Yesterday we continued to make progress as we are nearing the end of the school term. We sat with the teachers as they completed the questionnaires regarding students for whom we have some concerns and want to gather additional information. This week we are also doing parent meetings.  Today, we finished the questionnaires with the teachers and we did several interviews with parents of the same students.

We are all ready to start the interviews

We are using a second assessment questionnaire modeled after the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, but it has been adapted to be culturally relevant. We are using this questionnaire with the teachers and parents and comparing answers.  So far, one very interesting idea that has come out to me is when we ask the parents questions about school concepts, they say they really don’t know and when we ask questions about things a child does at home, they really don’t know. There is definitely a separation between home life and school. It seems cultural but it also seems that parents trust the work of the teachers or are just doing so much to take care of daily life that they let the teachers handle school. On the other hand, the teachers have almost 160 students each day in classes 1 and 2 and just do not have the time to connect with all parents.

A teacher completing the questionnaire

Today was very successful and we were thrilled with the number of parents who came. Wednesday and Thursday school is closed so that class 7 (the last grade in primary school) can do their exams. We will visit two organizations those days where Sarah has connections and are trying to look at the options for referral and support for students with various needs.