Since it's the end of the year and planning is happening for next year, do you have any say who your child has for their next teacher?
I almost have a 1st grader 
and I know teachers are working on their class lists already for next year, but we have no say. Everyone says the best thing you can do is make friends with the school secretary lol.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
@Boogs: 1st grade makes me so sad! I'm not ready!
To be honest I wouldn't even know anything about the 1st grade teachers to make a choice. I didn't know teachers even had a say into the lists.
pineapple / 12566 posts
I honestly have no idea how it works. I don't even know who any of the 1st grade teachers are! It won't be announced until either a few days before school starts in September or the day of.
blogger / pomelo / 5400 posts
Apparently in our school you can request NOT to have certain teachers, but you can't request them. Agreed that I wouldn't know enough to pick anyway. And I'm not sure I trust random parent opinions ... we were told how AWESOME our son's current teacher is and I found her kind of "meh."
pomelo / 5298 posts
I didn't seek knowledge about our first grade teachers. But we do know who our teacher is. Our LO is doing Spanish Immersion and the teacher is already set. I've heard a lot of feedback about her already.
eggplant / 11716 posts
We don't get to pick. They said they will release next year's teachers in late June, which makes sense because here our last day of school is June 23rd.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
We don't have a say in how the classes are structured, and frankly I am glad about it. I would hate to be responsible for making that choice!
pomelo / 5866 posts
At our school, class lists were due this week. Teachers made them but we selected groupings based mainly on academic level (to balance them out) and put class A and class B at the top. From there, counselors and admin choose the teachers who will go with which class and put the final touches/switches. Teachers never hear of parent requests but admin fields them.
grapefruit / 4455 posts
Where I worked the teachers picked it. So unfortunately the secretary wouldn't be able to help, lol.
We're only headed into our first year at the elementary school so I know nothing!
grapefruit / 4361 posts
At our school, the teachers make the class lists. We have 5 homerooms and they have to have an even mix of boys & girls and an even mix of academic ability. Also, according to district policy, the gifted students need to be grouped together in clusters of 4-6 and students with special needs or language needs are grouped together as well. Gifted and SpEd are supposed to go into different classes so that the teacher can tailor the whole class' instruction more to their level.
At our school the parents do not even try to request teachers. Then again it's a middle school, so they end up having most of the grade level teachers anyway.
pomelo / 5866 posts
@DesertDreams88: I'm so interested in the grouping. I think they should do that our school. Does it work for you? Wall me if you get a chance.
olive / 55 posts
Teacher here - at my school, teachers make the class lists, and we take into consideration everything they know about the child and where they should be for the next year. Also, we have parents fill out surveys about their child to give more insight into what their personality/behaviors are like.
Generally, parents don't have a say of which class their child goes into. If they request a specific teacher, we ignore it.
pomelo / 5298 posts
@DesertDreams88: Interesting. I was observing at our end of the year program for Kinder this week that my daughters class didn't have any special needs kids but each of the other three classes did. My daughter and one other student in her class are the top readers in her grade. I wonder if they do this same type of grouping. They certainly did have a fairly even split of boys/girls. Unfortunately, for next year in the school of choice program we are in, they couldn't do the same balancing and the class is very girl heavy.
honeydew / 7488 posts
We fill out a survey at the end of each year with info we want the teachers to know and what kind of environment our child needs. Aside from that and the requirements of GT kids to be clustered with a teacher who has received the required training, it's a pretty nebulous process to me.
The only person I have heard who got the teacher she requested for her kid ran our school fair last year, and she went around bragging about how she could get any teacher she wanted. That was super annoying.
apricot / 317 posts
Even though DH is a teacher at the school where DS1 goes, we don't choose teachers. All students in gifted/talented have to go to a certain teacher, students with IEPs/504 plans are considered and divided up, then the rest of the kids are divided out randomly through the grade level.
And as far as gifted/talented goes, I know there are no more than 5 or so kids going into first grade at DS's school.
grapefruit / 4361 posts
@808love: I think the groupings work well. As a teacher, I often planned different activities for my period 1 and 4 classes that were more challenging and student-led, vs. my period 7 who needed a lot of direction instruction, review, boiling it down to the basics, etc.
However, outside of gifted & SpEd, it's SO important to have a mix. Students learn best from each other! This also eliminates the "good class" and "bad class" labels, which are self-fulfilling prophecies.
Also, for RTI time, we have one period a day that is entirely leveled. The students are grouped entirely based on monthly test scores and either do remediation (previous grade level skills), review (current material with a different approach), or extension (upper-level skills and more projects/novels).
grapefruit / 4361 posts
@808love: One thing I forgot to add. The clusters are mainly for evenly splitting up paperwork & duties. In our district, gifted students get a "individualized gifted plan", similar to an IEP, and gifted teachers have extra trainings / meetings. So, by splitting up the clusters, it ensures a better balance on the teacher side of things (and then hopefully, better instruction!)
apricot / 444 posts
@Boogs: I've taught 1st/2nd in a few schools. Some schools, the teachers choose, some the admins, and some both. Regardless, we all hated when a parent "requested." It was never a policy to allow that, but even when it was mentioned it put us in awkward situations. Class lists are very challenging to do to ensure fairness for everyone. I did like when we had surveys that talked about learning style, but it never explicitly said a certain teacher. To be totally honest, we'd think those parents that attempted to request were high maintenance right off the bat. We shouldn't judge that quickly, but it was hard not to when the policy says "no requests!!" If you have a REALLY good reason (IEP), you can have a conversation with the principal. Otherwise you just have to trust that everything will be ok 
pomelo / 5866 posts
@DesertDreams88: Can you talk to my principal? Would love to do this.... 
eggplant / 11824 posts
We don't get any say/choice with 1 exception. 1 of the K teachers is male and at our K screening the principal said that if that fact is something we are not comfortable with, we can make that specific request for a female teacher. Which made me really sad who does that? 
persimmon / 1445 posts
@annem1990: how did the teachers get to choose? I think that is totally weird/ fascinating.
apricot / 444 posts
@caterw: Let me rephrase...as a 1st grade teacher, you'd choose the class lists for your current kids going into 2nd. So basically the teachers in the grade below you would place the kids. They obviously really know the kids at that point and can place accordingly. We would all talk out situations together too to figure out what would work best for everyone.
I never experienced drama from other teachers, but I'm sure there are schools that have admins do all the lists to avoid drama between teachers.
persimmon / 1445 posts
@annem1990: they makes way more sense! I was thinking the second grade teacher would pick incoming students, which sounded totally awful!
hostess / papaya / 10540 posts
@2littlepumpkins: That's what I figured. When we got to meet all the teachers for next year, the ones I really liked I joked with them about when I should bring cookies lol. Unlike our K teachers, I got a great feel from all the 1 grade teachers.
@caterw: What @annem1990: said. So our kinder teacher works with the 1st grade teachers do decide where the kids should go. They do this to break up some kids that shouldn't be together anymore and moreso for kids to go with the teacher who has strengths they would most benefit from. E.g. If my child struggled with math, his teacher might place him with a new teacher who was most strong in teaching math skills.
persimmon / 1445 posts
@Boogs: my oldest is only 3 and misses the cutoff so we still have 2 years to go so this is all new to me! We have to start thinking now though because we are going to move right before she starts K and may need to look into private (and may try to start her a year early).
persimmon / 1436 posts
I don't think we have any say. But our LO placed into the magnet gifted kindergarten which only has one classroom in our district. So if she continues in that program, she will always know who her teacher will be in the next year and most of her classmates as well.
If we switch her back to our neighborhood school, we would probably know as well if she stays in the "gifted cluster" class at each grade level.
honeydew / 7488 posts
Interestingly, my DD's 2nd grade teacher emailed me last night (my DD is now finishing 3rd grade and I have not heard from her all year) to ask how our year went and how the teacher was. She has a daughter entering 3rd grade at the same school and said she was thinking about next year. So clearly at our school, teachers have some say for their own kids.
kiwi / 556 posts
Where I teach, the teachers choose. We teach in two year clusters, so are keeping half the children. We talk to the earlier teachers about combinations and sit down and try to create three classes that will work. We all teach all three classes because we do separated subjects, so it isn't about avoiding/keeping any children. Typically if we are adamant about keeping a specific child in our homeroom, it is to keep students with very challenging behaviour so they have consistency with homeroom teacher across the 2 years.
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