I am a 42-year-old Mom of a teen, tween and toddler and this is where I share my insights on parenthood, products, places, people and professional writing (what I do for money).
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Bothered by Correspondence from the School
Posted on March 31st, 2009 2 commentsI received a letter in the mail today from my daughter’s middle school that really bothered me. Here is the text of the body of the letter in italics and my thoughts on each section:
Our records indicate that your child has been absent 5 excused days this semester.
Note the word “excused.” She missed three days for her participation in swim meets and two other days for family travel or illness. This is a kid who attends swim practice six to eight times per week, sometimes getting up for 5:30 a.m. practices before school and then returning to the pool for 5 p.m. practices after school. This is a kid who has time management skills that some college students haven’t achieved. This is the same kid who voluntarily stayed after school a few weeks ago to do an algebra review with her teacher because she was going to miss the in-class review due to an out-of-town swim meet.
Regular attendance is a significant factor in student acheivement and success at school. As you know, your child needs to be in the classroom to benefit from daily instruction. Research has continually shown the correlation between attendance, achievement and student learning.
Really? My daughter has been recognized all three years in middle school for having a 4.0 GPA at the end of the first semester — including this year. She takes all challenge courses and is in an advanced/compacted language arts course. The lowest GPA she has achieved for any given quarter is 3.75. Her standardized test scores typically land her in 99th percentile in language arts and in the high 90’s in all the other subjects. She took the ACT last year as a 7th-grader and scored a 21 without having had any high school language, math or science courses. I am not worried about her achievement or student learning — at least not at this point in her education.
We do realize that student illness and family emergencies may prevent a child from attending school. However, we want to make you aware of the number of school days that your child has missed.
My understanding of district policy is that the absences wouldn’t have been marked as “excused” if I hadn’t contacted the school about them. Therefore, of course I AM AWARE of the days she has missed. So why was the letter really sent?
Rockwood School District Policy states that any absence in excess of eight days in one semester will require further home/school communications. This is initiated through our district social worker. Our district social worker can provide a variety of resources and assistance as necessary.
Is the school REALLY threatening the intervention of a social worker for a straight-A student who has never had any discipline problems at school, who is recognized for her grades and other school achievements, and who certainly contributes in a positive way to the school’s averages on the standardized tests? And what are these resources and assistance that she might need? Perhaps they could be utilized by a student who needs them?
We appreciate your support as we work together for your child’s education. If you have any questions, please call the school office . .
cc. Student File
cc. Counselor
I love the cc info at the end! In other words: “This is going in YOUR FILE!”
I promptly fired off an email to the school’s administrators. The gist of that email was what I wrote above, plus this:
“We certainly value her education and place a high priority on school. But we also think learning to manage her time in such a way that she can maintain a 3.8 to 4.0 GPA and still spend 12 to 16 hours a week in the pool is a good life skill.”
Plus, I requested that a copy of my email be attached to the letter that is “GOING IN HER FILE.”I love our school district most of the time. My children are receiving a quality education most of the time. But there are certainly some wasted minutes spent in the classroom and there are certainly some valuable, very educational minutes spent outside of the classroom. Don’t get me started on the physical education thing. Until this year, my daughter had to make up PE classes she missed by staying after school and jogging around the track. Her two hours a day in the pool wasn’t allowed to count. But that’s fodder for a different post.This letter was ridiculous. I recognize it might have been generated by some automatic computer program that flags a student when they reach five absences. But it was signed by hand. It seems to me that a letter suggesting the need for intervention by a social worker should have been reviewed individually by the administrators and compared to a student’s overall record, not just her attendance record. If that had been done, I doubt the letter would’ve been mailed or “PUT IN THE FILE.” At least I hope that’s what the outcome would’ve been. -
Diva Status
Posted on March 30th, 2009 No commentsI’m featured this week on DeservingDivas.com. It’s suggested by Deserving Divas that I share this link on my Facebook page, via email with family and friends, on Twitter, etc. I’m not really comfortable with that, but figured my blog was an appropriate forum.
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Baby Talk Stirs Memories
Posted on March 30th, 2009 No commentsMy baby (17 months) is starting to really talk. She’s stringing words together and her first sentence was a question: “Where’s Papa?” She asked this every morning while we were in Florida two weeks ago and her Papa was still sleeping.
Now, she uses the same phrase for her sister, brother, Daddy and me. She’s also started saying the word “go” with a question emphasis. If she drops something, she holds her hands out and says “Go?” She also says:
- “side” when she wants to go outside
- “Duicy” when she wants juice
- “Paba” for peanut butter (a favorite food)
- Cheese
- “Mo” for Elmo
- “Bop” for Baby Bop
- “Dude” to greet her brother in the morning
- No
- “Shym” for Gym
- Mine
- Toes
- Eye
- Nose
- “Beddie” for belly
One of the many joys of having this baby is getting to relive and reminisce these fun times with my older children. Hearing her say “mine” reminds me of my son’s first use of the word. He was completely MY baby until he was about 3-years-old and he was very possessive of his Mommy. My DH used to tease him by putting his arms around me and saying, “My wife.” So, my son responded by hugging my legs and saying “Mine ife.”
Similarly, the baby’s desire to go outside constantly reminds me of my teen’s toddler days. She often used what my husband refers to as “Jedi mind tricks.” She’d repeatedly ask us questions that she wanted us to ask her. “Want to go to the park? Want to go to the park? Want to go to the park?” Finally, we’d say, “Do you want to go to the park?” And she’d say, “Okay,” as if it was our idea and we were twisting her arm.
Just before falling asleep last night, my husband and I were talking about what an adorable child this baby is, which led us to discussing favorite memories about the other two kids. I remembered bringing my oldest to our bed in the early morning hours to nurse, and then waking up several hours later with her sound asleep between us, her blond curls sticking to her head and her fat little fists tucked up under her chin. I remembered my husband carefully, excruciatingly slowly lifting my sleeping son from our bed and trying to transfer him to his own crib. The instant he felt the emptiness of his crib, he’d begin wailing and I’d eventually give in and bring him back to the curve of my body.
I’ve said it before and I’ll write it again — it’s all going way too fast. It went too fast the first two times, and even though we’re more careful to live in and relish the moments this time around, those moments seem to move at warp speed.
