August brings high anxiety for many parents awaiting big news for fall: Who will be their child's teacher? Will it be someone creative and inspiring? Or will they get stuck with a burnout, a bore or a scary drill-sergeant type?
Now, that angst is being further intensified by a combination of factors, including a less experienced teacher pool, faster gossip grapevines and schools' increased strategies to limit parents' involvement in the teacher-placement process.
In fact, school officials are sending a strong message to parents: Don't ask. A growing number of principals hold parents at bay by sending questionnaires in the spring that ask for general information about a child, but prohibit requesting a specific teacher. More principals are skipping parent input altogether, setting firm policies that teacher assignments are up to the school.
Maybe that is because news of an unwanted teacher match can inspire less-than-productive interactions. "I've had parents get angry and pound on my desk" to protest their kids' placement, says former principal Trish Dolasinski of Scottsdale, Ariz. Some pull out the violins, she adds, saying such things as, "When Billy saw he had Mrs. Smith, he was in tears. We've had the worst weekend of our lives. It's been horrendous."
Current and retired principals say they have seen parents threaten to quit the PTA or PTO, withdraw their child from school or band together with other parents to get a teacher fired. Some take their complaint to the top, storming district offices to meet with the principal's boss. (Firing tenured teachers is a multi-step process governed by state laws and union contracts; even for new teachers who can be fired more easily, principals typically keep a tight rein on the process.)
For parents, of course, the stakes can feel very high. If they don't protest, and their child has a bad experience, it could derail their academic development. But because many parents look to educators to be a nurturing mentor for their child, many fret that complaining about a placement or meddling too much will put them on that teacher's bad side, making life even harder for their kids.
The ABCs of a Happy Teacher Match
How parents can help place their child in a classroom that suits him or her best.
- Write school officials in advance
- Identify your child's optimal learning style—visual, verbal, or hands-on, alone or in groups, with structure and routine or with creativity or spontaneity
- Mention any other student who might disrupt learning if placed in the same classroom
- Describe older siblings' experiences with particular teachers, positive or negative, if you think it is relevant
- Let the school know about any family circumstances, such as a divorce or a move, that may affect behavior or learning needs
- Ask for a specific teacher by name
- Expect special treatment because you volunteer at school a lot
- Yell at the principal, pound the desk
- Threaten to get the teacher fired
- Show your child disappointment or anger over a teacher assignment
- Bypass the school principal and take your complaint to district officials
Sources: PTO Today, SchoolFamily.com, National Association of Elementary School Principals
Teachers expect parental angst and most try to allay it early. Lori Attias, a teacher at Lindley Elementary School in Greensboro, N.C., says she was a little nervous when she was assigned two years ago to teach a blended classroom of third- and fourth-graders. "It was a challenge," she says. At the open house before school, parents were more anxious than usual, she says. One father who towered over her by nearly a foot "came up next to me and said, 'How do you intend to handle this?' I'll never forget it," she says.
She explained her plans for lessons and scheduling, reassuring parents she would help the two grades "gel as a class" while still getting the specific instruction they needed. "One of the most important things you do as you start the year is to get parent support," she says.
Hollis Oberlies, mother of two elementary-age students, was one of those anxious parents. She says she was initially dismayed when the principal assigned her daughter Jessica to the blended classroom, in part because she had "heard a lot of horror stories" about them—and because she had requested a stable setup after Jessica's second-grade teacher took several months off for maternity leave. By the end of the year, though, she says her daughter was thriving.
As the nation's schools undergo a wave of teacher retirements, some 25% of teachers have only five or fewer years in the classroom, "a precipitous decline" in experience since the late 1980s, when the typical teacher had 15 years' experience, according to a study by the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit advocating teacher quality.
That may explain why some 43% of parents report being "extremely worried" about their kids' elementary-school teacher assignments, according to a poll last month of 306 parents by CafeMom, a social-networking and community website.
Principals try to balance dozens of factors in making up classes, including ability level, race, gender, learning style, behavior and special needs, says Nancy Flatt Meador, president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals in Alexandria, Va.
Some factors "don't lend themselves well to being written down in a handbook, such as, 'We need to be sure that the five worst-behaved kids in the grade don't get assigned to the same classroom,' " says Celine Coggins, founder of Teach Plus, a Boston advocacy group.
A growing number of principals handle class-placement announcements like college admissions, sending parents a letter in August naming their child's teacher. Some schools post class lists after the school office closes on the last weekend of the summer, to prevent parents from storming the office. Others post lists at an open house a day or two before school starts, in hopes that meeting a new teacher face-to-face at the event will defuse complaints.
Dr. Dolasinski, the former principal, once supervised a teacher who was unpopular with parents because she tended to be aloof in conversations. But in the classroom, she was caring and methodical, and excelled in teaching math and science, says Dr. Dolasinski, a Scottsdale, Ariz., writer for PTO Today, a magazine for parent groups.
Principal Aaron Woody of Lindley Elementary School, where Ms. Attias teaches, walks a line between allowing parents some input without giving up control. He sends parents of each of the school's 450 students a questionnaire every March asking for information, but prohibiting requests for specific teachers. About 30 parents hand-deliver the questionnaire and ask to talk. He meets with all of them to hear out their concerns.
In May, he meets teachers at each grade level, using the questionnaires to help make up class groups for the next grade. He assigns a teacher to each group, then sends parents a letter in August. In the fall, he meets with every parent who complains.
All the meetings with parents "take a lot of time," about 15 hours a year, he says. But it also builds trust. Early in his five-year tenure as principal of another school, he granted a few parent requests to change teachers, usually based on information the school didn't have, such as an older sibling's previous experience. But as parents got to know him during the last three years, changes dropped to zero. He is seeing the same pattern as he begins his third year at Lindley.
Mary Herbenick had a specific second-grade teacher in mind last year for her daughter Kara, to help build confidence in her reading skills. An active school volunteer, Ms. Herbenick knew the teacher strongly urged the children "to strive and achieve and read, read, read," she says. She protested when Dr. Woody placed Kara with a different teacher. He listened and explained his reasons, including information from Kara's previous teacher, she says.
As it turned out, the new teacher encouraged Kara to "read in a way that worked for Kara ... My daughter is very theatrical and the teacher would say, 'Can you act that out?'" Ms. Herbenick says. Kara now loves to read.
But Ms. Herbenick remembers how difficult it was when Dr. Woody asked her to "trust the process," she says. "I agreed. But I was nervous."