Wednesday, January 23, 2008

A Good Day

We had some very productive parent conferences today.

One of my students lost both of his parents by age two and is being raised by his aunt and uncle. His uncle is a highly respected pastor who recently retired because he is dying of cancer. The aunt and uncle are much older, having successfully raised their son who is in his forties. Then they have S, who just turned 16. Did I mention this family is highly respected? Anyway, S has goofed around for two years at our school and finally decided to start paying attention this year. Auntie is now very concerned about his grades and was pretty sure it was my fault he had failed my class for two years. We've been playing dysfunctional phone tag for two months, and she called this meeting so we can all sit down. Our counselor, dean of students, school-to-work coordinator, and three teachers sat down with her and everyone else explained how much time, energy, and effort we've put into this boy for three years. Then the counselor showed them S's transcript, with all the Ds and Fs highlighted. By the end of the meeting, Auntie was clear that we are all trying to help S, but he needs to get on board. S was clear that we all know that he's not doing what he needs to do. And we set up counseling for S, who shed tears over his uncle for the first time today. We walked away with a contract, for which S will be held responsible. Overall, a great way to spend 80 minutes. Even though I didn't get one essay graded.

M is a senior with outstanding grades who wanted to drop her AP English class. Unfortunately, she didn't talk to any of the parties who could facilitate that until November. At that point, the drop deadline had passed. She also didn't bother to talk to her teacher about wanting to drop her class. Instead, she stopped turning in work. Two months later, we finally met with M and her mom about the situation (we've been trying all this time to arrange the meeting, but mom couldn't get away from work). M took ownership for letting this situation flail in the wind all this time and we talked about ways she can be more proactive in getting her needs met. Mom acknowledged that she should have pushed the issue sooner. More tears, and more resolution.

Our students have so many needs. If only we had time to sit down with each of them and their families...

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