<p>I get a call from my son's English teacher that he has not been turning in his work. Ok...so..my son gets home from school and I talk to him about it. He says he has turned everything in, except one thing, which is not due yet. I check online, it shows everything turned in. I finally reach the teacher today, she says he needs to turn in this one paper, he is supposed to submit it online. He should have it done by Tuesday. Then, I get a text from my son a short bit ago that the paper had to be handwritten so she refused to accept it.</p>
<p>Handwritten????? This school requires the kids to have computers..and she told me herself that it was to be done on the computer.</p>
<p>Seriously, this is not the first teacher that I have met who seems so confused like that. And these grades go on the transcripts for the kids to get in to college. This is frustrating.</p>
<p>Send the teacher an email detailing the whole dilemna with a timeline of events and ask her, “I know the work is late, but is there something you can do to help my son? There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether the work is to be submitted electronically or by hand. Please advise.” Then, if you still don’t get a satisfactory answer, you can make a decision about whether or not to escalate, or chalk it up to water under the bridge. But once I determine a teacher is “a little squirrelly” I start documenting everything. It’s amazing how they suddenly pay better attention when they realize I’m doing this. Never have had to escalate.</p>
<p>Will she take it? Or will it be a zero? Maybe I misunderstood. From OPs post I understood that the handwritten paper was due on Tuesday. Being that it’s Friday, and she rejected the electronic version - I assumed the paper was rejected. Will she TAKE the handwritten paper at this point?</p>
<p>Sorry about jumping the gun. Made assumptions.</p>
<p>I am confused too…which is why I am frustrated with them. She told me he needed to submit it online and she would help him submit it online on Tuesday if he could not get it to work himself over the weekend (no school Monday). She told him she would not accept it today and he was getting a zero because it was not handwritten.</p>
<p>This is on top of her calling and leaving a message that he was missing all this work, only to see online he was missing nothing, and then talk to her later and find out it was 1 thing…and that thing was not due yet.</p>
<p>Oldfort…my son has some special needs so he has an IEP. I was a little surprised she called me too, as he will be 18 next month. But fine. I think maybe she has to contact me because of the IEP.</p>
<p>Yes, I revert to my original post. Email her WITH as oldfort suggests a scanned copy of a handwritten piece. Sounds like a big miscommunication and maybe a lack of organization on SOMEONE’s PART. Very confusing. I’d have to try to get to the bottom of it and figure out a way to prevent it happening again.</p>
<p>^In that case, I’d remind the teacher of the contents of the IEP. I can’t imagine why any teacher would prefer a handwritten paper over a typed one.</p>
<p>The title of your thread says “the teachers,” and not just this one teacher.</p>
<p>If you’re having a similar problem all over the place, then it’s an issue that needs to be addressed in a group setting, with parents, student, teachers and a guidance counselor or administrator all hearing the same things, and all getting the same written report after the meeting is over. (It’s also quite possible that either you our your son have some share in the responsibility for the breakdown if the system is breaking down all over the place.) In the schools where I’ve worked and the schools my kids have attended, you’d start this process by contacting the guidance counselor and asking him or her to arrange a meeting.</p>
<p>At that meeting, if you can restrain yourself from casting blame–and it’s very hard to do that when it’s your kid in question–you can honestly say, “The communication system is broken, and I’m not getting the information I need to help [son] do his best work and turn it in properly. For example, I heard x from the teacher about English class, but y from my son, and then z happened. That’s just an example, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m singling out this class or this teacher, because it’s happening all over the place. Can you all please tell me what I need to know, or can we work out a communication system that we’ll all understand and use, so that problems with homework and other written work will be minimized?” In the course of this meeting, other matters, such as his being allowed to use a computer for all written work, are sure to come up–especially if you go into the meeting with a list of points you want to make sure come up.</p>
<p>Yea, I would definitely do that with the GC if it were a systemic problem or with multiple teachers. If your perception is that it’s just a “one off” event of this particular type, I might just see if I could resolve it without a full-blown multi-participant meeting.</p>
<p>If you think it’s just a “one off”</p>
<p>I would write the email, attach the scanned copy, be polite, resist assigning blame, but outline your perception of what happened and ask for help/thoughts, etc.</p>
<p>And then see what you get before you proceed any further. It may have been a simple misunderstanding or maybe she momentarily had him mixed up with a repeat offender or something. Anyway, starting a dialogue might uncover what the problem was.</p>
<p>Then if it seems like there’s a pattern, you could contact his other teachers and see if they have any similar concerns and make your action plan accordingly.</p>
<p>When you’re “frustrated” - things often seem bigger than they are. This could be just a simple misunderstanding.</p>
<p>Heard back from the teacher, she had not noticed that the typed papers were on the IEP. She said he can type it over the weekend and turn it in. She kept talking circles and then it came out…she wants both handwritten and type written. Then, after I explained the IEP, she said he could turn in 2 copies of the type written basically. </p>
<p>I think the contact teacher dropped the ball here. She was supposed to speak to the teachers before the term and make sure they all know what is in the IEP and explain anything.</p>
<p>Possibly. Or possibly the English teacher herself did. I know there have been years when I got so much information about IEPs and 504s at the start of the year, when I hadn’t yet even met the kids in question, that I didn’t do a good job of keeping track of who needed what accommodations. I’m not proud of that, but it’s happened. I find it very hard to keep all that in mind when in my mind the student isn’t yet a person, but just a name on a class list.</p>
<p>“Then, after I explained the IEP, she said he could turn in 2 copies of the type written basically.”</p>
<p>WHAT? That really doesn’t make much sense. But OK. LOL - I would do it because you don’t want her to think he skipped a step.</p>
<p>“I think the contact teacher dropped the ball here. She was supposed to speak to the teachers before the term and make sure they all know what is in the IEP and explain anything.”</p>
<p>You could be right - since you say there has been some indication of confusion amongst his other teachers.</p>