I will start by saying that almost every teacher at my very small school is amazingly dedicated, puts her students first always, 100% values and respects my opinion regarding the kids...except this one who drives me batty. She is very young (24) and this is her first time teaching in a US school. She did Americorps and Teach for America straight out of college where she taught in small villages throughout Africa. Obviously VERY different from an inner-city Charter school. She has this attitude that she is an "expert" because she taught in villages where they "literally had nothing"and was able to teach them English, teach them to read, etc. Bravo for her, but I hear her with her current students and she is JUST NOT NICE. When she talks to them she bends down over them, gets in their face and looks scary. She is super strict and just not warm at all. Don't get me wrong, I 100% know some kids need a stern teacher, but she is beyond with these kids. I have heard her question some of our veteran teachers and been like really??? You are questioning what a teacher with 20 years experience is recommending you try?
So the other day she emails me and it just says "Kid X needs a vision screen". That was the entire email. I couldn't believe it. So I emailed her back asking for a little more information, a little history, etc. She comes into my office and says "I am telling you the kid can't see. He squints and won't read". He is in First grade.
So I perform my vision screen and I email her back "He is fine 20/20 vision". And she starts to argue with me. I said "He can see perfectly, he doesn't know his letters". Silence from the teacher My question is, how can such an amazing teacher not know her kid doesn't know his letters after almost 2 months of school????
I had one teacher last year that sent me 7 kids at once because they were...get this...coughing and making it hard for the teacher to concentrate. All 7 kids felt fine, none of the 7 asked to come to the nurse's office, all of the 7 were annoyed that they were made to leave class, all 7 were afebrile and sent directly back to class. The teacher then sends me link after link about whopping cough, croup, and pneumonia from WebMD! The following week, a full 7 days later, after Thanksgiving break, the teacher tells me that I "missed a bad case of pneumonia" in one of the students. Of course, her condition could not have changed at all in the 6 days that we did not have school. I just forwarded her snarky emails to the principal and let him handle it. It was clear that anything I said was not going to make a difference.
I have a meeting today that a teacher will miss, was specifically asked to provide detailed information on this students needs and where they are at, can they succeed, what and how much tutoring do they need?....nada, zip, zero, nada!!!!!
I have forwarded the emails to the principal. No doubt the cellphone is not on today as it is a personal day. but she was here yesterday!!!!!!!!!!
Urgh. I have a teacher with about 5 years of experience. She treats me like a new nurse since I've been here 3 years...nevermind that I was a nurse 15 years prior to showing up here.
She questions EVERYTHING I do and takes it all to the principal. I love every second of it since I immediately back up everything I do with evidence based practice and basically just SCIENCE.
This morning she forwarded me an email from a mom that says, "I just found lice in Jr's hair. You need to send a parent letter to prevent reinfection." After I finished laughing I read the teacher's note that asked, "do you want to send the parent letter or should I? Also, when do you want to check all the heads in my class?"
When I finished laughing the second time, I replied that there would be no head checks and no parent letter and dispelled all the appropriate myths. She had to admit 2 hours later that the mom took Jr to have an actual lice check and there were no lice present at all.
My question is, how can such an amazing teacher not know her kid doesn't know his letters after almost 2 months of school????
BeckyESRN
1,263 Posts
I had one teacher last year that sent me 7 kids at once because they were...get this...coughing and making it hard for the teacher to concentrate. All 7 kids felt fine, none of the 7 asked to come to the nurse's office, all of the 7 were annoyed that they were made to leave class, all 7 were afebrile and sent directly back to class. The teacher then sends me link after link about whopping cough, croup, and pneumonia from WebMD! The following week, a full 7 days later, after Thanksgiving break, the teacher tells me that I "missed a bad case of pneumonia" in one of the students. Of course, her condition could not have changed at all in the 6 days that we did not have school. I just forwarded her snarky emails to the principal and let him handle it. It was clear that anything I said was not going to make a difference.