"My Little Pony" backpack = "trigger" for bullying

Methinks you are downplaying the allure my My Little Pony

 

As I said, you are clearly determined to speak out of the wrong end of your anatomy on this one. Now you are have proven my point with this bit of tinfoil hat foolishness.

 

Start documenting what is being done to your child. Let the administrator know you are doing this. Figure out who signs the leave slips of this administrator. Talk to that person if necessary. Start documenting. Let them know you are doing this. Figure out who signs their leave slips....

 

My son's teacher basically said, "The only way I can keep the older kid out of trouble is to never let him leave my sight."

That's basically what has happened since then. The kid isn't even allowed to walk to lunch with the rest of the class...

It didn't hurt that one of the kids being picked on was the son of the Dean of Students... And, yes, they have a Dean of Students at my kids' grade school.

But if you ever email a teacher about a concern that someone is picking on, or bullying your kid, make sure you CC the administrators. It's an effective way to make sure you don't get ignored. I had cc'd the Dean of Students and she called me and said, "OK, I'm thrilled you emailed, I'm going to get a couple other parents and we're going to come in and talk about this kid..."

I must say I was pretty happy with the way it was handled...

 

Email is a very powerful tool.

 

Email is the greatest when you have young kids in school. I check in with both of my kids' teachers once a week or so and it's very helpful.

Most of the time, it's just a couple lines... "Everything good?" "Yes, he's been good, no issues..."

When there is an issue, I can address it immediately. There are no surprises come parent-teacher conference time. It also helps when your kids know there is a frequent back and forth with their teacher.

If any bigger issues arise, you immediately have better credibility with the principal, etc... because they like when parents reach to the teachers to address minor issues and not just to complain about minor crap.

It takes seconds...

 

E MAIL also becomes part of the permanent record of the school. It
can't be erased so administrators have to respond.

 

Great points all. I wish I would have used email more in my daughter's academic days.

 

It was a lesson learned when my oldest was in kindergarten. Everything that was sent home had stickers on it and "Great Job" or "Nice Work" or whatever on it and then when I went in for the parent-teacher conference, she went on and on about how disruptive he could be. I said, "Why didn't you ever say anything? I saw all the stickers and superlatives on his work and assumed everything was fine." and she said, "He does great academically, but he gets bored and distracts the other kids..."

BTW, this was word for word what was said about me as a kid...

I said, "I'll take care of it." I had a short talk with my son and I started emailing the teacher and she said, "There's a night and day difference." and I wanted to say, "Well, if you don't let me know, then there's nothing I can do about it."

I think teachers can be hesitant to bring some of this stuff up because they're worried about so many parents who think their kids are incapable of doing anything wrong.

 

We had an incident where a grade 2 boy punched my grade 1 daughter. I e-mailed the teacher and principle and had a response same day and good resolution, turned out to be more accidental than intentional.

As noted, e-mail is such a good tool on accountability because it gives a record of concern that can't be ignored.

I have probably e-mailed the school 3 times in 6 months, twice on issues and once just to say "good job" on something. I know that so many people only communicate on bad things that I want to make sure some Kudos also make it up the food chain.

 

Iron Chet
Thx for your note. Be assured we will look into your concerns. I have a question for you that I am curious about. Why would your capitalize "Kudos"?

 

Actually, if he signed it Iron Chet, I as a teacher would be looking into the family dynamic ...