Parent/Teacher/Principal Meeting, Part Two

Today Jeremy and I met with Owen’s teacher and school principal for nearly two hours. It was a productive meeting that ended well, but some of the things that were said are ringing in my ear. 

His teacher felt there was some miscommunication and said she did not realize we felt we had made repeated requests for additional, more challenging work. We feel we made those requests and that they were clear. They are clear now and I have already exchanged phone calls and e-mails with the gifted and talented teacher at Dove. Owen has now been independently assessed for reading at Dove (by a Dove employee) and he’s reading at “a 16”. To exit Kindergarten and enter first grade the students are expected to read at “a 4”. Yes, that’s “a 4”. Owen has enjoyed his additional work that began last week and I hope that he will drop the “I’m bored” comments quickly. We discussed discipline in the classroom and we are going to also come away from that disagreeing on the way I perceive student dismissal and raised voices. I will not be convinced that voices need to be raised. I will be the only person raising their voice at Owen. This is not negotiable. 

We were told the GCISD placement testing that Owen took this summer was never passed on to his teacher, much less his principal. What she had to assess him with at the beginning of the school year was his in-class work alone. The formal statement I wrote about Owen, with information I wanted his teacher to know was never shared with her either, we were told. It was read by Principal Lamb and used in the placement process once GCISD only accepted him for Kindergarten. We feel his teacher should have been given my detailing of Owen and his academics thus far. 

The no talking in the lunchroom and putting heads down on the table has never been school policy, we were told and it did not happen with regularity, we were told, but it did. I saw it. It won’t happen again, we have been told. 

The lack of cheer and encouragement at Dove doesn’t exist, we were told, but I have no reason to lie about what I have seen and I am not lying. 

The treatment from office staff was explained by saying they were intimidated by me and that I have not seemed approachable. Me not approachable. In my life, I have never met someone more outgoing than myself, so I don’t know how to reconcile that. We were told it’s in the Dove Manual about how to enter the building and the locked doors. We were told we were expected to read and retain the manual’s instructions. I read the manual from cover to cover when I received it and went back and read it tonight. It does read “you must have one of the office staff buzz you in”. Since I had been told “Sign in over there” at a computer terminal, I thought the computer was wired to the security system and once it registered a sign-in, it unlocked. 

We were told the Dove staff is a family and there could have been 150 parents in the room with us today to “give us a piece of their minds”. I asked what that meant and was told she meant that Dove and Dove faculty are overwhelmingly viewed favorably by parents. We have yet to meet any of those parents. We were told by the principal that she looked up our address and called parents in our neighborhood and talked to only happy parents. She wanted names of those that were unhappy. I relayed that to one of the families that was out tonight and was told, “I don’t want to ever hear from her.” If the other families want their names given, I will surely pass them on.

My writing publicly about our problems with Dove was discussed. I am a writer and have a large following for what this blog is and have a world of people that care about us and Owen specifically and they have every right to know what is happening to us how we are working to improve things. 

We were told that part of the problem may be that Dove isn’t Barbara Gordon Montessori. We knew that Owen wasn’t going back to BGMS, that he’d receive less individual attention, that the teacher would teach to the average students (I was told this by GCISD school board members going in) and that we needed to lower our standards for his academics and push him at home. All of that has happened and we knew it would. We didn’t think any of the rest would happen and this isn’t about Dove vs. BGMS. It never has been. 

Ms. Lamb ended the meeting saying she was going to make this work and we could all agree that Owen is a special boy that we all want to thrive. Amen. But what I wanted to hear today was, “I am sorry about the things that have been happening, let’s fix it” or “I am sorry you perceived these things were happening, let’s fix it.” What we were told today was “These things aren’t happening and let’s start over again, it’s day 1.”  Ms. Lamb asked that in the future that we come to her directly with concerns. I told her that I did that once and was shut down with an answer we didn’t feel was acceptable. I told her that no one on the school board complained about hearing from me and that I was thanked for coming to them with my concerns. I feel they need to hear the good and the bad from parents. In the future, we will come to her with concerns, but we will communicate with GCISD leadership also. 

Jeremy and I want Owen to be engaged, challenged and happy and I want to not dread going up to Dove. 

For now, we are grateful for his teacher’s and principal’s time and for the grandmother that kept Baby Hale.