Carter had three amazing years at our preschool. All of his teachers were very engaged with the kids and had a good amount of academics mixed in to their well-planned, fun days. Carter's teacher last year was especially good and was extremely dedicated to getting all the kids ready for kindergarten (she has 4 kids of her own and the youngest is in 2nd this year so she is very up-to-date with what kindergarten is like now-a-days).
Rylan's teachers on the other hand have just been okay. I feel like he's always been loved on instead of taught anything. I don't think preschool needs to be extremely academic but it needs to be more than babysitting as well. Even though I work with Rylan at home on letters and numbers, he is stubborn for me. However, he will do anything a teacher asks of him. So I really feel like he needs to also be exposed to these concepts at school (as well as things like cutting and patterns, etc). His teachers his first two years had not done this. Last year the most he did with his letters was color in one letter a week on a piece of paper. So before registration for this school year, I went to the preschool director and voiced my concerns to her. I told her I wanted a very academic teacher for this year, one that would push Rylan. She said she understood and told me the two teachers Rylan had a chance of getting this year. One of the teachers I know well and I spoke a few times with the other one to make sure we'd be happy with either before registering at our school.
At the end of August, the preschool sent out letters to all the parents letting us know what class our child would be in. I was shocked when Rylan was in a class with a teacher I didn't know. I called my friends that had Ms. Sue before and was extremely disappointed to find out that they all felt she does nothing to prepare the kids for kindergarten. They all said she'll love on your child but she doesn't teach them anything. She has been at the preschool 20+ years and has no educational degree (like every other teacher at the school does). She has one child who is 30 years old so it's been a very long time since she's had experience with kindergarten (it has changed so much in the last 25 years).
Around here, most people assume that if your child has a summer birthday that they are not going to kindergarten on time. Our current cutoff date is August 31st. I have no idea if we'll hold Rylan back but we are treating this year as if we are sending him. And I expect his preschool teacher to also treat Rylan like he's going to kindergarten.
Well, that just isn't happening.
Here is the work Rylan brought home from school his first week.
And here is what he brought home his second week when they had begun working on the letter A.
I was happy to see that the kids did practice once each week writing their name (though everyday would be better). But the ONLY exposure to the letter A was painting one. There was no introduction to a lower case a, no exposure to the sound the letter makes, and absolutely no practice writing either an upper or lower case A.
Last year Carter did tons each week with each letter. There were handwriting worksheets, books the kids made with words that began with the letter of the week, etc.
So, why the lack in consistency? Both of their classes are supposed to be preparing the kids to go to kindergarten the next year. I don't expect the teachers to be exactly the same, but I feel their should be some consistency in the curriculum.
So Brian and I set up a conference with Rylan's teacher for the beginning of the third week of school. I summarized our meeting in an email to another parent in the class that has similar concerns (there are several of us) and it is below:
First off, one of the behavior issue children was removed from the school on Thursday (James). I believe that it got to the level he bruised another kid and so he was asked to not return. Ms. Sue offered up a few details about him - such as she couldn't have scissors out when he was present because of how he might use them against the other children. From what Ms. Sue said, she was doing all she could to just survive the last two weeks.
Ms. Sue said things were better today but not perfect. She specifically mentioned having the most trouble with Lainey and Anna Sparrow. But there are others as well that are giving her problems. She mentioned things like lining up takes extremely long because some kids are stepping on others and not behaving. Apparently last week some of the kids ran away from her in the hall (one even hid from her).
Basically, it sounds like Ms. Sue is in over her head with behavior and can't handle it. She mentioned having to use a lot of timeouts (which she doesn't like doing) but doesn't have any other system in place. I attempted to give her examples of what some of our other teachers at our school have done such as behavior charts and rewards from a treasure chest at the end of the week. She responded by saying if I'd like to make her a behavior chart, she'd use it. So I guess I'm doing that for her??? Not sure if that'll help but my goal in bringing that up was to get her thinking about methods she might want to incorporate.
I feel though that the only way she will ever have this class under control is if she had a full time assistant. I don't think she has the energy anymore to get the kids in line that are misbehaving. And thus our well behaved kids are going to suffer from that.
My other big concern is academics. I brought in Rylan's work from last week and basically told her I didn't think it was enough to prepare the kids for kindergarten. She got very defensive about how she couldn't do work with them because of behavior issues this past two weeks. She showed me her lesson plan for the week which looked organized and had lots of ideas in it, but even if she got the kids to all behave, I don't think she'd manage to get through it. She showed me her goals for the year to prepare the kids for kindergarten. The biggest gap I saw was absolutely nothing on letters. She wants them to be able to recognize and write their names but there was nothing on letter recognition and writing. She tried to tell me that this isn't something that is expected when entering kindergarten. I know Carter just started kindergarten, but I think she is completely wrong on that! She also said she used to do some worksheets with the kids but she found that parents complained about that and didn't want her to be so academic so she stopped doing them. I again told her that I believe this group of parents would think it's important for the kids to practice sitting in their seats and complete a worksheet (they are there 5 1/2 hours - they could spend 5-10 minutes doing a worksheet or two!). At one point she said if she can get the kids to line up, wash their hands, share (basically all the social things), she did her job of preparing them for kindergarten. I don't think I'm ever going to agree with her academics for the kids but if we could manage the discipline issues, I might be able to accept what she does and continue to work with Rylan at home. Though I REALLY would prefer a teacher with a different outlook on pre-K curriculum; however, I know it's not easy to switch to another teacher at our school.
There was a lot of "it was really hard on me last week", "I went home crying everyday", etc from Ms. Sue. And I understand it can be hard but I don't believe Ms. Sue can handle this many 4 year olds or that she was really trying to remedy the situation either. I don't get the impression she wants to attack the problem and fix it, just that she wants to complain about it.
So after speaking with Ms. Sue, this is what came back home the third week of school (for B week).
And this was last week (C week).
So this looks a little better. But when I ask Rylan about it, Ms. Sue isn't telling them what they are doing. For example, the kids cut out the pictures that begin with the letter B and glue them on the paper. However, Rylan said Ms. Sue didn't tell them that these things begin with the letter B and what sound B makes. He just cut something out and glued it like Ms. Sue said. So while Ms. Sue is putting more out for the kids to do, there is no instruction. I appreciate that she's making some effort but it does not meet my expectations for preparing the kids for kindergarten.
I have been working with Rylan every morning and afternoon on his letters. We are working on recognition of upper and lower case, writing the letters, and learning their sounds. (We are also trying to fit in speech practice twice a day too which is a little challenging with our crazy schedule right now.) We don't work for long, just 5-10 minutes at a time. I want to do this and I would probably be doing a scaled back version no matter what teacher Rylan had this year. However, I'm concerned that there is very little reinforcement at school.
We are also dealing with a little boy in the class that is not nice to the other 3 boys, including Rylan. Most days Rylan tells me about how this little boy has pushed him or taken things from him. I've reminded Rylan how to tell the other boy those things aren't nice and to please not do them. But it hasn't been getting better so last week I told Rylan to go directly to Ms. Sue when it happens (apparently she never sees any of it) though we try to not encourage tattling. He told me that he did that on Thursday and Ms. Sue talked to the other little boy.
Monday though I did a playdate with the class at a playground. I got to witness how rough the other little boy was with Rylan. Once he grabbed Rylan's shirt collar from behind and pulled him around. And the little boys mom also saw this and just laughed (any ideas why he behaves so poorly???). No wonder Rylan didn't want to go to the playdate!
After seeing this, I spoke with Ms. Sue about it yesterday morning. I told her what Rylan had been telling me was happening at school and what I had observed at the playground the day before. I told her that I explained to Rylan that he should tell Ms. Sue when something happened from now on. And I asked if she'd please make some extra effort to keep on eye on the other little boy and how he's treating Rylan. Her initial response was, "I want him to stick up for himself." Like she didn't want to be bothered by him tattling to her. I was a little shocked by her response to the situation.
Anyway, I'm now working on setting up a meeting with the preschool directors for later in the week. I spoke with them before school started and they were not very interested in my concerns. They told me they'd never heard from any parent that they were unhappy with Ms. Sue as a teacher. They were unwilling to consider another class for Rylan, including the ones I was assured we'd be in (which I expected because they usually have waiting lists) and basically ended our conversation by telling me I could withdraw from the program if I wasn't happy (which they know isn't really an option if I want Rylan in a preschool since all the good schools usually have waiting lists).
Hopefully we will figure out a solution soon! I'm not sure what it will be but there are a few other parents in the class that are speaking with the directors this week. I hope we can get to a place where Rylan is excited about school, feels safe in his environment, is exposed to more academics that will prepare him for kindergarten, and is with a teacher this is upbeat and excited to teach.
No comments:
Post a Comment