How do I handle this? Teacher gave kid F for questionable reasons. (Long)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He does have a 504 plan. He is a pretty self-aware kid and can acknowledge when he's gone wrong. He also knows I don't take his side just for the sake of doing so.

We talked to every one of his other teachers at conferences and though we heard from most that he is daydreaming or off task and looking at his iPad when he shouldn't, none reported disruptive behavior and none have marked him down on grades for it. (He has been marked down for late work, so it's not that these other teachers are letting things go.)

We have family friends with a kid in the same class and she has been our sideline reporter. The mother in that family told me early in the year not to bother trying to make sense of the FACS teacher. "She's horrible" were her words. Apparently FACS was her very smart (and dyslexic) son's worst grade in 6th grade as well. Maybe this teacher is just not a fan of the boys with challenges.

And for that reason it needs to be documented! Think of it as paying it forward to other families with similar kids. The school can transfer her, or assign the IEP kids to a different teacher, or if she's the only one, remind her that parents have complained about her methods and to clean them up.

[Anonymous]

Is this teacher in Prince William County? She sounds like the teacher my son has for seventh grade!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this teacher in Prince William County? She sounds like the teacher my son has for seventh grade!

No, different area entirely. No longer in DC area.

[Anonymous]

He has worked really hard and is hugely disappointed that he won't be on the A honor roll

OK, you lost your case with me. Btw the teacher sounds horrible ... just horrible, but you can not have this thought re: "The A Honor Roll". You are allowing a set-up for heartache when grades aren't perfect enough. This is the age to explore strengths and weaknesses, and face weaknesses (or less-than-A's)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

He has worked really hard and is hugely disappointed that he won't be on the A honor roll

OK, you lost your case with me. Btw the teacher sounds horrible ... just horrible, but you can not have this thought re: "The A Honor Roll". You are allowing a set-up for heartache when grades aren't perfect enough. This is the age to explore strengths and weaknesses, and face weaknesses (or less-than-A's)

I disagree. It's good for children to have goals and try to reach them, whether it's in sports or academics. And with our current grading system, straight As is honestly not that hard... except when a teacher deliberately sabotages you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

He has worked really hard and is hugely disappointed that he won't be on the A honor roll

OK, you lost your case with me. Btw the teacher sounds horrible ... just horrible, but you can not have this thought re: "The A Honor Roll". You are allowing a set-up for heartache when grades aren't perfect enough. This is the age to explore strengths and weaknesses, and face weaknesses (or less-than-A's)

OP here. I understand what you're saying and I agree - in theory. Less than A (any grade!) is perfectly fine if it represents him trying his hardest. We've talked about that forever and I started this year telling him NOT to expect he'd do well in everything but to give it his best and be proud of his effort. This year is the first year he has had straight As (with the notable exception of FACS) and he was so, SO excited. To see his hard work dinged by a teacher in this way was really disheartening to him (and us) because he felt like he couldn't work his way past it with more effort, harder work. He just felt hated and punished - in a way that went beyond just the class itself because it lost him his "A roll" that he felt he'd worked so hard for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He does have a 504 plan. He is a pretty self-aware kid and can acknowledge when he's gone wrong. He also knows I don't take his side just for the sake of doing so.

We talked to every one of his other teachers at conferences and though we heard from most that he is daydreaming or off task and looking at his iPad when he shouldn't, none reported disruptive behavior and none have marked him down on grades for it. (He has been marked down for late work, so it's not that these other teachers are letting things go.)

We have family friends with a kid in the same class and she has been our sideline reporter. The mother in that family told me early in the year not to bother trying to make sense of the FACS teacher. "She's horrible" were her words. Apparently FACS was her very smart (and dyslexic) son's worst grade in 6th grade as well. Maybe this teacher is just not a fan of the boys with challenges.

If you're getting this feedback from all of his teachers, this suggests that whatever you all are doing to help him manage his ADHD isn't working very well. So yes, maybe this particular teacher has an especially low tolerance for that kind of behavior, but FACS is also a different kind of class where behavior that might not affect other students in other classes could potentially be very disruptive. I'd take this as a wake up call that he needs better tools and strategies, because he's going to encounter people with low tolerance for this kind of behavior all through his life, and these kinds of issues are very much why some people with ADHD struggle with holding down jobs and such.

[Anonymous]

OP you'll get better advice posting in the Special Needs forum.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am pissed for you! Fight back. It is not okay that she was vindictive, which she clearly was. At some point parents need to fight back. You may not be able to get grade changed and even though that stings now, it is not a huge deal In long run. But the administration needs to know who she is. Schedule meeting with Principal immediately. Most teachers are professional but this one is not. The last lab of quarter she got to stick it to an 11 year old that she doesn't like. What a bitch, call her out!

[Anonymous]

Is the surprise lab with such a heavy grade percentage allowed?

I don't know where you live but some schools have policies against this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am pissed for you! Fight back. It is not okay that she was vindictive, which she clearly was. At some point parents need to fight back. You may not be able to get grade changed and even though that stings now, it is not a huge deal In long run. But the administration needs to know who she is. Schedule meeting with Principal immediately. Most teachers are professional but this one is not. The last lab of quarter she got to stick it to an 11 year old that she doesn't like. What a bitch, call her out!

I'd at least want an explanation. This was really cowardly IMHO; she had to know exactly what she was doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this is that OP doesn't have facts. She wasn't in the class all quarter. She is relying on her son's version of the facts, when he may or may not be a reliable narrator. Of course he's going to tell the version of the story that reflects best on him. I'm sure there's more to this story than what OP's son has presented to her. I'm not absolving the teacher--just saying that OP can't know the facts since she wasn't there.

+1 I would talk with the teacher, or maybe talk with the teacher and the principal. Your son is still young enough that you can go in--esp. for an F. My DD is in 9th in a school that prides itself on teaching the kids to talk with their teachers, but of course if it's an unsatisfactory situation, the parent is going to get involved in the discussion.

When my DD was in 6th, her grades were dropping and she was getting marked for not turning in assignments on time, etc. She kept saying "there must be some mistake, I turned it in" or "I thought I aced that exam!" etc.

I kept having her go to her various teachers to meet with them and discuss it etc. Then one day on Gradelink, a teacher wrote "Larlo, the assignment was due on Tuesday and you didn't turn it in until Thursday..." and I realized that they had Larlo Smith and my kid Mary Smith mixed up when entering grades. FIVE classes, three teachers.

It was a fluke that I caught it before the final grades came out. My DD was applying to her current school, and it would have ruined her chances.

So I'm just saying that YES, you don't know the facts, THEREFORE it's good practice to get in there. If you feel like you are helicoptering, lay that out: "I have thought hard about coming in here because technically this grade doesn't matter and I don't want to be perceived as helicoptering, and I like Max to deal with his teachers directly. However in this situation, I think I need to step in to figure out what's going on and see if there is anything that can be done..."

[Anonymous]

You should review your school system's grading policies. Ours (APS) states explicitly that grades cannot be based on stude t behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should review your school system's grading policies. Ours (APS) states explicitly that grades cannot be based on stude t behavior.

Wow, we really are raising a bunch of special snowflakes. That's okay, I'm sure future employers won't consider behavior at all.

[Anonymous]

Op, I normally stay out of this iind of thing but you must step in and help your son with this. A subjective F, with no explanation other than "lab behavior"? Not professional. An F means he failed - to fail in an active assignment which he substantively did correctly, he should have been receiving warnings, etc. Also, one piece of the lab - behavior - should not override the correct work he did. I would start by requesting a meeting with the teacher and your son and let her explain, with specifics, why she determined that he failed the lab.