School Daze

Lack of Feedback

Let’s take a break from politics for a second.

Has this happened to any of you? My older son is in second grade, and generally enjoys school and likes the teacher. However, when we see the report cards, we do not know on what these grades are based because the teacher does not hand back tests or in-class assignments. As we have found out, all the other parents are complaining about the same thing and have not gotten any response from the teacher. This has been going on since September, so by my calculations, the teacher must have several hundred, if not a thousand, pieces of paper she has not returned.

My wife met with the teacher recently to discuss our son’s progress. Per our (advance) request, the teacher did hand back all the tests and promised to do a better job in returning assignments. She blamed her poor responsiveness on the disproportionate time she had to devote to a particularly unruly child who had been in the class (and has since left the school). However, over the past three weeks, she has backslid. I note that another second grade teacher also has not handed back tests to her students.

My wife has talked with other parents, and they want to send a letter to the principal. We found out via the grapevine that this teacher did not hand back tests in previous years, either. The teacher is a nice, pleasant, devoted teacher otherwise. The problem is, that without the immediate feedback we get from graded tests and other assignments, we do not know if our son needs immediate attention with his school work or behavior.

Have any of you been in this situation? What would you do?