One of my quite bright students is failing my classes–and others–quite miserably. He doesn’t seem to mind much, but every quarter I have on his report card noted the necessity of a parent conference. His dad and step mom have maybe contacted me once about this, but we’ve never met. Twice in April, however, his biological mom has requested and attended conferences and has shown some effort at getting A to pass.
At our meeting yesterday, she said she didn’t support A’s dad’s method of grounding him and putting him in his room alone for his grades; she didn’t see the good in that. She noted her consequence for failure: the cancellation of their summer trip to Disney.
After the meeting I escorted her back to the office to request log-in information for our online grade books so that she could check A’s grades, and I mentioned to her, “I don’t know if you should make that Disney trip or not, but I think right now it may be more important to bond with A than for him to pass.” She seemed interested in the thought, although I qualified it with lots of statements like, “I’ve never raised a teen.”
As she went into the office I pulled A from his art class; she’d wanted to go through his materials and help him turn in missing work. A bit later they’d stationed themselves on the hallway floor, his locker contents strewn about.
Before his mom left, A stopped by my room to give me an update on his work. He seemed excited at having some direction and said “I will” to my “Give your mom a hug.”
Ten minutes later the guidance counselor scrambled into my room to say that, per A’s dad’s wishes as primary custodian, A’s biological mom is allowed only to see report cards and school handouts and is not to be contacted by teachers without the permission of the dad.
“Make sure you read the advisory notes in the online grade book,” she told me.
Oops.
I quickly notified A’s other teachers to remove his mom’s email from our homework emails list, and called his dad to apologize for overlooking his wishes. He didn’t seem upset with me, but claimed that he and his wife have been dealing with the A’s grades and A’s biological mom has been undermining their efforts of grounding.
“If you would like to come in to meet with us,” I said, “we would be more than happy to see if we can work together to get A’s grades back in shape.”
He didn’t bite.