Have you ever tried to have a grade changed for your child? long...

[Tiggeroo]

I have a son who is a jr. in hs. He has been struggling all thru hs with his school work. After trying over and over for help I finally spoke to the school psychologist who feels there is a learning disability here. We have begun testing and will be working on this over the summer. I know this will take some time and have told his teachers and guidance counselor this and asked his teachers to keep in touch with me for the year about his school work. No help.
Then my son got a very severe stomach virus, and missed 5 days. Two days later he broke his leg. A couple more missed days. I immediately called all his teachers and asked them to please contact me about any missed work, and to tell me if make-up work wasn't handed in. This was 4 weeks ago. Very few teachers called. His math teacher just called last Wed. He said my son was fine and handed all his missed work in and would pass.
Now while all this is going on my son is a runner. His best season is fall cross country. His running is a strong motivator for him to tough it out with the school work. He is getting contacted by colleges and they plan on watching him run this fall to make decisions about him being on their teams. His math teacher knows this and knows this is one of the reasons I am in contact with him.
Friday my son says his math teacher tells all students this is the last day to get make-up work in. He then tells son he is missing quite a few assignments from when he was sick. He also tells son's running coach he will be failing him for the marking period. This will make my son ineligible for fall sports. This is completely different then what this teacher told me on Wed.
What would you do. Other then math and chemistry my sons grades are fine. Because of his possible learning disabilites the my son needs to consider colleges that offer support, especially to their athletes. To make matters worst I frequently work for this hs and in the next year will be applying for a teaching position. In order to fix this I"m going to have to make a stink and take it up with the principal. Even then I don't know if they will fix it. My son is willing to hand in any missed work. I know this teacher and if he had realized my son was in danger of failing earlier he would have allowed him to do some extra credit to just get in the passing range. Especially since most of the problem is because he was out alot sick. Any thoughts?

 

[Microcell]

Can you request a face to face meeting and then have DS ask for an extension and offer to do any extra work over the summer? I would not make a stink about it. Unfortunately, your DS may have to go to the school of hard knocks for not getting it in on the original timeline the teacher established. I have found teachers even at the college level to be willing to work with me more often than not.

I would speak face to face to get clarification. Kiss some rear end and be positive in all interaction. It is the whole you catch more flies with honey addage at play here.

 

[AirForceRocks]

I've never asked to have a grade changed, though I did question a math grade once. Nothing in any of DD's weekly reports showed any indication of a problem, then she got a C on her first report card. I simply called the teacher to see if I had missed something during the grading period, and after looking everything up, she realized that there had been a calculation error, so she changed the grade.

I would ask to speak to the teacher and ask him why he told you one thing and told your DS something else.

 

[Princess_Aurora]

My mom had a pretty heated argument with one of my teachers from like the 4th or 5th grade. I was having trouble with my spelling tests that year and my mom decided to reward me if I could get a perfect score on my spelling tests. I remember studying my spelling words like crazy that week. I was so proud of myself because I memorized all the words and the spellings and I knew I was going to ace it.

I got my test back the next day and I made a 95!!! I missed one word...chocolate. Oh, and somebody please inform me if I just spelled that wrong, because according to my teacher, I did. Her correct spelling of chocolate was c-h-o-c-A-l-a-t-e. I was so disappointed...I thought something must have gone wrong and I memorized the wrong spelling somehow. Maybe when I made my flashcards I thought my a was an o. So I went to hunt down candy bar somewhere. Sure enough, it was spelled c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e. I took the candy bar to the teacher, and she gives me some lame excuse about how it's not the official spelling and the official spelling comes from her dictionary. So when I went home crying to my mom she decided to have a conference with this teacher. My mom brought her own dictionary and asked my teacher to rightfully change my grade to a 100. The teacher refused saying that her resource book (which she never did show us) had the 'correct' spelling of chocolate and there was no way the grade could be changed.

Oh, and you can bet that after that I never studied my spelling words again. I wasn't about to go through that nonsense again. So, in essence, this stupid stubourn teacher ruined my grades from that class for the rest of the year.

So my point is to try your hardest to get it fixed. I mean, the teacher should have told you Wed. if he was in trouble and that would have at least given him a couple of extra days to get on the ball. But it can be frustrating for him if he sees all his hard work go to waste and it could make his grades slip even more.

 

[sharbear]

I think that you have to do whatever it takes for your son to be able to run in the fall. If he is getting interest from colleges and this is what motivates him, than by all means get involved!

Tigeroo, I remember reading posts from you about your son's school and the administration. I must admit I would be so fustrated about some of the advice that you have received from the school and esp. the inconsistant answers.

I have a son who will be a Jr. next year. On midterms he received 5 A's, 1 B and a D in English. I asked what the problem was and my DS was confused. The teacher is not good about handing back assignments and he has no idea what he was doing wrong. He was sure that he had handed in all his assignments. I made him talk to the teacher and was getting conflicting answers to his questions. I called the guidance counselor and asked if I should get involved in this situation or should I let my child figure it out himself. He told me that I should most definetely get involved. He told me to talk to the teacher and that if I wanted he would sit in on the meeting with me. My son wanted to handle this himself and worked hard and brought home a B for the quarter and for the semester.

Whether the school wants you to be involved or not, this is your son's future. It sound like he needs some extra help and for whatever reason, no one seems to want to help. There is no excuse for that.

Another recourse (I don't know how the school handles this) would be to go to summer school and bring his grades up enough to participate in CC.

I hope you find your answers, it would really be a shame if he couldn't run in the fall.

 

[RitaZ.]

I've never done that. However, your DS's situation is different. I would meet with the teacher face to face to discuss this and your DS should also be present. If that doesn't go well, then take it to the principal.

I think that you have to do whatever it takes for your son to be able to run in the fall. If he is getting interest from colleges and this is what motivates him, than by all means get involved!

I completely agree with this statement. You can't allow for your son's dream to be squashed over this.

 

[Tiggeroo]

it's hard for me. I rarely make waves. And I generally have raised my kids with the, what the teacher says goes, philosophy. But I've tried to deal with this before. Every teacher knows I'm involved and trying to help my son with this. They also know he's a good kid. I've given them my phone numbers e-mail, etc. I've said if there is ever a problem please call. What happened here is that my son was out for a chunk of time. When he came back the teacher was absent for a week. He has a grown son who is very ill. Once again, I left a message at the school today asking this teacher to please call me right away. It's important. Tomorrow is the last day of school and many teachers are submitting grades today. School eneded at 12:30 and still no call. I understand that teachers are busy. I teach myself. But when my son missed 5 days of school, and was in the hospital for one of those days with dehydration, and it took the teacher 4weeks to return my call there's a problem. My son is upset but is I guess intimidated by teachers and won't fight this himself. I don't want the teacher to do lie about the grade. I want him to allow my son to hand in any missing work, and perhaps give him an extra assignment or 2 to make up for the missed class time. I had also ordered his work from the school while he was out sick and this teacher never sent any work home. He's thinking, well your son's year end grade is ok. What's one marking period?

 

[N.Bailey]

My son has a learning disability too, so I really understand what your son goes through. It's certainly not easy.

I would definitely call the school and talk with this math teacher. Explain everything as you've done here. Remind him that you recently talked with him and he said all assignments were turned in. I'd really suggest you talk with this teacher and hash out as much as possible, BUT if he refuses to do anything, I wouldn't hesitate to call the school and have a talk with the principle.

This past year my son started 6th grade. In our district, that was a move from the elementary to the middle school. Well, my son has a really bad learning disability (reading only) and he brought home his 1st test score, he failed it. I immediately sent a letter in with him stating that if my son couldn't have someone reading tests in this teacher's class, we were going to have to move him to another class. My letter wasn't nasty, but I was definitely concerned. A meeting was setup and when I got to it, I find this teacher as well as all my son's other teachers, the principle, the school psychologist, and the head of the district (I forget his actual title). I didn't mean for all those people to get involved, but my son is in the IEP program and I guess it's what happens if a parent is unhappy about anything. As stated, I certainly wasn't rude, but everyone really went out of their way to help. My son made the honor roll 4 out of 4 marking periods this year, and I'm so grateful for all of those teacher's making sure someone was there to read, or help read some of the questions when he was testing.

Oh, one bit of advice. If your son does get placed in the IEP program, push them a little for help. They'll do all they can to help, but it's my experience that if a parent doesn't push, some teacher's won't do anymore than they have to. Not that you would be anyway, but I certainly am not talking about being mean, just keep in contact with them and show an interest.

I hope things work out for your son.

 

[sharbear]

Go to the school and talk to the teacher directly. It is very important that this gets figured out before the teacher is home for the summer. Camp out in his room, do whatever it takes. Don't worry about making waves, he seen it before and he'll see it again. This is your child's future and it needs to be addressed.

 

[N.Bailey]

Originally posted by Tiggeroo
it's hard for me. I rarely make waves.

I just posted, then I saw this. LEARN TO MAKE WAVES! When my son was younger, a good friend on mine was his teacher at the time, and that's the exact advice she gave to me. Speak your mind, but keep it civil at all times. I think everyone will have your son's best interest in mind.

 

[RitaZ.]

Tigeroo, I know that it can be intimidating to deal with school problems. Please don't wait for the teacher to call you, just go up there NOW and tell them that you will not leave the school until this problem is resolved. It will be much easier to address and resolve this problem right now, rather than waiting for the next school year.

Making waves doesn't mean that you have to be mean, nasty or disrespectful. Just be direct and present your case. It doesn't matter if you're nervous, write down what you want to say if you have to, anything that'll help you to remember all that you need to say and explain. Take your son with you, he will see you standing up to them and also learn that there are battles that have to be fough, this is one of them.

Good luck to you!

 

[KarenC]

Originally posted by Princess_Aurora
I got my test back the next day and I made a 95!!! I missed one word...chocolate. Oh, and somebody please inform me if I just spelled that wrong, because according to my teacher, I did. Her correct spelling of chocolate was c-h-o-c-A-l-a-t-e.

snip
Sure enough, it was spelled c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e. I took the candy bar to the teacher, and she gives me some lame excuse about how it's not the official spelling and the official spelling comes from her dictionary.

snip

The teacher refused saying that her resource book (which she never did show us) had the 'correct' spelling of chocolate and there was no way the grade could be changed.

I think you and my daughter must have had the same teacher She came home with a big F on a social studies homework assignment. It was from a section called critical thinking. Critical thinking in my mind means that there is more than one right answer. It was years ago but I can still remember this lunancy to this day--and I did talk to the teacher and the principal about it.

The two questions out of five that she got wrong that caused her to get an F were:

Why is Australia a continent and not an island. Her answer included a 4th grade appropriate description of the continental drift. The answer the teacher was looking for was it is too big to be an island. (Actually its sometimes called the island continent, so it was a stupid question.)

The second was how did man's life change when he began to farm. She talked about how they had enough food to feed many people instead of just a few so they lived in cities and people started to do different jobs instead of everybody looking for food all the time. The answer the teacher was looking for was more specific to how his diet changed.

It really bugged me that my daughter had a much broader grasp of the concepts than her teacher did. We moved away from that school a few months later.

 

[battricia]

I strongly appose a parent asking for a grade change for their child. Your child should talk to the teacher privately and discuss options that way.

tricia.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My dd "learned" last year to "make waves" (ie argue her grades) with the teachers. They were literally missing marking her assignments in the book and were also unclear to boot!
I think I would sit and talk face to face with the teacher and get the scoop first. Maybe there is hope!
I know what you mean...my dd did the same thing. She was out with the flu for a week.

 

[KarenC]

Originally posted by N.Bailey
I just posted, then I saw this. LEARN TO MAKE WAVES! When my son was younger, a good friend on mine was his teacher at the time, and that's the exact advice she gave to me. Speak your mind, but keep it civil at all times. I think everyone will have your son's best interest in mind.

Unfortunately, high school teachers aren't as receptive to this as teachers in the younger grades are. High school is supposed to be a time where students learn to advocate for themselves.

It is really unfortunate if there is a learning disability that hasn't been caught before now. We figured out my son had inattentive ADHD at the end of his freshman year of high school. If we'd figured this out while he was in elementary school, he would have had an IEP and a ton of support to figure out how to live with his disability. The high school really isn't geared up to help him with that.

I would talk to the school pyschologist who thinks there's an issue and have him work with the student to approach the math teacher. That's what's worked best for us--my son was distracted in math class and asked to be moved away from his friends. The teacher ignored his request. The school pyschologist encouraged him to ask again and the request was granted.

 

[Kallison]

Yes three times this year. All were mistakes on the teachers part, except for when my son put an assignment in the wrong box the very first week at a new middle school. I argued, he got credit and it was the difference between honors and high honors.

 

[Princess_Aurora]

Originally posted by KarenC
She came home with a big F on a social studies homework assignment. It was from a section called critical thinking.

I remember doing those too. Every time we had critical thinking questions, the teacher accepted pretty much any answer we put as long as it had to do with the subject matter and we had reasons for the answer we gave. That's what it's called critical thinking.

You know, teachers aren't perfect. Sometimes if potential mistakes are discovered they need to be pointed out nicely so hopefully things can be resolved. I hope everything works out here though.