I am wondering if anyone has advice for building good relationships with middle school teachers? I am having a tough time with my kid's teacher this year.

We actually had met outside of context of school and it was one of those times where I met someone and instantly disliked her. I had no idea that she was a teacher at my kid's school at the time. When I walked in to my son's class during summer orientation and saw her, my heart just sank.

The teacher was quite rude to me when we met, in the first two seconds of conversing. I'm stuck with her until June and trying to make the best of it. However, I feel that she is singling out my son. He tells me that she is mean and yells at him. She also has made a number of "mistakes" on grading his papers, and has marked off answers that we correct. That has happened about 5 times that I've caught, and I have sent the papers back to her. She has not corrected his grades, however.

This woman is driving me crazy! Usually I feel that I want to help my kid's teacher as much as possible but it's getting really tough for me this year. I feel like I want to call her boss up and have a chat. I also want to take my son's side when he complains about his teacher, but I don't think it wise for me to vocalize my opinion there.

Does anyone have any advice or similar experiences?