I’m sure you all know of the battles we had last year with Matthew’s teacher. I never met a person like that, and why she chose to work with children as her profession…well, it’s beyond me. At any rate, it’s been smooth sailing thus far with his teacher this year, and the change in him is remarkable. You’d be a unhappy student too, if you had a teacher who was vindictive and bitter.

One of the things that I like so much about his current teacher is that she’s readily available to chat, be it via email, the phone, or notes in Matthew’s planner, which goes back and forth between school and home each day. The county does a reading program that requires the children to read books on a set reading level (each child is tested to determine what their reading level is) and then take a test on the book when finished. With each passing test grade, the child earns points. Most of the teachers use the points as a reward – it’s not a grade, since this reading is extra, above and beyond what’s required in the classroom.

Matthew didn’t earn a single point this month, and I know he’s been reading. When I saw the notice in his planner showing zero points, I asked him about it, and he insisted he had 3 points. (He was required to earn a total of 5 points for the month to attend a pizza party reward.) I scribbled a quick note in the planner to the teacher, asking:

“Zero points? Matthew says he has three…???”

She wrote back saying no, zero was correct, and included a list showing the books he read and his test grades…more on those in a minute. I asked him about it the next day, and he was SO insistent that he did have those three points, to the point where he cried about it…so I dropped another note in the planner, saying he was so sure he had the three points, and did she know why he was confused?

She replied asking if I had seen the list, which I had, and to be honest, I dropped it. He obviously didn’t have any points, but I wanted to be clear on that, since he was so sure he did.

At any rate, the final report for the month came home yesterday, confirming the zero points, and showing his scores on the books he read. These aren’t grades, but the kids are required to get a certain score in order to earn the points for that book. He didn’t get higher than a 50% on any of them, and I know he read the books. I don’t know if he got bored, didn’t pay attention, or what, but he definitely missed the boat. So we’re asking him about how he got such low scores on the books he read, and I made some mention of the notes I wrote to his teacher about the zero points. What he said next made my jaw drop…

“Ms. SoAndSo said you need to stop sending her those notes. I have zero points and she said ‘Why does your mom keep sending me those notes? You have zero points!”

What. The. Hell? Even if you are COMPLETELY annoyed with my whopping two notes asking about the points, why would you let my kid see that? I don’t think he made it up, simply because it seemed like a sophisticated line of reasoning for him…I was just floored. My husband got to be the lucky note writer this time, and he included his work phone number and asked her to call him today. He hasn’t heard from her yet.

I’m really hoping this is nothing, but given our horrible experience last year, I’m having a hard time seeing how this could be “nothing”. And the kicker is, this woman KNOWS we had a rotten experience last year. I’ve told her so many times how much better Matthew is doing, and we really appreciate her positive reinforcement. I’m blown away that she would make a offhand remark to indicate that I’m a BOTHER or an annoyance to her in front of my child, or any child for that matter.

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