FERPA Letter Question

[jilly]

DH and his ex have joint legal custody.  For the past two years we've provided a FERPA letter to SD's school.  First year the teacher was great and sent us copies of everything, e-mailed us regularly and generally kept us in the loop.  Last year the teacher was quite a accommodating because she believed ex's lies about DH.  It wasn't until SD was having behavior problems and they HAD to get DH involved that she realized that he wasn't the monster she was led to believe.  By that time the school year was almost over.

School will be starting August 25th.  SD will be starting 3rd grade in a new school.  A dedication of the new school/open house is going to be held on August 21st.  Should DH send a new FERPA letter prior to the dedication/open house? Or, should he just wait until after school starts to send it?

DH saw SD's school file last year and it does have the two letters we sent to the prior school along with copies of the court order.  He even saw where they marked out stepfather's name as father and wrote his name in.  (That won't be a problem this year since the ex and stepfather are divorcing.)

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[joni]

Relax...go to the open house, be on your bestest behavior and meet the teacher.  Feel her out.

After the open house, send a letter with your contact information to the teacher and copy the principal.  HANDWRITE THE LETTER.  Tell her the court order is in your child's permanent record for her reference.  Thank the teacher for her time at the open house and tell her how nice it was to meet her and how you're looking forward to the school year.  Send the teacher self addressed stamped envelopes to use at her discretion.  Offer to be a classroom parent that can help out.  Offer the teacher that you'll chaperone on field trips.  

Hold off on the FERPA letter with this teacher until you don't get any feedback.  Don't be a bull in a china store.  You may turn her off before you get a chance to shine.

[jilly]

*Breathes deeply*  LOL  Thanks Joni.  I'm really not all that stressed about it...just wondering if I should do it before or after.  We've always provided the SASEs so that's not a problem. I think you are probably right about waiting until we meet the teacher before sending a letter.  

The first year we sent a FERPA letter we had already met the teacher.  (We've always sent the letters to the attention of the principal)  In that first letter we let the principal know that we'd already met Mrs X and how nice she has been, blah blah blah.  We had a very good relationship with SDs 1st grade teacher.

The second time we sent a letter we had to be a bit more aggressive.  We met the teacher at Open House, gave her the SASEs and asked her to send us copies of everything that goes to Mom's house.  When we weren't getting any information is when the letter was sent.

The day the principal received the letter DH got a phone call from one of the Room Mothers.  DH had volunteered to chaperone a field trip and signed up to volunteer for a working lunch.  He never received any information on the field trip or what to do for the day he signed up for the working lunch.  The Room Mother was just full of information about both! LOL  It was a constant struggle to get any information out of the 2nd grade teacher because of the ex.

Funny thing about the upcoming dedication/open house.  DH's ex tried to make it sound like it wasn't going to be a formal open house where you meet the teacher, etc.  That it's just dedicating the new school.  Wonder if the school system knows that because their website lists all the open houses for the various schools in the district and they show it as an open house! LOL  Amazing the things these crazy women will try to get away with.

[dsm]

Send the letter if he wants ahead of time, but to help ease into things he should make his presence known from the get-go.  Keep it easy for the school and teachers to be able to get to know him/you.   Be proactive with things.  If you haven't heard from the teacher in a couple of weeks, give her the benefit of the doubt that she is swamped and give her a call.  Provide self-addressed stamped envelopes.  Email is WONDERFUL!!!!  and was an absolute god-send for us when we had to communicate with my SD's teachers before we got custody - it works very well now with custody of her too by the way (high school teachers are extremely difficult to catch up with!!!).   As often as possible, stop in to your SD's school - can he take her to school on Mondays or pick her up from school on Fridays?  If that is a possibility, let the teacher know when this will happen and schedule for 10 minutes to catchup with what is going on.   Even checking in with the principal and/or secretary helps.


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dsm - 34
DH - 38
SD - 15
LO - 9
BB - 2
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2 Cheap Entertainment cats - Snoop & Dagger - 5 years and counting.....

[dsm]

To hold off on the strong-words of the FERPA letter.   Also be prepared for not everything to be copied and sent to you.  It is not always possible to send every piece of paper.  And you will see that you probably do not need every piece - notice of needing red socks for Friday, last minute stuff - that's pretty difficult to keep track that there is someone outside of the classroom that needs to be copied.  But absolutely newsletters, report cards, progress reports, test scores, program/field trip itineraries/schedules, PTO activities, school dances, etc.  That can and should be mailed to you.

Good luck!   Get that relationship built with the teacher and school and stay on a positive note with them!
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dsm - 34
DH - 38
SD - 15
LO - 9
BB - 2
------------------
2 Cheap Entertainment cats - Snoop & Dagger - 5 years and counting.....

[awakenlynn]

DH is in IL, ex and SD are in TX.  We contacted the school last year and if we contacted the registrar, she would send report cards, but that was about it.

This year, we sent a letter to registrar.  We haven't gotten a letter back yet.  I don't think SD is registered yet and school started Monday(15th).  We have asked this year for the schedule and e-mails of the teachers.  We want to stay better involved with SD's life, what exactly can we do being so far away??  

They won't put us as emergency contacts(distance) and they will only send stuff if we request it, but we haven't received the last quarter report card or TAKS test that the children take.  SD said she failed the math portion of the test and now has to attend a special math class.

We would like to know about pictures, dances, special activities and so forth.  What do we do to get the information?

[jilly]

Use the FERPA letter in the resources section of this site.