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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have an 11yr old 6th grader, first year of middle school. First quarter included a FACS class (formerly known as Home Ec, or at least it was for me). Early in the year it was clear he and his teacher were not clicking (he pretty quickly believed she hated him). He has ADHD and can definitely be annoying (drums fingers on things, taps or clicks his pen, fidgets in his seat) and was overly chatty the first week or so with friends he hadn't seen all year. By week two she was keeping him after class and asking him how he can pay better attention in class and threatened him with detention for talking with classmates (equally talkative classmates were not threatened with detention). At my recommendation he ended up talking to the guidance counselor about how he could better communicate with the teacher and improve the situation.

A week or so later was teacher conferences and we met with her. She was VERY effusive about how she would NEVER want a student to feel singled out and that everything is just fine and they're good now. All was not well; she continued to chastise him regularly and appeared to be downgrading him on any assignment that didn't require objective grading. Written tests with clear correct/incorrect answers? A. Labs, presentations? Anywhere from B- to D+. After the final test of the year, he had an A- based on test scores, which pulled up the grades she was giving him on everything else.

Final day of class (it ends at the end the quarter), she has a surprise cooking lab. When final grades are posted for the quarter, he gets an F on the lab. The notation says "lab behavior".  I grill my kid extensively. He is baffled. He is hurt. He says he was telling funny stories with his group during lab but he wasn't doing anything "wrong". (He has plenty of experience reflecting upon and admitting to poor behavior). I ask him if she asked him to stop.  No. I asked him if he was disruptive. No. I asked him if he completed the lab steps and did the work. Yes. I ask him to seriously think about it and what might have resulted in an F. He is devastated because he really believes he was doing nothing different from others, finished all the work, cleaned his materials, etc.

Why does this feel like a big deal to him? He has As in every other class and was SO proud of himself. He has worked really hard and is hugely disappointed that he won't be on the A honor roll because of the final F in this class. It brought his grade down just enough. And it feels so...intentional.

How do I handle this? So far I'm telling him that he can have a conversation with the teacher and ask her to help him understand why. He keeps hoping she will have a change of heart and change the grade. I don't want to wade into this because it feels too helicopter-y over a pretty meaningless grade in a class that doesn't "matter" (apologies to all FACS teachers out there). But I also don't want to say nothing to or about a teacher that has seemingly been arbitrary and punishing an unliked kid by docking grades.

Okay, that was LONG, but advice welcome![/quote]

OP, your story is very odd.  What was your child's grade before the lab?  It would be very, very, very difficult, if not [i]statistically impossible[/i], for the grade for a one-day lab to pull down a grade so much that it went from passing to failing.  [/quote]

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