Not making honor roll for missing assignment. Let it go or say something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5th grade has been working on a poetry notebook assignment all semester. Two days before it was due, he lost it. Looked everywhere at school and at home and could not find it. I messaged teacher about redoing it and she said it was way too much work to redo in such a short amount of time, and to let this be a lesson in organization. He 100% does struggle in this area, so we told him he would just have to deal with the consequence of not making honor roll. He was devastated. 3 days after grades were sent home, a friend finds it in his desk, he accidently grabbed my son's on accident. His teacher just laughed it off, but said she can't go in and change anything at this point. My son feels it isn't fair because it wasn't his fault his friend grabbed it. I obviously don't know that it wasn't somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, and that is why the friend picked it up. My son wants me to try and get it changed, but I'm leaning to toward just letting it go.

That can’t be true, can it? My kid would be similarly upset even though we try to instill that a B is completely fine if you made an effort.

I’m generally pretty laidback about this kind of stuff, but I would probably go to bat for my kid about this because it was so clearly not their fault at all.

Really? I mean, how did the other friend come to have it? Perhaps OP's son dropped it somewhere. You can't be 100% sure that he is 100% innocent here. You sound histrionic. Also, it's 5th grade. I'd let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here,

I think it’s the silly end of the year pizza party they get if they made honor roll all year. lol
I don’t think I’ll say anything.

Take him out to pizza yourself to celebrate what it sounds like was an otherwise great year. I know it's not the same (and honestly it sounds kind of awful that they give some kids a pizza lunch and not others, but whatever), but life isn't fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here,

I think it’s the silly end of the year pizza party they get if they made honor roll all year. lol
I don’t think I’ll say anything.

This exclusionary elitist pizza party is unacceptable. Much bigger deal than 5th grade GPA. I'd take that to the principal.

Celebrations should be making the team successful, not for competing and undermining each other.

So you’re a race to the bottom type. I’m all for celebrating those who achieve something difficult.

So you're a pull yourself up by your bootstraps type. I'm all for encouraging everyone and acknowledging that we all have different starting points and finish lines.

[Anonymous]

Life’s not always fair. Teach him to move on and that his self worth (and your value of him) has nothing to do with whether or not he makes the honor roll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's elementary school OP. Nobody cares about grades.

Yeah, but a pizza party with friends can be a pretty big deal to a 10 or 11 yo.

And being bullied by authority figure he can't walk away from until term is up is an even bigger deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why pps are saying that this wasn't your kids fault, so he should reap all the rewards.

Clearly he was so unorganized he couldn't keep track of his shit. If he was keeping his notebook in it's proper place, it's extremely unlikely some other person would have grabbed it. They'd have to go into his backpack and actually take it out - did they do that? If so, yes, escalate. If your kid is just so messy he didn't know where it was and then "magically" it was found after all the grades were in, ehh no.

I think the teacher is right. This is a lesson in organization. I am betting next year he is going to keep a better grasp on where his items are so as to avoid this. OP also admits this is an issue for him. I was a messy kid too, and I had to learn these same sort of lessons.

I disagree that it's clear he was disorganized. A plausible scenario would be he had the notebook on his desk, which is an appropriate place, got up to go to the bathroom and he or someone else accidentally knocked it on the floor. Another kid picked it up and put it with his stuff, and the OP's kid didn't notice until later. I can see that happening to anyone. He did all the work. It is just random luck that it was found a few days after grades were posted. Had the other kid noticed sooner then he would have been able to turn it in on time. The kid should get credit for the work he did.

Even in this case, a kid with strong organizational skills would remember that he left it on his desk, and would have noticed that it disappeared right away. Chances are if he'd said, in the moment, "Hey, where's my portfolio. It was right here!" the other kid, having just picked it up would have remembered. So, it still comes down to executive functioning.

Now, is it fair that a kid who is trying hard, and made a mistake because their skills are still developing in this area doesn't get the pizza party? No, not really. But it sounds like OP was otherwise OK with the pizza party when it excluded kids who work hard and make mistakes because their phonemic awareness or number sense are impacted by learning disabilities. Those kids have always missed out on honor roll.

[Anonymous]

I am team "leave it alone, are you crazy?" but if another kid confessed to grabbing it by accident then yes, absolutely, say something! Go above the teacher if you have to. This is demoralizing and unreasonable to not address it.

[Anonymous]

My kid isn’t getting honor roll this year in 6th because she had a C last quarter. It was a 79%. I’m not fighting it, it’s a lesson for her and there is literally no consequence to not being on the honor roll other than bragging rights.
Leave it alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why pps are saying that this wasn't your kids fault, so he should reap all the rewards.

Clearly he was so unorganized he couldn't keep track of his shit. If he was keeping his notebook in it's proper place, it's extremely unlikely some other person would have grabbed it. They'd have to go into his backpack and actually take it out - did they do that? If so, yes, escalate. If your kid is just so messy he didn't know where it was and then "magically" it was found after all the grades were in, ehh no.

I think the teacher is right. This is a lesson in organization. I am betting next year he is going to keep a better grasp on where his items are so as to avoid this. OP also admits this is an issue for him. I was a messy kid too, and I had to learn these same sort of lessons.

I disagree that it's clear he was disorganized. A plausible scenario would be he had the notebook on his desk, which is an appropriate place, got up to go to the bathroom and he or someone else accidentally knocked it on the floor. Another kid picked it up and put it with his stuff, and the OP's kid didn't notice until later. I can see that happening to anyone. He did all the work. It is just random luck that it was found a few days after grades were posted. Had the other kid noticed sooner then he would have been able to turn it in on time. The kid should get credit for the work he did.

You just invented a whole story to justify pestering a teacher to change a grade. Where did you get any of this info?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am i the only one who thinks the kid should just deal with it and be better about safeguarding his assignments?

I agree. What school still does honor roll in elementary school? It means nothing. Move on

[Anonymous]

Might be a good lesson in building a paper trail to advocate for himself in the future. In this case, had photographs been taken of the work at various points in its development, it would be easy to either present the photos, or rewrite the assignment. Perhaps you and he could brainstorm some ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, and then implement a strategy together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:5th grade has been working on a poetry notebook assignment all semester. Two days before it was due, he lost it. Looked everywhere at school and at home and could not find it. I messaged teacher about redoing it and she said it was way too much work to redo in such a short amount of time, and to let this be a lesson in organization. He 100% does struggle in this area, so we told him he would just have to deal with the consequence of not making honor roll. He was devastated. 3 days after grades were sent home, a friend finds it in his desk, he accidently grabbed my son's on accident. His teacher just laughed it off, but said she can't go in and change anything at this point. My son feels it isn't fair because it wasn't his fault his friend grabbed it. I obviously don't know that it wasn't somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, and that is why the friend picked it up. My son wants me to try and get it changed, but I'm leaning to toward just letting it go.

Let it go. Low consequences at this point, easy lesson learned. Your son will be upset (rightfully), but will never let it happen again and that will be a win in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't care about the grade per se or even the honor roll. The lesson here he's learning is whether his parents will fight for him when he's been screwed.

I also think the teacher sounds kind of lazy. Mom proactively reached out, kid offered to redo months of work and she said don't bother. He wasn't asking to be given a grade for nothing. Then it turns out that another kid had it (so your son couldn't possibly have found it because he'd never search there) and she laughs it off and doesn't want to do the paperwork to fix it. I'm unimpressed. It sounds like this is meant a lot to the kid and it encouraging that he cares so much about this. The mom and the teacher should go the extra mile and fix it.

This. I would be frank with the teacher. I don't care about this, but my kid does. I like that he cares about his work. I don't want to encourage him not to and I don't want him to think I won't go to bat for him over something he cares about. Another kid took his assignment and so he couldn't turn it in. You know it's true, because I reached out to you on X date and you can talk to the kid who will confirm finding it on Y date. Is there any accommodation that you can make here (e.g., change the grade, add to honor roll if he would have otherwise qualified, add to pizza party if he otherwise would have qualified)? If not, do you have any suggestions on who I should approach instead? If not, I plan to approach the principal (or whoever) to explain the situation and ask the same question. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But my kid will know that I fought for him because he cared about something.

[Anonymous]

Teacher is a dick and a hypocrite. Take it straight to the administration.

[Anonymous]

His friend didn't "accidentally" do this. This was a clear case of bullying.