You know those annoying parents who email their kid's teacher?

So I finally sent Nicky's teacher an email to get out these frustrations. I think it came across as professional, courteous, assertive and knowledgeable. I worked hard to make it that way, even though I stopped to take deep breaths and somehow did not spontaneously burst into flames even once.

Figured I'd make today's post about this since I spent so much time on it and I've already shared most of my frustrations about the situation here anyway. Ms. P is his teacher, Ms. K is the ESE teacher who co-teaches part of the day in the classroom, Ms. B is listed as the ESE Paraprofessional for K-1, and Ms. F is the school psychologist.

Enjoy:

Ms. P,

I'm hoping the school copier is back in working order so that you'll soon be able to send home daily behavior sheets for Nicholas. Honestly it's to the point where the red dots are nearly meaningless when it comes to giving him feedback. We all know being on task is extremely challenging for him and so him really earning a green dot for the day is nearly impossible. I give him a lecture about whatever the notes on his calendar sheet says, but it's not nearly as meaningful as specific feedback could be with a daily sheet. It also encourages us to only focus on his negative behaviors and thus he is getting no positive reinforcement from us at all for the times when he's doing the right thing. Hopefully he is getting that at school sometimes, but even so, a daily sheet will help us all provide more of an opportunity for positive reinforcement, which is the strongest behavior modification tool we have.

If it will help expedite the process, I would be happy to either print out and send sheets in his folder for you to use, or if you can give me a sketch or description/list of what activities should be included on a sheet, I can design one and print it for you. I know you're busy with all the other things on your plate, especially with the end of the grading period, so I'm happy to do what I can to help.

Speaking of the grading period, I would appreciate it if you will share this email with Ms. K and Ms. F and Ms. B if she is also working with Nicholas. I answered the three psychological batteries that came home last week and hope that we are nearing the completion of his re-evaluation so that we can convene a true IEP meeting with all interested parties soon. If Ms. K or Ms. F have an estimate of when that might happen, I'd appreciate it. I also read over his IEP progress report today and while I'm glad to have it, I would like to see if we have more measurable results to report at this time. (Perhaps the results from the latest PALS evaluation are not in yet, so I'm jumping the gun there.) I think for the academic goals, the PALS results would be helpful, or something similar, and for the behavioral goals I think the behavior sheets could be designed in such a way that we can actually use them to help evaluate his percentage of time on task.

Sorry this is so long, but I appreciate your reading this.
Thank you