When we moved to Las Vegas, Michael and I had a good talk about his school work. We agree that now that he’s going into high school, it’s time to start taking his work more seriously.
I know Michael is very capable of getting straight A’s, it’s just a matter of caring enough to get the work done. Everyone thinks their child is gifted, but my child came from my genes, so I know he’s brilliant!
For the most part things have been going better. It’s a chore to get him to stop watching Hulu and get down to work, but he has been pulling in straight A’s, with the exception of one health class.
At first when I asked him about the health class, he said the teacher was a prick. I’ve heard that one before, but it’s hard to think he’s just screwing up in one class when he has A’s in the rest. So I told him to work it out.
A few days later he tells me that he missed the explanation of an assignment, and when he asked for clarification from the teacher, the teacher said he doesn’t explain things twice. So at this point, I kinda agree that the teacher sounds like a prick. So we decided that we should have a meeting with a few teachers.
Michael’s mother tries to call the health teach, but never gets a call back. Then she emails the teacher. 4 days later, no reply. So we schedule a meeting for her and a couple teachers, including the health prick.
She goes down for the meeting, and everyone is there, except guess who… The other teachers and counselor apologize, and let her know they have problems with this teacher. She let them know that Michael has been having problems with this teacher as well, and that it’s unacceptable because it’s bringing Michael’s GPA down, and we doubt he’s learning much from such a shit teacher.
So they do what schools do in these situations, they move Michael to a different class. This is one of the primary problems with schools today, no accountability. At my company, if a client complained, and I could see that they had very good cause, and the employee just stood us up at the meeting to go over it…well, even I, the nice guy I am, would can their ass and not think twice about it.
But it gets better. After watching his grades online continue with A’s, we’re noticing that his health grade is not really getting any better. So Michael’s mother meets with the teacher to find out if Michael is not doing what he needs to in class. It ends up all is cool, but she is carrying over his previous shit grade, and not letting him raise it. So we asked for some sort of extra credit. But the teacher doesn’t like that idea because it’s extra work for her to grade it!
It also ends up that Michael’s grade went down because she assigned a group project to Michael and 3 other buys. Michael did his part, and the three other boys just ditched school when it was due. So Michael took the hit on his grade. When we asked the teacher about this, she admitted it was unfair, and a bad idea on her part, but the grade stands, and no chance of extra credit.
But this gets better. The teacher also complains that Michael actually turns his work in early! This is actually a complaint for her. Her issue is that when he puts on the desk, some of the “not so nice kids” sometimes throw her papers away, or just dump her stuff on the ground.
Maybe I missed something as I got older, but I don’t remember that being a big problem when I was a kid, and it wasn’t that long ago.
So she has asked that Michael not turn his work in early because it also screws up her schedule.
But wait, there’s more. After all this shit, Michael’s mom notices that the desk where Michael sites is way across the room. She asked if it was possible to move him up a little bit so that he will make sure to ask questions if he needs help. She was told that he’s luck to have a seat at all. There are more kids in the class than seats. The only reason it works is because so many kids don’t show up.
Now it should be said that I don’t live in a ghetto. This is actually one of the best schools in the Henderson district. But it appears that all the Clark County schools are just crap. Look for a more detailed blog rant where I give me two cents about the problems with the schools, and how it’s not just governments fault.
