<p>It's junior year and D has been assigned a bad math teacher--junior year is not the time to be messing with schedule changes, experimentation or learning Calculus on her own. Any ideas how to persuade school (who is clinging to policy of no changes to teachers until a seemster has gone by and its not working--thanks alot!)</p>
<p>How do you know the teacher is “bad”? If genuinely so. Schools are really up against it with this problem. If they give in to parent requests they’ll have a line all the way out the front door of parents wanting the same for their child which leads to class imbalances and gives credability to the “bad teacher rap”, which makes it even more difficult for the teacher to be effective.</p>
<p>Honestly, it’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it. I had an awful math teacher during junior year and still managed to land a spot on the Harvard waitlist (it’s still not an acceptance, but I strongly doubt that the teacher singlehandedly ruined my shot at acceptance).</p>
<p>An important thing to keep in mind is that it should be your DAUGHTER who deals with these issues first, not YOU. Parents call their children’s schools all the time with complaints about the teachers and schedules, furious that their child got put with the harder/worse/meaner teacher. Your complaints will just get lost in the mix. They’ll take a student far more seriously, and espeically if she and other students bring up the issue together. They should go to the teacher first if there really is a problem (which means suffering through at least 2 weeks of the class), and THEN start moving on towards department chairs and administrators if the teacher doesn’t make changes in her bad teaching skills.</p>
<p>And I know you don’t want to hear it, but the school is right. You can’t say a teacher is bad when you’ve never had her. I think a semester is a bit long to wait to switch out, but you definitely should have the teacher for at least a month so you can have proof that there is a consistent pattern of poor teaching.</p>
<p>I also would suggest holding off to avoid becoming a “boy who cried wolf” situation; you never know when a real scheduling crisis will strike. My parents rarely contacted the school if there was a problem with my teachers, so my school took them seriously because they knew there was a problem if my parents were calling. It helped me out SO much at the very end of junior year, when I found out that I had an atrocious senior year schedule (I was applying to college as a biochemistry major and was also a musician, so four of the classes I had asked for were AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Calculus, and band. I got NONE of those. I also was put in English 4 instead of AP Lit, even though I had just scored a 5 on AP Language). I myself took up the issue with the dean of academics, who makes the schedule, and when she wouldn’t help me and change it, I went to my teachers and department chairs and got my parents involved. They all immediately became involved because they knew something was horribly wrong if me, my mother, and my father, all low-key people, were all coming in to school or calling the school. My schedule was fixed THAT DAY. So hold off, because you never know when you’ll have an extremely serious college application crisis that you absolutely need to have addressed.</p>
<p>I thought you pay big bucks for smaller classes and better schedules. If they can’t work with you on these schedules, what is the difference between PS and BS?</p>
<p>Boarding school is just like your gardener, Invent? You pay the bucks and are therefore entitled to call the shots?</p>
<p>Sometimes BS does react like PS, especially with parents. They do want the students to step up which is fine but sometimes parental advocacy is necessary. Each case is different and should be evaluated on its own merits–which is what I hoped would be how the school reacted–because in my D’s case, this teacher is wrong for her for math for this year. I certainly wouldn’t go to bat for every teacher my kid finds mean/hard/obtuse. IMO, a change in the beginning of the year is MUCH better than when you are a month or semester in because it also means relearning the style and rythym of a new teacher in math and the other class being switched. For some kids that’s a bigger deal than others.</p>
<p>We’ve all had both good and bad teachers along the way, those that we liked their style and those that we thought were poor communicators, in elementary, high school and college.</p>
<p>My advice is for DC to try to find out from the teacher how best to learn and do well in his class. Ask to meet with the teacher; ask the teacher how best to study and prepare for classes and quizzes.</p>
<p>If all else fails, consider a tutor but don’t wait to DC has failing grades.</p>
<p>Life is not perfect. This is where a good advisor can help you get through a situation, which by the way is still perceived. Unlikely anything is going to change and always be respectful and courteous.</p>
<p>Most schools let you switch classes if there’s a good reason - within the first few weeks. But if she’s in Honors classes it may “seem” like she’s teaching herself when that’s not the case. But it’s a closer model to college.</p>
<p>Note that even though BS let many kids shift, in your child’s case the pushback may be that her shift involves shifting everything else. In which case she’ll get a better math teacher, but may end up with a teacher in a different subject she doesn’t like.</p>
<p>As much as I hate to say it - this isn’t your place to step in. She’s going to have to learn how to navigate the process and speak up for herself. Coach your daughter, but don’t butt in. It’s been done - but the long term consequences are worse than learning how to get around the obstacle.</p>