First Day of First Grade!

It's hard for my wife and I to believe this, but our 6 year old started first grade.  It seems like just yesterday that we were sending her on the bus for the very first time to go to kindergarten.  It seems like just the day before yesterday that she was a tiny little baby with no hair!  Time has flown by incredibly fast.

This year will be a test for me as a parent.  My daughter had a great year in kindergarten and had an absolutely amazing kindergarten teacher.  We've heard great things about her first year teacher, so I'm not worried, but this is the first year she receives letter grades.  How will I handle that as a parent?  Hopefully well, but I have to admit I'm a bit nervous about it.  

Most of my nervousness comes not from any experience myself, but from hearing the horror stories of bad teachers.  As a teacher myself, I hold all teachers to a high level, particularly when it comes to organization and student feedback.  I expect every teacher to provide timely feedback to their students.  A teacher who grades and provides feedback 6 week after the fact is not doing his/her job.  I also expect every teacher to respond to parent questions in a timely manner.  Waiting more than 2 days with no response at all is unacceptable.  If it's a question that may take some time to answer, shoot back a quick email that says you received the email and will have a response to you a week from now.  That tells me that the teacher isn't simply ignoring my question.  

This is definitely going to be an interesting school year for me, the parent.