I Decided to Say Nothing at All.
When the grading system went “live” on the computer – meaning, the grades were posted for parents for the first time since the kids started school, I learned two things:
- Shane is going to need a tutor for Algebra I. This is no surprise, since I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have trouble with algebra – except the tutors.
- Dylan was failing three classes – one of which was Algebra II. This is also no surprise, since Dylan is in charge of Dylan from now on.
I called Bill first, in my panic, and talked for ten minutes about what “we” should do. I sent emails to a few teachers – who haven’t even gotten Dylan’s IEP yet – and asked if he was doing okay. My emails were concise and rather vague: he has an IEP so you might need to talk to him individually.
Then I listened to Kirk Martin’s CD about teenagers with ADHD – and was reminded to remain calm. (I still believe that the hundreds of dollars we invested in Kirk Martin CDs saved Dylan’s life.)
Then, after my initial panic, and the very few emails, I decided to say nothing at all.
I called Bill and told him not to say anything, either. “This is Dylan’s job,” I reminded him. “If he fails 10th grade, then he fails 10th grade.”
I wrote a note to Dylan. It said that Edline went live and he needed to check it. I left the note on his bed.
Then, I said absolutely not one word to Dylan about his grades or his missing assignments or what he should do.
Dylan got my note, and mentioned it on the way to his voice lesson.
“By the way, I took care of all of that,” Dylan said.
“All of what?” I asked.
“All the missing stuff,” he said.
“Which missing stuff?”
“The stuff in Spanish mostly,” he said. “It would help a lot of the teacher would speak English long enough for me to know what she’s asking for. She says, ‘Deberes’ and then I don’t understand anything after that so I just ask somebody else what she said but nobody seems to know.”
Dylan was missing all of his assignments in Spanish 2, including one worth 40 points.
“What’s ‘deberes?'” I asked.
“Homework,” he said.
I laughed. “Well, you know more than I do!” I said.
I didn’t say a word about his missing assignment in English, his missing assignment in AP Computer Science, or his poor grades in algebra. He went off to his voice lesson.
He says he’s going to take care of it.
HE is going to take care of it. It is not my problem anymore.