So a couple of days ago I talked about an AP teacher who had to have a parent conference after her son's acceptance was revoked after he earned a D in the course. So how did it go?
Well, to make matters worse it was a minimum day and who wants to stick around after school on a minimum day? Much less to a parent conference...for a student who graduated already! He told me the mom was giving dirty looks to anyone who would look at her. And she never really specifically came out and said 'change the grade', but that's what she wanted.
The highlight came about 20 minutes or so into it. The son said he pushed himself by taking 2 AP courses his senior year and it caught up to him. So the principal starts talking about how they relaxed the requirements so more students could have the opportunity to take an AP course. He was talking about how it helps out the students when the mom got up and interrupted him. She starts raising her voice saying, "you're not helping him, you're holding him back!" She kept saying that, then she opened the door to the main office and said it again loud enough for everyone to hear her. Then she stormed out of the building...oh yeah she left her son in the room.
He said it was awkward for a few seconds, then the principal started asking the student what his plans were etc. The teacher told him it wasn't anything personal. The student knew he just didn't cut it.
So what did we learn? Nothing. The mom had nothing to stand on. His grades were bad and he scored a 1 on the AP test. Yet, the teacher still had to go in and sit through this on his own time. Why did I become a teacher again?
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Reminds me so much of a parent conference I had last year. The student knew he was in the wrong and that I had done everything I could to help him. Throughout the year, I had several private discussions with him about his lack of effort. The mom, however, wanted revenge. When she began yelling, I felt so sorry for the son. He looked like he wanted to melt into the table. His eyes seemed to say, "I'm so sorry for my mom's behaviour." Very sad.
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