It's back-to-school time, so I spent an early evening this week checking in with my friends about how their kids are doing after a couple of days in...
It’s back-to-school time, so I spent an early evening this week checking in with my friends about how their kids are doing after a couple of days in their new classes. One report got my fellow mothers and me scowling. At one school, a trio of bullies who had teamed up for a reign of minor terror in third grade last year were separated into three different classes for fourth grade—but then, on the second day of school, two of them were suddenly back together in one classroom.
This seemed like exquisitely bad judgment on all sides. Teams of elementary-school teachers often meet for hours to hash out classroom assignments, taking great care over the combinations of kids they’re building. Parents generally shouldn’t try to influence which classes their children are in, and schools shouldn’t give in to them when they do meddle. And certainly they shouldn’t change class assignments after the fact.
Some schools don’t see the hands-off parent as the virtuous parent, though. At Orangewood Elementary, a public school in Phoenix, Ariz., parents are invited to request a class assignment ahead of time, so long as they follow an established set of rules. The principal, Andree Charlson, explained to me that she asks parents first to sit in on the class they think they want, to see whether the teacher’s instructional method really appeals to them rather than going on vague hearsay.
What if a parent asks for her child to be in the same class as a friend? There’s a narrower opening for such requests. “Best friends? We don’t do that,” Charlson said, “unless the children need that social interaction to support their education.” And if a pair of friends mistreats other kids when they’re together, the request should go nowhere, said Charlson and the other principals I talked to.
And so I was sweating when I recently opened the letter with my older son’s class list for this coming year. He and his close friend were together, as it turned out, and I took this as vote of confidence in the open, outward-looking nature of their relationship. Maybe it’s a healthier friendship than mine were in elementary school. In any case, for this smooth start to the school year, I am grateful.
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