well, the end of school is much like xmas for me...i wait for the grenades to come into the foxhole...i haven't had a bad end of year in awhile, but there is always something. this year...flunking kids and crazy parents. i have never had so many kids fail for the year...12 right now, five of them in one class alone. i have 2 advanced kids who have failed, and a few who did not expect to fail. the irony of this is that all of them managed to do this in the last 9 weeks.
well, you would think that the parents would understand that part of the responsibility of being a parent is keeping up with you kid and his/her grades. to do that, you have to actually be active in pursuit of the truth, and not rely on the kid. in involves actually parenting. but no, some of these people are not getting it, period. you would think that some sort of red flag would be going up if your kid has flunked the 3rd nine weeks and was flunking, again, at interims on the last 9 weeks. it is not as if you don't get some sort of warning here...we do send home report cards and interims and they are supposed to sign them. and we do make comments on there when they have low grades...you know, things like "major requirement not turned in" or "improve test and quiz scores " or the overly used "needs to do all homework assignments."
the shock factor for one parent led to her coming up to school in a lather this afternoon demanding that i let her kid make up the project that he never did and never turned in over the course of nine weeks. he was reminded repeatedly to turn something, anything in, but he didn't do it. nor did he pass his exam or the test that was given on the material. he also had so many absences and tardies to my class that i just stopped keeping them...same mother always wrote notes excusing him. do you get the feeling that she is probably wiping his butt for him too?
in the case of the other mother, her daughter had been absent beau coup times, at least once a week, and always returned with a note for the absences. i figured she was just one of our annual slackers who came to school when she felt like it. it wasn't until 2 months ago that mom decided to send out an email to all the teachers informing us that she had asthma and was frequently in the hospital emergency room. i understand all of this, and figured that mom had gotten an attendance waiver for the absences so that the kid wouldn't fail on those alone. i found out that she never did file that, but in any case, regardless, whatever work the kid had to do, she didn't do. she didn't make up work, and she did poorly again on quizzes and tests and she, too, did not turn in the project. this afternoon she said she had turned it in, but she had not. she might have done it, as her mother said, but she never turned it in. mother thinks this is all a big mistake and if i don't fix it, off to the principal. i say, let her roll. if education could be phoned in, ET, then we wouldn't need teachers. i think everyone has forgotten why the kids are here, which is to learn. how do you learn if you never come to school and you don't make up work or get the notes? in my view, if you don't want to come to school, don't do it. take online courses and teach yourself. if i thought these kids were smart enough and had learned all this stuff, then i wouldn't have a problem. but both have low skills, and sending them on i think would be a big mistake. if they can't do the work at 10th grade, then they are going to really, really be set up for failure in the 11th where they have an SOL test to take and a research paper to write.
the other ethical area we get into is if a lot of these kids failed english because they didn't do the project, then how do we decide who gets to turn it in and who doesn't? i would have to allow all of them to make up all of their work, and i think that is sending a really crappy message to them about responsibility. the irony of this is that the kids chose the grade, had their parents sign a contract with them saying what they would do for the grade. so much for the parents not being informed.
i think what scares me the most is not being backed by the administrators, and they can twist in the wind depending on the size of the storm. i did inform the ones that needed to know so that the best defense could be a good offense...prepare for the hurricane. i am hoping tomorrow i won't get called on the carpet with all of the parent accusations of what I DID WRONG. this isn't about me...it is about them and their kids and all of them taking responsibility for the education of the kid...and that doesn't just include grades. hard lesson, but i suspect if the parents have to pay for summer school and the kids have to go, maybe, just maybe, the kids and the parents will get the idea...
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