SCHOOL STARTED! COMMUNICATION IS KEY to coping with Issues.
Most likely, your child or teenager has gone back to school! If you are a teacher, you are back also. Hopefully, this is a good thing!
One major change: All of a sudden, we have a number of state legislatures which have banned cell phones in schools In my personal opinion, this is a safety issue that should not have happened. I feel that the schools should be allowed to manage cell phone use without banning them. (I personally was impacted by this already....I sat an hour in a middle school carpool line on the first day, then could not locate the grandchild I thought I was picking up. He had thought he was supposed to go home with last year's carpool!) In our case, he missed a soccer play date with his older cousin who was at my house from out of state, and I wasted a bunch of time; but everyone was SAFE. However, in a nearby town, a child about his same age got on the wrong bus and got left at a locked-up house, and did not have her phone. (she ended up safe because fortunately, someone saw her on their surveillance camera). But kids are NOT always safe, the carpool does NOT always show up, and emergencies happen! So....be aware of these issues, and .talk to your school officials or state officials if you feel you should.
That brings up what I really want to say....TALK! If you or your child is having any sort of school problem, find a way to COMMUNICATE with courtesy. First, listen to your child. Second, reach out to the appropriate person at the school! Your first step is to express your concern calmly, and reach out for information or clarity. If you do not feel heard by email or phone, then request a meeting. Be Courteous at all times! You will get better results! I promise! As you well know, the schools nowadays have all sorts of websites and portals where everything from lunch money information, to homework, to band practice schedules, to fund raising blurbs are constantly posted! In many cases this is helpful, but in many cases it feels like Mission Impossible to figure it out! Try your best! The school and the teachers are trying too; if the websites don't work well, the teachers are even more frustrated than you are. Please, for your child's sake, be as involved as you possibly can, and keep up with all the stuff. In the case of divorced parents, BOTH of you need to keep up with everything; or either it will all fall through the cracks, and blaming the other parent does not get the homework found or done!
All this is difficult. But it is worth it. YES, Education is worth it! No school is perfect. No home is perfect. But we all have to try, and do our best, and Respect Others! That is one of life's major lessons.