Shelby’s teacher rocks!!!

  My daughter started second grade this year.  That is a feat in itself.  We had a very hard time in first grade last year & I think it was all due to her teacher.  At the first parent-teacher conference of the year, the first words out of her former teacher’s mouth was- “Shelby is very immature.”  Wow, what a conversation starter huh?  I’ll be the first to admit, my daughter can be a little high strung.  I’ll also admit that sometimes she isn’t a “perfect little girl” either.  But in all my years of raising her & encountering tons of people, I’ve never had anyone describe Shelby like that.  Unfortunately, that was only the beginnings of our problem with this teacher.

Shelby struggles in reading.  This is something I know nothing about.  I was reading at age 2 & by the time I entered kindergarten, I was reading on a 4th grade level.  I don’t know how to help her with her reading because it was always easy for me.  Now, that’s not to say I don’t read to her or TRY to help her- I just know that I’m probably not going about it the best way.  We ended up spending the entire year behind in reading & getting no help from her teacher.  She wanted to hold her back, but I knew that Shelby could get it with the right help.  I was pissed to find out at the end of the year last year, that help was right in front of us- but NEVER OFFERED.

Fast foward to this year- my child is a much better student & seems to be excelling at a much better rate.  We had parent-teacher conferences last night with Shelby’s new teacher- Mrs. K.  This woman is after my own heart.  We had talked with her a little about Shelby’s struggles on open house night.  I had let her know that I wanted Shelby in the Remedial Reading program (a program that was available the previous year, but her teacher never informed us about).  She said that she would work on getting her into it.  What I didn’t know was just how hard she would work at that. 

You see, we were told last night that the Remedial program is ONLY FOR 1ST GRADERS.  Mrs. K went above & beyond her duty to get Shelby into this program.  She had to call in favors & beg the principal to let my daughter get this help.  Shelby is currently 4 levels under where she needs to be for a 2nd grader.  Mrs. K told us that she’s improving every day & she will be testing her at a 14 next week- 2 levels from where she needs to be.  She said that when she got notes on Shelby, she expected her to be very far behind & had basically little hope in her moving on this year.  She was pleasantly surprised in what she saw.  She told us that Shelby’s attitude has improved greatly over what she was warned about (we’ve noticed this as well) & that she’s a very hard worker. 

I’m so very proud that Shelby is finally getting a teacher that believes in her.  She’s coming into her own now & getting that self confidence that she needs.  She’s my kid & I’m damn proud of her.  I’m also proud that Mrs. K could recognize that she’s special too.