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Case Study – Danny It had been a long day already as Ms

Sociology

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Case Study – Danny

It had been a long day already as Ms. Rodriquez looked at the clock. Danny’s mother, Ms. Tang was 15 minutes late for the conference meeting Ms. Rodriquez had scheduled to discuss Danny’s struggles in math. Danny was having a hard time memorizing his multiplication facts and also struggled to apply concepts learned to solve word problems. He seemed to have a hard time determining which operation to use. Danny also wasted a lot of time fiddling with his pencil and doodling instead of doing his work. Ms. Rodriquez was sure that with more discipline to complete work and additional practice he could become more successful. Ms. Rodriquez always believed that the parent was a child’s first teacher and played a critical role in their children’s academic progress.

Ms. Rodriquez wondered if Danny’s parent was one of those parents who did not value their role in their child’s education. Ms. Tang rarely signed Danny’s agenda that was sent home nightly. She doubted that Ms. Tang actually supervised Danny’s homework. She looked at the clock anxiously and wondered if she would be able to make it to the day care on time to pick up her daughter on time or if she would need to pay extra. She was already under pressure to improve student progress and just purchased some additional resources with her own money to support ongoing instruction.  She was prepared for the meeting with a plan for homework and a plan to discuss the importance of the agenda and helping Danny learn to manage time. 

Ms. Tang entered the classroom and apologized for being late. She was a working single parent who had a child with a disability. She had made arrangements to leave work early to come to the meeting, but on the way to school learned that the respite worker was not able to pick up her son at his special school so she had to pick him up and drop him off at his grandmother’s house before coming to the meeting.

Ms. Rodriquez reflected on the meeting as she drove to day care. It had not gone as well as she had expected. Ms. Tang expressed concern about the amount of time Danny was required to spend on homework. She expressed concern about needing to schedule additional time as she already struggled to provide for her family. Danny’s sister needed rides to soccer practice a few times a week. Danny’s disabled brother needed to be driven to private therapy and additional doctor appointments after school. She already had Danny bring his homework to work on while his brother was receiving therapy. Then it was time to prepare for dinner, baths, and the normal evening routine. She worried about finding extra time to complete additional work while meeting the needs of her children.

Ms. Rodriquez did feel sympathy for Ms. Tang.  She had referred her to a time management course online and a parent involvement workshop being offered by the school counselor that meets every Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. She also offered a copy of a homework schedule and recommended she could revise it to meet her family’s needs while still providing extra support to Danny. Ms. Tang took the resources provided and agreed to meet with Ms. Rodriquez next month to review Danny’s progress. She also agreed to make a more concentrated effort to remember to sign the agenda every night before putting it back into Danny’s backpack. Ms. Rodriquez hoped that the suggestions and resources would help Danny’s progress, but wondered if Ms. Tang would follow through.