Dear Mrs. Teacher, Mrs.
Principal, and Mrs. Student Councilor:
I apologize, but I will not
be signing the behavioral contract that I received this evening that was sent
home with Lena. There are several reasons why I am making this decision,
despite my daughter's protest. For starters, I'm very well aware of the fact that
there was an incident that occurred this week where several of the 5th grade
students in Lena's class were being bullied via Instagram. She came home
extremely upset the other day because one of her friends was a target of this
horrific behavior. Initially when I saw that there was a letter stapled to her
assignment notebook, I assumed it was a notification to the parents regarding
this matter. I must say that I am absolutely shocked that instead of
communicating what is happening in the classroom we are sent home a contract
asking for blanket permission to punish our children however you see fit to in
the moment based on extremely broad and undefined expectations.
I am even more disturbed by
this because it states that parents will be contacted after the
child has received the chosen consequences. Which I have trouble believing will
happen anyway. For example: Lena has already received one of the consequences
on this list this week. She admits that she failed to complete an assignment as
expected and therefore had to forfeit recess in order to finish it. While I
absolutely agree with this choice, there has certainly been no contact with me
what so ever regarding this matter.
In fact, I have not been
contacted about anything this year. The only communication I have received
about anything is a check box on her progress reports that come home every few
months. It has been me who has reached out to the school asking for more
information when the box was marked "needs improvement", not the
school reaching out to me to let me know my child needs help. We parents are
not in the classroom and therefore we rely on the school to communicate with us
when something is going on with our children there. If the school is willing to
let our kids fall behind for months at a time academically, I have an extremely
hard time believing that communication will be forthcoming regarding their
behavior. Especially since in my personal experience, just this week, the
school has already failed to uphold a "promise" in the contract.
I am extremely lucky that Lena
is honest with me about what goes on even when she knows there may be
additional repercussions here at home for misbehavior at school. Even when she
told me about missing recess this week, I defended Mrs. Teacher’s choice and
told her that if she doesn't complete her work then she should miss recess.
However, there have been times when she's been clipped down for things that
were not even her fault, such as when I forgot to sign her assignment notebook
due to one of the many 2 hour delays that we've had this season. I don't get a
two hour delay from work and it slipped my mind, yet my daughter received the
punishment for my actions.
Personally speaking, I've
always disagreed with the "clip" system at Lake Prairie. I feel it
publicly embarrasses our children in front of their peers and this certainly
isn't the appropriate way to discipline children. When you embarrass, degrade,
and diminish children (especially in front of their friends) this only leads to
increased anxiety which perpetuates the cycle of bad behavior. The clip system
has been in place all year and based on the fact that the contract was sent
home, evidently this method isn't working.
I have been a Lake Prairie
mom for many years and at the end of the day I have a great appreciation for
everything this school has been for and done for my daughter. However, the
letter attached to the contract did not have one positive thing to say about
the students. The long list of negative comments struck me in a way that I
simply couldn't let go. I fully expect that Lena will not be clipped down
or punished in any way for my decision. I do not want her involved in this
in anyway, which is why I chose to send an email rather than a note. Should you
have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Laura Stephenson
