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[quote=Anonymous]Your kid that hates all teachers with a passion but does well gradewise...may be frequently bored...and also might have some other very valid reasons.

We don't live in the DMV right now, but I still think our experience is relevant.

My kid was really negative about his middle school teachers...and a lot of what he said had some truth to it.  The pandemic was a mess and teachers have had a hard time steering things back to normal.  For equity reasons, ability tracking is declining and kids are being mixed together in ways that don't really help anybody outperform.  My kid became happier when entering high school, basically just because many of the classes became harder and the goof-offs were finally filtered out of them.

I've also learned that my kid's perceptions and issues were shared by other students and sometimes could even be verified by grownups.  For example, the middle school principal told me that the relatively young 8th grade Spanish teacher had no disciplinary control over her class.  That teacher had to take a mental health leave.  I also found out that other parents could corroborate that the only advanced 7th grade pre-algebra teacher believes so much in group work that all the students are unclear on key methods. And, then, I learned that the 8th grade teacher who has to clean up the 7th grade teacher's messes is openly critical and derisive about his peer.

I never had as much info about "goings on" at my school as I've gotten from my kids since the pandemic destabilized everything.  The high school teachers were also pretty frank last year about not getting along with our new principal.

When I read the MCPS threads I see lots of the same issues that my flyover country district has, only we have nowhere near the tax base to address them.  It's clear that public education is in crisis.

So...my point is...maybe your kid has some reasons that are valid.  Maybe some of them can be addressed, without a solution as extreme as homeschooling.  Or addressed with structured extracurricular enrichment.  We are sending our kids to Mathnasium, which doesn't assign any at-home work, to make up for the shoddy 7th grade teacher plus pandemic delays.  Other parents are letting their kids grind on Duolingo to move ahead in language classes (we can request kids to be moved up in language class levels if they are ready).[/quote]

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