Being an Advocate for Your Child's Education

I have been a stay at home mom since I had my first child six years ago. A little over three years ago we moved to South Carolina from Indiana. I was really surprised that a lot of the families in South Carolina had their children in preschool at such young ages. It seemed that even the parents who stayed home had their child in preschool or various other programs. I just figured that since I stayed home there really wasn't any point in putting my kids into any type of program like that. Well, the year before my son was to go into Kindergarten I decided that I should probably put him into preschool so he could get used to being away from me. He also needed to learn to play with other children and I wanted him to get used to being around a teacher. Since my son was going to be gone half the day I decided to also stick my daughter into preschool with him as well. They both had really great experiences and I felt like it helped get my son ready for school. We'll see this fall if it helped my daughter or not.

My son is a very shy child. He's very sensitive and quiet and I was pretty nervous about him going into Kindergarten. He did great! I have his teachers to thank for that though. He had the most amazing teacher this year and her assistant was wonderful as well. My son was a completely different child after completing kindergarten than he was when he started school. At his kindergarten graduation the teachers gave each child an award. My son won the Leap Frog award because he had made the most leaps and bounds during the school year. I know this wouldn't have been possible in any classroom.

My daughter will start Kindergarten this fall. I really wanted her to have the same teacher that my son had. She is very similar to my son and I want her to be able to have the same chance that he had. Sure she might be fine in any classroom she's placed in, but I really don't feel like that is the case. I toyed around with the idea of asking the principal for her to be placed in the same classroom, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. After speaking with my son's teacher I decided that I was going to go ahead and send an email to principal to see what happened. I was very surprised and relieved when I got a message back saying that was no problem. My daughter was very happy as well since she'd already had some interaction with my son's teacher.

Last Thursday the class lists came out. We had gone and looked at them right before heading to a program at Vacation Bible School. I was talking to a friend of mine and told her that my daughter had the same teacher that my son had. Her son was in my son's class too so she knew how great the teacher was. I told her that I had put in a few words. I then proceeded to say that I didn't want to be "that" parent, but we had such a great experience that I just had to. She said something to me that really made sense. She said "I've always advocated for him (her son). It's his education." That was a really great point I thought. I mean, she was exactly right. It is their education and we should do what we feel necessary as parents to make sure they get the education they deserve. Education is priceless and it isn't something that you should be passive about.

I walked around that night feeling great that I had done what I did for my daughter. I will continue to do that same thing as long as I feel it needs to be done. I had a great education and they should as well. So, I'm wondering how far most parents go when it comes to advocating for your child's education. How far would you go?