Getting Ready for Back to School

Paula Rosenthal offers advice on how to help a child get ready for school.
I asked my mom what she did when I was in elementary school. She said that after the first one or two years, she asked the teacher for five minutes of her time. Mom would explain that I needed to sit where I could lipread and that they needed to face me when talking to me. She also suggested they call or send a note (after all, no email back then!) with any problems so Mom could help.
Mom also had to meet with the principal a couple of times especially in third grade when I got a teacher assignment that wasn’t right for me. The school put me in the third top math class and near the bottom for reading. After Mom met with them, they moved me to the top math class and third top reading class where I did well.
She told the teachers about my hearing aid, the need for batteries, and that it had a tendency to have feedback (I do NOT miss this about hearing aids).
By the time I hit middle school, I just made sure I sat where I needed to. In high school, I didn’t work as hard to sit up front as I wanted to be with my friends and not the nerd in front row.
Although my middle child has all of his senses, we work with the school and teacher more than my mom did. We had our meeting with the teachers and principal last Friday (school started yesterday, August 25) to discuss accommodation updates for him. We regularly email them and will meet a few times during the school year.
The principal created a point sheet that requires more check ins than what we offered. We obviously wanted to keep it simple as we know the teacher has 20 or so other kids to manage. But the school chose to do it that way to help him build early success and then they’ll loosen it later.
We’re lucky to have a great support system in our school. Please share how you work with the school to help a child’s success.