Making the Grade, Part Deux

In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, here are Wesley's grades for the school year to date in the same manner that I posted Heather's grades a few days ago:

Subject	P1	P2	P3
English	C	A	A
Mathematics	B+	A	B+
Health/Phys Ed	A+	A+	A
Social Studies	A	B+
Science			A
Computer Tech	A
Wood Shop		A+
Art			A

I consider Wesley's first marking period "C" in English as an indictment more of his teacher than of Wesley or his performance. Wesley's middle school has an on-line reporting system where teachers are required to post grades every two weeks, and parents can then log on to monitor the child's progress. That system also allows teachers to post all class assignments, but teachers are not required to do so. Regrettably, Wesley's English teacher steadfastly refused to utilize that feature.

I should point out that his English teacher was not his only teacher who declined to post class assignments to the on-line site. His other teachers, though, had relatively straightforward daily assignments with an occasional project thrown in periodically.

English class was a different story. Wes had to juggle three weekly assignments due on Fridays: a vocabulary list for which he had to look up definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and etymology; a composition complete with first draft, second draft, and final draft; and answering a series of questions from a reading assignment. In addition, during each 9-week grading period, he had to complete any four projects out of nine possible choices. All four assignment types (vocabulary, composition, questions, and projects) were extracted from different scattered sections of booklets called a Partner Discussion Guide (PDG) that accompanied each book the class was assigned to read. [Much to our chagrin, we did not discover one additional unpublicized complication until later: once the class moved on to a new book/PDG, students could no longer submit projects relating to any previous book.]

Unfortunately, little of this information was made clear to Wesley, and none of it at all was communicated to me—that is, not until a knock-down, drag-out, face-to-face meeting I had with his teacher, the vice-principal, and the principal himself at the end of the first marking period. That meeting became necessary after a frequent but futile exchange of e-mails in which I repeatedly requested that assignments be posted on-line so that I as his parent could monitor Wesley's compliance.

Alas, all of this was to no avail: even after our meeting, the teacher still never posted assignments on-line in any meaningful way. However, the meeting did at least provide enough insight so that I—and more importantly, Wesley—could better determine his exact weekly and quarterly (project) assignments. From that point forward, Wesley was able to do the work and do it well, as his English grades in the second and third marking periods will attest.

I find it particularly ironic that such a marked failure in communications occurred with an English teacher, of all subjects. And I am not Don Quixote: I will not joust with windmills indefinitely. The only reason I pounded my head against the wall for as long as I did is that it feels so good when I stop.