Quasi Dictum

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Name:
Location: Vancouver, WA, United States

Teacher

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

The last two days have been quite an eye opener about the bad things in the public shcool system. Here is the situation, I have a kid in a required Sr. English class who until late last week had missed 43 of the past 60 school days. There is absolutely no way he can pass. I had already turned over his name to the assoc. principal, followed all district guidelines for student grading/reporting, followed school guidelines for seniors not passing a required class, etc. This should be a no brainer...wrong.

Mom and dad "need" him to graduate. He'll be gone too much this summer to complete credit recovery. Never mind that the kid told me, associate, counselor, and mom that he just "couldn't get to class" (1st period - 7:30), or that mom in the same meeting agreed and said he "would sleep right through me waking him up as well".

My principal tells me he will support any decesion I make. He does. I inform the kid and parents by phone later in the day, no chance of passing.

This morning all hell breaks loose. E-mails from dad to me, superintendent, district lawyer, raving about a great "injustice", questioning my attendance process, and other professional comptencies. Do I need to go on?

He "needs" the opportunity to pass (never mind the previous 80 days of the semester). I have to provide makeup work. I gave him enough for a D.

I wonder if mom and dad will live in the dorm with him?

3 Comments:

Blogger Coach Brown said...

Hi, I just found your site.
I teach Government/Economics at the Senior level and had the exact same thing happen to me, except that I refused to pass him. For future reference, document everything and check your state ed-code. Mine says that only one person on the planet can change a grade. The teacher.

12:02 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

You can at least take comfort in the fact that when he tries to pull that in college he'll be laughed out of the professor / TA's office, an no amount of bitching from mommy and daddy will change that grade. That kid will find that life is going to give him a short, sharp kick to the groin with that attitude.

9:44 AM  
Blogger Dan Edwards said...

Those parents taught him that he is not responsible for his behavior. He will suffer later in life when Mummy and DaDa are not there to bail him out.

My Mother-in-law is a counselor at a university, and has a regular stream of these kids coming to the university counseling center because mean, evil, "Prof. B hurt their feelings by flunking them" and Mummy and DaDa can't make it better.

In your situation, like Custer at the Little BigHorn, You probably did the right thing to CYA.

12:29 PM  

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