Please review, Soc

[I cry_ in_the_dark]

Hi Soc,
I ask that you please review this letter to my son's principal and give me any advise, and comments, that pertain.

Dear Mr. Principal,
     First I'd like to thank you for taking the time to send me SON's reports when he has been having issues with school. I do speak with SON frequently and make the drive to *STATE* almost monthly. While I wish I could have more of an impact, I do discuss these matters with him and hope that it in some way curbs him from having more issues.

     The reason for my writing; please find enclosed a copy of an email which I sent to Mr. TEACHER. As you can see, this copy is the second one I sent to Mr. TEACHER as he failed to respond to my first email. When he failed to respond to my second email, I wondered if perhaps there was a problem with the school's email. However, I emailed another teacher in a matter unrelated to SON and received an immediate response. Sadly, I am left to believe that Mr. TEACHER has fallen to Mr. DAD's fallacies and believes that I have no parental rights as he once told you also.

     The original copy of my court order that was provided to you still stands. There have been no changes to my order and I still have joint legal custody. You can see that I did not ask for anything out of line. If Mr. TEACHER chooses not to correspond with me as SONS's teachers of the last two years did, so be it. (Though, it saddens me that a teacher does not wish to act in the best interest of a student, and a troubled student at that.) All I ask of you is that you please see that I receive a copy of SONS's report cards as they are sent out. I have offered to provide self-addressed stamped envelopes and am still willing to do so. I understand that SON did fairly well on his report card, but I would like to see this for myself.

     While I would like to stop at school to review his records, I plan my trips to *STATE* at the times the children are not at school so that I can maximize my time with them. If I understand the FERPA laws correctly, schools are not required to provide copies of records unless, for reasons such as great distance, it is impossible for parents to review the records.

     I also understand that you very probably have "permissions" signed by the current Mrs. DAD, and that these "permissions" involove administering certain medications  such as tylenol or the likes, to SON. I sincerely hope that nothing occurs as a result of these "permissions" as SON has allergies to medications and the current Mrs. DAD has no legal right to give permission of any type in regards to my children.

     Please note that I do have a new address, as shown in my letterhead. My phone numbers have remained the same. Please adjust SONS's records to reflect my new address. Should you wish to contact me by phone, I am usually available until 11:30 AM on my cell phone. I may be reached at my work number, XXX-XXX-XXXX  from the noon hour on.

     I thank you again for including me in my son's schooling information.
     In closing, I send my condolences on the loss of your son.

[socrateaser]

>Hi Soc,
>I ask that you please review this letter to my son's principal
>and give me any advise, and comments, that pertain.

I read it, but I don't like it. Suggestions:

1. Write a quick outline of the specific issues you want to resolve with this letter, i.e.:

a. tell the Principal that I'm sorry that I can't come to more school events personally.
b. explain that the child should be receiving certain meds.
c. etc.

2. underneath each of the above issues, write one sentence of how you would like that particular issue resolved.

3. read each section back and ask yourself, if you were the Principal, would you agree that the request is reasonable?

NOTE: when you are reading as another person, you must put that person's interests ahead of your own, or you won't come up with the right answer. Example:

The Principal cares about all the children who attend his/her school, right up to the point where a child's interests interfere with the Principal's continued employment as Principal! Same goes for parents. Principal wants to make parent happy, unless what parent wants is a threat to Principal's job.

Sometimes your audience doesn't know what's best for him/her. If you perceive this when you're trying to be the other person, then you need to figure out how to convince that person that what you want is the same thing that the other person wants and that there is no threat.

There are only two motivators: fear and desire. If you appeal to a person's fears, then you place them on the defensive and they will shut you out of their fortress and wait for the attack.

So, you must phrase everything in a way that will make the person desire the same thing as you do -- even though your reasons may be entirely different.

4. If you read it back and think that the Principal will find your request unreasonable, then you must rewrite your request in a different form, or drop your request entirely.

5. At this point, you will have nothing but things that the Principal is likely to think is reasonable, which means that you're going to get everything you're asking for.

6. Write your letter from the outline.

7. Put the letter away for a day, and then pull it out and read it again and see if you change your mind about any of it. If not, then send it. Otherwise fix it, put it away for a day, then pull it out, read it, and if you're ok with it, then send it. Repeat as necessary.

8. You still have a list of things which you think the Principal would believe is unreasonable. Put it away for a week, then take it out, read it and if you can fix it go back to step 4 and try again.

9. There maybe some things on the list which are non-negotiable and which you know the Principal will never grant, because he/she will not view them as reasonable or desirable. These are the things which you must decide whether to take legal action to resolve. When you send a letter with one or more of these things in it, you KNOW, at the moment you drop the letter in the mail that if the response is not what you require, that you are going to start a war and there will be no stepping back.

However, you will have already obtained everything else that you wanted, because you didn't raise any of this other stuff to get in the way.

10. Why am I suggesting this path? Because your letter is unnecessarily apologetic, and it wanders around. When I read it I think: "I guess this parent needs to cry on someone's shoulder but I don't really know what the hell she wants from me. I'll just write her a nice thank you, and then I'll go back to doing the administrative work here that I get paid to do."

In short, if you send that letter, you will get nothing but mad, because your audience will put it in the file and forget about it.

So, don't write it. Try my suggestion for composing a letter. If it doesn't work, then I'm probably not the right person to look to for advice on this letter, because I don't know what else I would offer you as a suggestion.

[I cry_ in_the_dark]

Thanks Soc, I understand what you are saying.

I'm thinking maybe I should have also included in my post the email I had sent to the teacher with my 2 very simple requests:
1. Correspond via email regarding my son.
2. Copies of his report cards.

For the last two years, I have corresponded via email with my son's teachers with no problems. His teacher this year, refuses to respond to my emails, nor did he send me a copy of the first quarter report card.

Unfortunately, his teacher this year is a life long friend of my X, 2 small town boy-hood buddies. I can presume safely that he believes every word my X has lied to him about, including I have no legal rights which I'm sure is why the teacher is not responding to me. However, I didn't think I should suggest this to the principal.

The principal, on the other hand, knows me and is fully aware of my court order. He has co-operated with me, and keeps me informed of my son's "behavior problems" etc. This is why I kept the letter semi-formal. As well, he knows I mean business. (My X had at one point also told the principal that I had no rights, and dealt with my wrath when I was being excluded because of this.)

But, I will do some revising. Thanks again.