Teachers make me so mad sometimes. Major grade drop.

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Right here at the end of the school year my daughter's progress report from a couple weeks back shows a drop from mid 80's to 23! The huge drop was due to her not handing in her 2 different spelling homework papers. On Tuesdays she is supposed to hand in her cursive writing paper (based on spelling words) and Wednesdays she is supposed to hand in her spelling sentences (also based on the weeks spelling words). Well, apparently my daughter was not handing them in even though we were completing them at home. Not sure what in the world she was doing with them, all I know is that I put them in her folder in her back pack and sent her to school to hand them in. So I'm mad that the teacher failed to contact me sooner about this. When I contacted her after getting the progress report she gave an attitude that it's my daughter's responsibility to bring the homework home and then to hand it in, that it's been the same routine all year, etc I pointed out that she should have contacted me sooner when things weren't being handed in and that now that we know there is an issue that she needs to make sure my daughter is filling out her homework assignment sheet so I can see what it is she needs to be doing (because, hello, I am not psychic) and that she needs to check my daughters homework folder if the homework has not been handed in to make sure that my daughter didn't forget to take the papers out of the folder and put them in the homework box for review. Again, she has the attitude that she should not have to do that because it's been the same routine all year and she doesn't know why my daughter is having these problems lately, but that we should expect her to be able to do these things herself. Yes, in theory that's wonderful, but the reality is it's not working right now for whatever reason.

I don't know. Am I wrong to expect the teacher to put in the extra effort to make sure my daughter is bringing homework sheets home and that she has filled out her homework assignment page so I know what she's supposed to be doing and that she follows up behind her if homework is not handed in????? I don't think I am. I feel like the teacher expects my daughter to function the same as her other students and when I try to point out that you can't expect her to be able to always do that I feel like she thinks I hold low expectations for my daughter and that I am hurting her in the long run. I don't have low expectations, I feel like I live in reality and the reality is that my daughter is not like other kids and I can't expect her to be JUST like the other kids. That means that I have to be understanding of her differences and work with her to help her achieve what she can and not stand there and judge her any time she fails to meet expectations. I feel like the teacher needs to be more understanding and perhaps lack of education regarding Asperger's is the issue. It's almost the end of this school year so I'm not going to waste my time arguing with this teacher. One of my biggest peeves is when I hear "I don't have the time..." well honey, you need to find the time.

Felt good to rant, anyway.

Guess I will start out with her 3rd grade teacher having a meeting to go over her 504 Plan and put it in writing that the teachers need to make sure homework assignments are written down for me to review, check that my daughter has put in her go home folder any papers that are supposed to come home and double check that homework is handed in and if not, contact me.

I think you are expecting too much of the teacher, but I do agree that the teacher could have contacted you sooner about this. Teachers have a lot to worry about and, unfortunately, public schools are designed to cater to the typical student. I wouldn't blame the teacher, blame the system.

You need to make sure your child is doing and turning in her homework. This teacher has other students to attend to. Checking to see what your daughter is doing is taking away time from the lesson and other children.

Like I said before, blame the system and not the teacher. Remember, the teacher's job is to teach not discipline. When I was your daughter's age, my parents had to hover over me to make sure I got my homework done. When I did not turn it in or forgot to put it in my backpack, there were consequences; like no television for a week. There might be tears but she seems like a bright girl capable of learning. She, like most children, needs an extra push.

But even if it was the teacher's job to do this, it seems like the teacher is indifferent to your daughter's struggles. What person is more capable than yourself?

I guess my frustration lies in the fact that I feel like I've done my part to make sure homework is being done and goes to school to be handed in and I feel like the teacher has fallen short of her duties on the other end to make sure it's collected. That and the fact that she failed to contact me in a timely manner and my daughters grades dropped because of it. I understand her position of having expectations for my daughter to hand it in like everyone else, but... I guess if you knew my daughter you would understand. She can be so easily distracted and forgetful it is at times scary and she often needs prompts on the simplest of things. For example... we leave the house every morning and close the locked door behind us - basic every day occurrence - yet I often have to prompt her to close the door behind her even though there is just the two of us and you would think she would see me ahead of her and think "I am the last one out, I need to shut the door behind me." But no, she will walk out and leave it open without a thought. We go through periods where she remembers she needs to close the door behind herself and other times she needs daily prompting. There's not really any rhyme or reason for why she forgets things like this, it's just her. I can easily see her "forgetting" to hand in her homework, or placing it in the wrong place (which is apparently what was happening, because it wouldn't be in her backpack when she came home).

Yes, the system does suck.

I was that kid!! I'd bust my butt doing homework every night and somehow, somewhere between home and the "In" box, it would disappear... I spent many a 3 day weekends re-doing my homework to save myself from failing. To be honest, I still have no clue where those papers wandered off to. And I can't really say how I trained myself to keep track of those things, but I can tell you.. I really, really hated missing spring break because I was at the kitchen table all day, every day, catching up those assignments.

My son is only slightly older than your daughter, and he too is an aspie with ADHD. I am a VERY routine oriented person. Everyday after homework I tell my son 3 or 4 times to put his homework folder into his backpack... Every morning, I have to get demanding and remind him again. I'm fairly certain if he hasn't learned the routine yet, he probably never will... or at least nothing I can say will help him to.

Perhaps you can help her though.. Remind her to turn in her work as she leaves for school each morning.. Or maybe even write a reminder on her hand.

I do think the teacher should have contacted you especially since it seems your child has obviously done well for most of the year. Your daughter's sudden failure to turn in important assignments should have had alarm bells going off for the teacher. I understand that teachers can't watch over every student all the time but isn't it the teacher's responsibility to see that a child is getting an education? I brief note or call to you could have prevented such a dramatic drop in your daughter's grade.

While I'm not sure I would have expected the teacher to check your daughter's backpack, I do think she should have called you after the first missed assignment, especially since your daughter had been turning the homework in correctly all year. The teacher's job is not just to teach, but to help the children learn.

I think it's a good idea to put homework collection and related activities in your daughter's 504 plan next year. That way it will be quite clear what the teacher's responsibilities are.

Third grade??? The teacher is expecting too much of the kids. End of story. Middle School is when most AS kids fight this battle, and get IEP adjustments for it. 5th grade is when many NT kids fight the battle, and teachers let them learn by falling. But third grade??? The teacher needs to accept the late turn in based on your word. Anything else is too much stress and too harsh for the age. Not all kids are developmentally ready for the responsibility, and that isn't even taking into account the special needs. Maybe the school needs to view the documentary, "The Race to Nowhere."

The fact that your daughter has ADHD, implies she has executive functioning deficits. If she has an IEP/504 plan, I'm assuming she has in-school support? That support can create a strategy around organization to help her remember her homework. If her support is part time, a buddy system can help. Have the teacher/support worker designate a reliable student to remind your daughter. It's really not that big of a deal that the teacher couldn't manage. I'm with you in the frustration. If it's affected her mark that much, and your daughter has special needs, the teacher was not supporting her needs. I know she has a class full of students but there are ways around that so she's not held responsible to remind your daughter everyday but that your daughter doesn't lose marks because she's having executive functioning "malfunction".

Review her plan and revise it to include this for next year.

Yes, I think you are in the wrong actually, to expect the teacher to do so much and your daughter to do so little.

I think your daughter really needs to learn how to take the initiative and make sure she gets credit for the hard work she has done and it's your job as the parent to instill this in her.

You can ask the teacher to contact you if there are any missing assignments but before your daughter goes to school, go over with her that she is to turn in her homework. You can ask the teacher if the daughter can be allowed to do this first thing when she gets to school.

You can also put a reminder in her snack bag or lunch box and ask the teacher if it'd be ok if she turned it in at those times if she had forgotten to turn it in before. And, it's your job as a parent to ask if she has turned it in when she gets home, and if she hasn't, drive back to the school to turn it in.

As the mother of 5 and the grandmother of 8 as well as a special ed. teacher for the last 18 years I need to respond to your coment.

Maybe the teacher should have called you sooner to say your child wasn't turning in the work. I have had students where if I didn't take it as it came out of the printer I didn't get it.
But, I am not at your house. You say she did the work, did you make sure it was in the back pack that goes to school? Do you clean out and check the back pack every night? I have an ADHD child and am ADDHD
So I understand but it is my job to teach your child how to read and write and do math. It is your job to make sure that the work is done and in the back pack. I do not have pity party for my students if I did I could not teach them. I have to make sure they understand the material, do the assignments in class, write down the homework that goes home, that they aren't hitting each other, calling each other bad names, that they are progressing in their studies. What do you mean the teacher shouldn't expect your child to do the work everyone else does. ADHD is not I REPEAT not a DISABILTY to learn it is a focusing issue that does not even qualify your child for special ed. services. My parents taught me to control my impulses, to be responsible, to make sure I did what I needed to do for school. My parents taught me how to learn from an early age. DO NOT BLAME ME if you want to give up, pity your child, make excuses for her. She is no different than the other 125 students seen in a day. I teach intellectually delayed children and they turn in their homework or get a 0, they get the parents signature everynight in the homework log or they get a 0, they are responsible for their own learning. I can teach all day but I cannot make them learn. Parents like you enable their children to missbehave, not learn, and waste the teachers time in class, IT is not as one parent requested my job to teach the child how to masterbate appropriately, it is not my job to make sure they can wipe their butts after using the restroom, I dont' have time to house break your child you should have done that long before I get them. My job is to teach academics your job is to teach the rest. Be the parent not the buddy.

I am not allowed to put my hands in a students back pack unless I have reason to believe there are drugs or a weapon in there.

I ask for homework every morning. It is up to the child to get it out and hand it in.
AsDsmom this child's only deficite is the ability to focus for extended periods of time. I teach kids like this every day and they turn in their work.
We do not do 504's out here for behavior issues unless it impedes the learning process of the child or other children in the room. She does not have special needs. She is to be held accountable and responsible like everyone else. I teach my own children coping skills, I was taught coping skills and I try to teach my students to be responsible. But, I am not their parent I can only do so much. If the child does not have the work you think I should take it next week how about next month. how about next term where will it end. I have to turn in grades every 4 1/2 weeks. If the work is not there no matter how much reminding or nagging I have done then it is a 0.
Expecting too much of a 9 year old give me a break. What are the expectations at home. do the children have chores? do the children have responsibilities at home to teach them to be responsible? at 9 I expected my children to go to school do what they were suppose to do, do their home work and turn in it. They also helped with the dishes, cleaned their rooms and took turns taking out the garbage and dusting. With 7 people in the house and a military husband the children all had responsibilites to help from the time they started school on. Even if it was to put their clean cloths in the drawer they had to do it. Children will give you what you expect. I have high expectations of my students, I do not dumb down the work and I do not make excuses for them when they forget. No one is going to be there to hold their hand when they get out of school or even when they get into high school.

In my experience, third-grade teachers are still reminding all students in the class, including NTs, to write down their homework in their agenda or homework book and are reminding them frequently to hand in money for field trips, assignments, etc. For heaven's sakes, I teach university students and always give them two opportunities in the class to hand in their work, in case they were late, distracted, or couldn't find their work the first time. For ASD and for ADD kids, regular reminders at a particular time of the day can help a lot. Does the teacher say, "Today is the last day to hand in XXX"? If not, I don't know how she can expect a child to know and remember the right time to do this.

I agree that it is usually in middle school that the "reasonable expectations" of teachers and administrators no longer give with ASD or ADD kids. Last year I could explain at least 50% of my daughter's drop in marks by the fact that there was no longer one time of day when students were told to write down homework. It was something that is usually routine in elementary schools because *all* kids need to learn to adjust to that routine, just as they need to know what day they need to bring running shoes, what day their library books go back etc. In middle school I realized that I was going to have to do more than what I considered my share in ensuring that my child can learn and participate (e.g. she's not able to "independently" do her homework yet, and probably won't be for several years, although this is what is expected at her grade level). It came as a bit of a shock, especially when I was hoping the dx and SEP would relieve my burden more than they actually did.

Perhaps you didn't understand the information given in pennywisezzz's post. Her child has ASD as well as ADHD. ADHD is a learning *disability* and Asperger's certainly entitles students to special services. As a special education teacher, I think you are probably aware of the difficulties children have when they are dealing with challenges in their executive functioning. So I may have misunderstood, especially since I had a bit of trouble following your phrasing. Actually, I hope I misunderstood your statements.
J.

I take issue with the idea that my child with executive dysfunction issues should do the exact same things that an NT child would do. It takes my child about 3 x longer than an NT kid to do the same work, soley because of attentional issues and the fact that he has to figure out the order of things each time he looks at it, unlike an NT child. So the busy work and "drill and kill" method that works for many NT kids drives mine over the edge to absolutely hating (and then refusing) school.

When I sit with him to do a 10 problem math quiz and it takes 1.5 hours of effort it becomes really clear to me that if we give him the same quantity of work as the other kids, we would effectivly bury him. There is another angle some of the Special Ed teachers seem to take..... they keep dumbing down the material until it's so easy he can produce the quantity. that would have my 6th grade son with a verbal IQ of 130 doing 2nd garde work. Instead of figuring out how to teach him, the standard way seems to be: bury him, blame him, dumb it down then baby sit him.

I prefer that we teach him.

Boy oh boy do you NOT get it.

You went on a rant, so here is mine.

It is your job to teach INFORMATION, not organization, and penalizing a child for lacking in a developmental skill like organization when they are actually doing the work and learning the material is WRONG on every level I can think of, and that is EXACTLY what these too-heavily weighted zeros for completed homework not turned in do. What are you teaching that child? It isn't how to spell. It is that doing what you are told when you are told is THE single most important thing in school, and that NO ONE actually cares if you are learning. Believe me, AS kids too often get that message LOUD and CLEAR. If you think that allows them to become inspired students and future leaders, inventors, or anything else positive you are mistaken.

THANK GOD you aren't teaching my son, if you think the system in the OP's post is "fair." He struggled through middle school with a grading rubric like that, and it nearly killed everything that made him brilliant and special, and that was a confident child who was older and less impaired than the OP's child. My son is your dream on standardized testing day, but if you are squashing him, you didn't earn the accolades, they are all HIS. Thankfully, he grew up up enough developmentally to be able to play the game (which is EXACTLY what it is, since there is ZERO correlation between the ability to remember to turn in an assignment, and actually learning the material) and is getting straight A's in high school, but that is thanks to a persistant mom and a helpful IEP.

Thanks for reminding us why we need IEP's; it's the only way to make school life rational for our kids. And if your district is refusing to make these sorts of accomodations - you will be sued. It's only a matter of time.

My son is super smart and planning to work in fields where we desperately need the brain power. Cutting kids like him off at the knees over what IS a developmental difference carries a big, long term cost to society. You say they will just rise up to the expectation, but that is only true if they are developmentally ready to, and if my son wasn't ready at 11, why would the OP's daughter be ready at 9? Thank God I am in a school district that understands that enough to have given us the IEP we needed to get by, but there are other capable kids I see daily being squashed by these wrong headed rubrics and it breaks my heart. I've often wondered as an adult how certain smart people I know can tell me they were failures in school; well, now we know. It's missguided expectations.

Have a field day with my typos and errors; I'm on my phone and don't have time for the edits and fixes, and they are hard to find on this tiny screen.

But, yeah, you pissed me off. The modern rubric angers me. You know, I did come to accept that there were some real world parallels to the rubric for older kids, but at 9??? Too young. Inspiration should be tops, and thankfully my son's elementary school gave that to him. If I didn't have a straight A high schooler everyone thinks is headed for big things, and who no longer needs or receives these allowances, maybe I'd have to challenge my views on what a special ed kid needs, and if the leniencies my son got were the right approach, but I do have a success story; I am absolutely convinced those supports and accommodations were essential at the times they given. I'm just really disheartened to see someone who is supposed to know that, argue against it.

As the parent of an ADHD child my son did not qualify for any type of special ed. services.
As a teachers with a Masters in Special Ed. and EdD. in learning I am telling you that ADHD is not a qualifying disability for special ed. services.
ASD is different Autism is a disability all unto itself.

In 3rd grade your child had a teacher who made them write things down. In Middle school we have agendas and every teacher is suppose to have the child write the days objectives and homework in the agenda for parents to sign every night.

When I taught AP English I still had to have the seniors write the homeword down from the board or they did not do it. I think student never seem to out grow this.

The IDEA says that unless a child is ADHD to a point of interferring with the learning or the learning of others they cannot be given special education services for just being ADHD.

As an ADHD adult I know we self medicate personally I do not drink or smoke but I do take anti anxiety meds because I feel like I need to crawl out of my skin sometimes. I have learned to knit, crochet, embrodry, do puzzles and many other things to keep my hands busy so I do'nt lose my mind when I have to sit still. A staff meeting is torture. I know exactly what ADHD does for a child or an adult. So I am not uncompasionate I am just quoting what we were taught in Special Ed. law.
Pat

I know autism spectrum disorder and I know asburgers syndrome and have worked with children with one or the other. I havenever heard of ND.