When School is Failing Your Teen

I have two teens at my house right now {gulp — that hurt to say}.

They’re good kids.  So far we haven’t impregnated anyone or done too many drugs that weren’t from my medicine cabinet -that I know of. 🙂

But, school is a struggle.

Smart doesn’t always equate to being organized and on top of things.

Smart often means that they’ve learned to hang back and not care once it’s stuff they already know.

Which is frequent.

Last year my son took a class that just frustrated me to no end.

And in the end, he just about failed it.

Today I’m going to share some ways that school is failing smart kids.

Yup, they’re going to pass state mandated testing, often even if they’re in a coma.

They’re easy to ignore.  So, schools & teachers often do.

**Let me also state, categorically, that my son had an English Teacher who entirely changed his year last year.  She was amazing and worked hard.  She loved those kids and they loved her.  Teachers make such a huge difference — and today I’m sharing a time when that difference was negative.  We have also had countless positive experiences. 🙂 This post is to help parents of teens see how they can help teens while not helicoptering.  That can be a tough balance! **

After a pretty tough year last year where I had to escalate a situation to the superintendent I wanted to share a few ways that parents can work to make-up where schools are sometimes failing our smart kids.

**Also, I want to be VERY clear that this post is to highlight problem are areas for parents.  Being the parent of a teen is overwhelming in the whole hands off but still trying to figure out when you need to step in — so here are a few areas that you need to keep an eye on — I will give real-life examples of my life so you can see consequences**

Related post: Dorm Room Checklist

Be on top of their schedules

I am pretty sure they just let a monkey in a room with a dart and he makes the schedules.

Ok, maybe not.  But, from April on I send monthly emails to his counselor, sometimes to the vice principal over scheduling.  Constantly seeing if his course schedule would work, or if we needed to figure out something else.

Last year, it worked.

This year I got “Yeah — it will work just fine.”

He gets his schedule, and he has the 1-semester class, psychology (which he hadn’t signed up for), for 2 semesters instead of digital media.

Ever mentioned it?  No.

But I’d still recommend staying on top of their schedules.  Being proactive when things aren’t working.  One time, my son once didn’t have math — after being on track for calculus his Junior Year — and they said “well, maybe he just won’t take math this year.”

I literally had to re-arrange his schedule for them.  Turns out, I’m a pretty great high school counselor.  I’ve seen this played out in many households through my friends on Facebook.

It’s nice to see that all high schools are horrible at it.

**Side beef:  I sent him to try to fix it and they wouldn’t change him to the right math schedule, I had to go up to campus to get it changed — how can we teach these kids responsibility when they won’t let them have any?**

Check the grade book

Last year I really took a backseat to the grade book.  But, each week I’d just glance at the grades.

He had a B all semester in that class, so I felt like we were OK.

Of course, I didn’t know that in one of his classes, we were in May and her last graded assignment was at the term.

{sigh}

The night before his final, she inputted all her grades, we found he just BARELY passed the class.

**Also, why the heck can’t someone ELSE check to see if they’re inputting grades…. is that truly the parent’s job?!**

I 100% believe that he is to be on top of his own grades.

But he is an organizational mess of a 16-year-old boy.  I think he just checked the grade page and felt pretty great about it as well.

By clicking in, even every few weeks I would have seen the teacher wasn’t doing her job and maybe would’ve exercised a change sooner.

Let them fail

I am hopeful that ugly D on his transcript will be a life lesson that you need to be on top of things because no one else will.

His grades, his life.

I find myself saying this very frequently.  It’s hard, but failing is how we all learn.

I just hope he learns from it. 🙂

Remind the school that these are high school kids

The teacher kept telling me how “this is a college course” about her teaching.

BUT MY KID IS IN HIGH SCHOOL.

I want him to take AP classes so he can learn like a college kid, with the support of a high school teacher.

AP classes are there to PREPARE them for a college course, not BE a college course.

Head to the top

I want to be very clear that I addressed this with the teacher immediately.  I wasn’t pleased with the answer and again emailed her.  She again wasn’t helpful… so I ended up talking to a vice principal about it a few times.  Clearly, the gradinig issue continued through the entire year and was never fixed.

It ended up hurting me that I had tried to handle our problem with a vice principal.  The principal feigned no knowledge and he was unable to fix something he didn’t know about.

Clearly, I should have CC’d him in on an email.  Super frustrating.

Help the other kids

I took this problem to the superintendent after starting with the vice principal and also addressing it with the principal (without resolution).

I never really had a hope that his grade would be changed.

But I did want this problem fixed.

I didn’t stop trying tog fix this — even though this teacher wasn’t my problem anymore.

In the end, I got a phone call from the principal promising all sorts of changes.  Never really admitting any wrong-doing and clearly passing the buck that it wasn’t his fault that a teacher hadn’t graded anything for weeks.

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I get it.

They are understaffed and under-funded.

They have a lot of work on their plate and they can’t manage it all.

So, we do have to step in.

Yes, teachers are great and amazing, but sometimes teachers are lazy.  And the only one who can catch it is parents.

I also, want to state that most teachers — the vast majority — are trying their very hardest to make sure my kid succeeds.  However, this is clearly a spot where school processes failed.  He fell through the cracks.  Hopefully, in a way he won’t again (by both his own intervention as well me following through on the advice here).

I hope these tips help you with your smart teen. 🙂

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