest. And I need advice, so please, please let me know your thoughts in the comments, please!
But let me back up and explain (this is going to be a long post).
I guess it all started the year our daughter Nia was in kindergarten. We were still living in Florida. Nia was going to a magnet program with a marine science focus, which she loved. A few weeks after the beginning of the school year, Nia’s kindergarten teacher told us Nia was ahead of the class and she wanted to start sending her to a first grade classroom (next door) and see how she does. We were happy to hear that and encouraged it. Shortly after that the kindergarten teacher told us that she’s doing very well and they wanted her to spend more time in first grade.
Eventually, we had a parent-teacher conference with both the kindergarten and the first grade teacher, at which they told us that Nia was progressing very well and they were going to continue to work with her in the first grade classroom as much as possible. They informed us that in Florida, kids cannot skip kindergarten but that if Nia continued doing well, she could skip first grade and go straight to second. We wanted to know what we can do to help and the teachers gave us some advice on exercises as well as websites with materials we could use. At this point, Nia was spending most of her time in first grade, doing first grade homework every day and though she sometimes found it hard, she was handling it well and was very happy. She felt special. We were very proud of her.
Then my husband got the offer to join the Foreign Service. He was supposed to start training at the end of March 2010. I wanted Nia to finish the school year but we didn’t want to split the family, so we all moved to Falls Church in late March and transferred Nia to the local public school, where she started right after spring break. We had her report cards from Florida and her teachers there said they would be more than happy to answer any questions and help in the transition.
I gave Nia’s new teacher a couple of weeks before I emailed her to see how Nia was doing. I got no response. I tried a couple of more times via email and phone. Again no response. Finally, I went to the school one morning in an attempt to talk to the teacher. I was stopped at the door and told that the teacher was busy and couldn’t talk to me then. I was not happy. Five weeks after my first attempt to contact the teacher, she answered my original email and said Nia was fine. I needed more than fine. I wanted to know how she was adjusting to the new environment, how she was doing academically, whether she was getting along with the other kids, the usual stuff. But I also wanted to talk to the teacher about all the work she had been doing in first grade and that in Florida we were working towards skipping first grade. In the process I found out that Nia’s actual teacher was on maternity and the teacher I was talking to was a substitute. The substitute said she didn’t know about skipping grades but that she was going to research it and get back to me. Another couple of weeks went by and nothing happened.
In the meantime, Nia’s teacher came back from maternity. We had to give her time to meet Nia and get to know her. By then it was late May and I was concerned that if we were going to skip first grade, we needed to make arrangements and we were running out of time. So, I reached out to the principal. The principal responded fairly quickly and set up a meeting to discuss the situation with Nia’s teacher, the substitute, a gifted program teacher and me. At the meeting, they told me that Nia was doing well but that in Falls Church they didn’t skip grades. Plus, they said they had assessed Nia and her scores were not progressing as fast as in Florida. I was not happy with that because I didn’t want Nia to be bored but then I thought she may be overwhelmed by all the changes with the move (new place to live, new school, new friends). They told me that she did make it into the gifted program though and said that was terrific. They were the professionals, so I decided to trust their advice and not push the issue even though my original plan was to spend the summer helping fill any gaps she may have because of curriculum differences between Florida and Virginia, so she can be ready to start second grade in the fall. Never mind!
In September, Nia started first grade. She had a new teacher, who was fantastic. Everything was going swimmingly. We had a parent-teacher conference in November, at which the teacher had nothing but wonderful things to say about Nia. We were delighted. Then we got some test/assessment results according to which Nia was doing awesome (top 10 percentile in the school). We wanted to make sure we understood the test results, so we attended an information session about them. Then I went back to the teacher and asked more probing questions. I was wondering if Nia was challenged. The teacher said that Nia knew most of the material and that 99% of the things they did in class were too easy for her. She said it was hard to keep Nia challenged. There was a group of high achieving kids in the class but Nia was performing at an even higher level. That’s when I started getting concerned about her being bored and not challenged enough again. I shared with the teacher that Nia had spent most of the previous year doing first grade work and that there was a plan for her to skip first grade but that it didn’t work after the move because the principal told me they didn’t do that in Falls Church.
Nia’s first grade teacher was new to the school (though not new to teaching). She said that she wasn’t sure how those things worked in Falls Church but that she could see Nia benefitting from moving up. She encouraged me to talk to the principal and told me that both she and the second room teacher would be happy to back me up. I went back to the principal, this time with test results in hand. Surprisingly, now she didn’t say moving Nia up was out of the question but set up a meeting with me, both room teachers and the gifted program teacher. She asked the three teachers what they thought was the best thing to do with Nia and they told her they thought Nia was mature enough and ready emotionally as well as academically to move up. (Nia was born in November, so she was older and taller than most of the kids in her class). I was a little concerned about the timing. If we were to move her up in the middle of the year, she would have missed 4 months of second grade material. How hard would it be to fill the gap? Also, in Falls Church, moving from first to second grade meant going to a different school, which was not as simple as going to the classroom next door. But the teachers were encouraging and the principal agreed to discuss it with the principal of the school where Nia would be going to second grade. Then she encouraged me to contact him myself.
So I did. I explained the situation. I voiced my concerns and he said he needed to think about it. The following day he called me back and told me that he had found a classroom for Nia and that we would do it. He said they’d never moved a kid up in the middle of the year and thus couldn’t guarantee it would work but that we’d try it. I asked if we could meet Nia’s teacher and get a tour of the school. He set up a time on the day before Christmas break started. At that point I told Nia she was moving up to second grade, which totally made her day.
I took Nia to visit the school and meet her new teacher. Nia was beyond excited. She wanted to meet her new friends and start right away. I wanted to know what she had missed to see if there’s anything we could do to fill gaps during the Christmas break. The teacher said she could give me some ideas but in the end didn’t. I had gotten a Brain Quest book for second grade and we worked with it during the break.
On day three after Nia started second grade, I got a call from the teacher. The call started with an admin matter that she was trying to help me resolve. There was no problem there but I could sense there was something going on, so I asked how Nia was doing. Boy, was I in for a surprise!
The teacher started going on and on about how Nia didn’t know the material, she was using her fingers for math, she was not nice to her friends, she didn’t want to do her work and why were we pushing her into second grade when she was clearly not ready. She had nothing constructive or encouraging to say about the situation. The closest she came to saying anything positive was calling Nia a “delightful child” and “very sweet” but after everything else she had said, that sounded like what you say when you have nothing good to say about someone.
I had never had such an awful experience talking with a teacher. I was stunned and basically said “But wait a second, it’s only been three days!” I tried to be constructive. I said I fully expected Nia to be behind but I really wanted to focus on how we can help her make up what she had missed. The teacher said that it was very difficult to work with a child like Nia. It wasn’t impossible but it was very difficult and she wasn’t sure it could be done. She said she had worked with kids from the gifted program and that Nia wasn’t gifted. Not sure what she was implying with that but this was something she could have easily verified with the first grade gifted teacher.
That’s when I started to get upset and defensive (not good but then, if I don’t stand up for my child, who will?). Nia happened to be in the room. She overheard what I was saying and got very anxious. Paul took her to her room and tried to diffuse the situation. I tried to explain to the teacher that I knew with the right approach, Nia could close the gap. She had done it the year before when she was in kindergarten doing first grade work. The teacher was having none of it. She told me there were many kids in first grade in Falls Church that had test results as high as Nia’s or higher but their parents were not pushing them in second grade (literally!!!).
I explained to her we didn’t push Nia in second grade - we had discussed the matter with three teachers (and two principals) and made a joint decision based on their input. She said she didn’t know Nia’s first grade teachers and that she hadn’t talked to them. I encouraged her to call them and see why they thought moving Nia up was a good idea. (She did not – I am in touch with Nia’s first grade teachers and they told me she hadn’t.)
I also told the teacher that the easiest thing would be to put Nia back in first grade but that I didn’t think we’d given her a fair chance and that it was not a good idea because she’d be doing first grade a second time and she wouldn’t be challenged. She countered with “Aren’t you concerned about stressing your child out so much to learn all this material she’s missed?” I was more concerned about her being bored and held back if we went back to first grade and I said so. Clearly, we were not on the same page but in the end we agreed that day three is a little early to give up and that we need to give Nia more time. We also agreed to stay in touch and that she would send me information on what I can help with.
The conversation had gone badly. It made me feel like my child was somehow deficient and that I was a lousy parent. I had the feeling the teacher had already made up her mind. I wasn’t sure what to do but decided to just keep working with Nia, hoping the teacher will see her for the smart kid that she is.
A couple of days later the teacher sent me some information on math facts (addition and subtraction) up to 20 and said Nia really needed to know these by heart and stop using her fingers. We worked with Nia until she memorized them and stopped using her fingers. The following week I emailed the teacher about some passwords Nia needed and briefly inquired whether Nia was starting to close the gap. All the teacher said was that she had the same concerns she can expressed on the phone the prior week. And we didn’t hear again from her for three weeks.
We did get some class work and tests back from which it was obvious Nia was learning but she was still behind. You could see that some of the assignments she was given, she just didn’t understand. It seemed like there wasn’t much explanation. She got some things she had never been exposed to wrong and she got some right. She had a fair number of incomplete assignments. There were also things that seemed correct to us but were marked as incorrect. We went over everything with Nia trying to explain what she got wrong and teaching her concepts that it was obvious she didn’t know but was expected to. We were very frustrated but had said on several occasions that we are always available to help and discuss how Nia is doing, so we decided to wait for the teacher/principal to contact us.
Last week the principal of the new school finally requested a meeting. Paul wanted to come but couldn’t make it because of his schedule. He did however tell the principal in an email how we felt. The two of them ended up talking on the phone. The principal said they hadn’t made a final decision but wanted to talk to us. We ended up rescheduling for yesterday, so Paul could be there.
We were afraid the meeting wasn’t going to go well but hadn’t lost all hope. In the meeting, the second grade teacher basically repeated all the things she had told me on the phone plus a few new tidbits, though she softened the tone. We tried to tell them how we felt without sounding confrontational but it was obvious the teacher felt Nia wasn’t ready and there was no need to stress her out unnecessarily. We realized that nothing we could say would change their minds. They said they wanted us to decide whether we want to put Nia back in first grade or leave her in second, warning us that she may not close the gap by the end of the year and may need to be in second grade again next year. We told them that neither option was optimal but thanked them for their time and said we would get back to them.
Both options suck but we are now leaning toward sending Nia back to first grade because we feel the second grade teacher does not believe in her and there’s not much we can do to change the teacher’s mind at this point. The teacher simply does not seem interested in helping Nia succeed. She seems to see us as pushy parents and Nia as a problem. It will be very hard for Nia to do well in a situation like that. We don’t like the idea of putting Nia back in first grade but if we do that, at least she will be in a loving, nurturing and productive environment.
This could have worked. It should have worked but it didn’t and I feel horrible to have put our child in this situation. After all, she did nothing but her best. Perhaps I was naïve to think the teacher here would embrace Nia and encourage like her other teachers had done both here and in Florida. If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have even broached the subject. But it’s too late for that now…
So, if you are still with me, my question to you is: what would you do if you were us?
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