Building Your Education Team

How to give kids the support they need in school.

The key to forming a strong team to support your child in school is to start early with the teacher. At the beginning of the year, make sure you understand the teacher’s expectations. What skills should students have down already, and what are they working on? How should they behave in class?  How much involvement should parents typically have in a child’s homework?

Tell the teacher about your child’s needs, too. What problems have come up before? What’s helped them learn in the past? Maybe your kid needs breaks to stay focused. Maybe sitting up front helps.

When parent-teacher meetings happen, you should already have a sense of what goals your child is working on in school. These meetings are a chance to check your kid’s progress. It can help to talk to your child ahead of the meeting. What’s their favorite part of school? What’s hard? What’s easy? Ask if they have any questions for the teacher. At the meeting, check in and trade advice with the teacher. Each of you may have tricks the other hasn’t thought of.

If you think your child needs special support, you can ask the school to have them evaluated. Public school districts have to do this testing by law, even if your child goes to a private or a religious school.

Often the school’s evaluation is all you need to get your child the help they need. If you don’t think the school did a good job with the test, or they didn’t test for something you think is important, you can see a specialist. If you do, give the school the results. That way, if the specialist suggests something that can help, the school will know why it’s needed.

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