Geneva - School Report Question and Answers

I have not had any problem communicating with teachers, either by email or in person. Truly, it's been as easy as if I were in an American school, and I was surprised to see the previous poster's comments to the contrary. It is true that some teachers did not alert parents about poor performance in advance of report cards a couple of years ago, and CDL has addressed that. We come from a big US school, and I have been very impressed by how well the teachers seem to know my kids. The teachers submit extensive, individualized comments with the report cards and meet with parents on conference days held 2-3 times/year. They are also happy to meet with parents at other times of the year, if parents would like. CDL is rolling out a new online "parent portal," which will allow parents to view their child's grades as the teacher records them, to track homework, to easily access teacher emails, etc. It should be up and running by some time this year, so it is still early to tell how well it will work. - Oct 2013

F: I cannot stress strongly enough how awful this aspect of the school is. It has happened with us on several occasions that it is almost unbelievable that a teacher did not write to tell us something in advance and then, when asked, said "Oh, I assumed you knew." This came up when my son was adjusting poorly at the start of our time at the school and he got a D and an F but I didn't know there was any problem at all till I got the report card. Then of course it was too late. And courses are cumulative throughout the year, so he had to learn all of that material or it came back to bite him again at the end of the year (and it did), like teh abd gift that just keeps giving. A simple two line email would have alerted me to the need for parental involvement or a tutor being hired. I could have helped. But not if I didn't know about it. Which I did not. So I could not. Now the college applications go out with a bad grade that totally could have been avoided. When I asked the teacher how I could help him in future, at that meeting it became clear the teacher did not know that my son was a new student to the school and she was so out of touch with the range of curricula at the different international schools, that she could not believe that a course CDL required in 9th grade was not required by all schools worldwide. She didn't even know that my son could not possibly have done well in her course because it was a "part II" course for which he'd never received the "part I". Awful. - Sep 2012