Shaun's Friday report...

So school gets out at 2:30pm and Friday I was sitting by my cell phone nervously waiting for Shaun's teacher to call me with the report of how he did.
As you remember, we had agreed she'd call me, good or bad, to report his behavior for Friday so that we could see if the grounding from football helped motivate a change. Also, because if he was bad again, he would be grounded again Saturday - missing his football game and sledding trip we had planned.
I waited...and waited, and waited, called home to check messages, and waited some more.

I picked him up and asked him how his day went and he said he was bad. But he had no note, I had no phone call. I was confused so I asked him what he did that he thinks he was bad. He said I was talking one time and she told me to stop. I asked if he got "step", he said no, not even Step 1. So, that isn't really being bad then...poor kid is so confused at this point. Ugh.

Finally, I called his teacher at home and left a message. Matt got home and we hemmed and hawed about whether we should punish him or not based just on his confused review of the day.
Then, at about 5:30pm, Mrs. C called and said he had a good day. One or two small slip ups, but overall a much better improvement. Yeah!!! I'm so glad she called and told us, because we probably would have grounded him, at least from his game if not sledding too.

The short of it is he improved and now this week will be the real test - to see if he can keep it up.

The long of it is this...I'm frustrated. I know that Mrs. C is a great teacher - he has learned so much and overall had a great year. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out an effective way of communicating with her being a working mom. I can't be there to talk with her at the start or the end of the day like a lot of parents do. I have to rely on notes in his folder and 2 (so far) parent teacher conferences. This latest thing frustrates me because it seems he was having behavior issues repeatedly for at least 3 days the previous week, and 3 days last week - and that's the first I heard of it. He didn't "Make his day" 2 days, lost recess privileges at least 2 days, and this was the first I was notified. How can I work with her to solve these problems before they are bigger issues if I don't know it is happening at all?
I know there are 26 kids in the classroom, I know the school day is jam packed and she has a family of her own, but I also know that in daycare I got a note home every day saying what he ate, how he slept, what they learned that day, and usually a special note about an upcoming event. They did this for 20+ kids every day. I think if she had a stack of "rough day" notes handy, she could stick one in the kids folders who had rough days, and then when I saw that for a 2nd day in a row...I'm happy to take the responsibility on myself to call, or email to talk at her convenience and in the mean time I could punish accordingly at home before it becomes a pattern.

I'm sure I sound like a "know it all parent" who complains, but I'm also a parent who works full time, finds a way to attend half of the parent involved events as a volunteer, donates school supplies every single time they send a notice saying they are short on things, and am truly engaged in my child's school experience. I just can't be there at 8:30am and 2:30pm to make communication the easiest on the teacher.

Ugh - ok - rant over (for now!). ;-)