Email Story

Recommend Story

Printable Version

Discuss

 

Published on 6/30/2009

By Virginia Wells Smith

This email arrived recently:

"Dear Dr. Smith,

My son will be going into second grade this fall. He had a great experience in First Grade with an excellent teacher. Through the year, I have learned a little bit about the Second Grade staff. Out of the four possible placements for my son, there is one teacher who has a good reputation. The other three are considered just average (or worse). Should I request that my son be placed in a particular teacher's classroom? Is that something that could happen? I don't want him to have a bad year.

Thank you,

(Parent's Name Withheld)

I consider myself lucky to be able to see this question through the eyes of the parent, the teacher, and the principal.

The parent wants what is best for the child. She already chooses his doctor, his dentist, his activities, his food, and everything else of importance in his life. Why shouldn't she be able to choose his teacher, too?

Teachers usually accept their class lists from the principal without much questioning. They know that the principal and guidance counselor try hard to be fair and even-handed when assigning students. Teachers who have had a bad experience with a certain family might request that none of the other siblings be assigned to them. That's basically for the good of the child.

The principal has the ultimate responsibility to assign children to teachers in a democratic way. With the help of the guidance counselor, administration tries to make sure that each elementary classroom is well balanced. Unless the school advocates grouping by ability, the principal should want each classroom to "look like America" and be truly heterogeneous in nature.

To be frank, many principals do not enjoy parents who request a certain teacher for their child. Most of the time, the request is based on rumor and not on good, solid educational reasons. Some principals absolutely refuse to even consider parent requests in child placement. I believe that is wrong. If the parent can show why her child will thrive in a particular classroom environment, then the principal should seriously consider the request.

A serious request for certain classroom placement should follow this criteria:

1. The parent should know how the teacher's classroom works and why that environment will fit her child. That means that the parent should have visited the classroom during the previous year and spoken with the teacher at length about expectations and procedures.

2. A written request should be submitted to the principal in early summer so that there is plenty of time to analyze the request and fit it into the classroom assignment timeline. In the written request, specific, educationally sound reasons should be given for the request.

3. Once the request is made, the parent must understand that it will be very hard, perhaps impossible, to switch teachers again during the school year if things do not go well.

In my experience as a principal, a teacher, and a parent, the percentage of parents who request a certain teacher for their child is well below 30%. However, those parents seem to take a greater interest in their child's education and work very hard to maintain home-school communications.

A word of warning - not every Second Grade child can be assigned to the "best" classroom. Once the limit has been reached in that room, even serious requests will not be granted for placement there.

So, my answer to the parent is this - choosing a teacher for your child is serious business. Usually, we leave decisions like this to the professionals in charge. But, if you feel confident that you are right and your child will have a good year in that classroom, then, by all means, make the request and take the responsibility for that choice.

If you would like to contact Dr. Smith, she can be reached at her email address: jsmith798@sc.rr.com