When thinking about changes that need to be made in order for our students in Baltimore City to success I can’t get past the family and community involvement piece. This is my second year teaching and I feel much more equipped to initiate parent communication to get parents to volunteer, come in for a conference, or discuss good and bad behavior. From the beginning of my teaching career in Baltimore City I have been pleasantly surprised with my interactions with parents and family.
Recently though, I find myself frustrated with unanswered efforts to communicate with parents and families. I am a tutor with an after school program run at my school and several of my students are in the tutoring program. I have a student who displays negative behavior daily and she is in the afterschool program. She and I have a special relationship and she was showing improvements from spending extra time with me not only for academics but behavior. I offered to drive her home after the program so she could stay and I had been doing this for a few weeks. Her sister and mom came up today and ever so kindly told me they didn’t want me driving her home anymore. It really hurt my feelings. It hurt me even more to see my girl walking out the door with her mom almost in tears because I couldn’t drive her home. I felt all my efforts to help this student went down the drain with this small act.
I don’t ever want a parent to feel that I am overstepping my boundaries on their parenting skills. It is obvious that this child needs a lot of extra attention and help. I just wish that this specific parent and others like her would more readily realize the good intention of teachers in the city. In a perfect world teachers and parents would work together without any feelings of animosity. For now, I’ll make do with what I’ve got.
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