How’s the end of the school year going at y’all’s house?

I can honestly say I didn’t realize just how good we had it when we never had to worry about our kids’ grades or whether or not they were doing what they were supposed to be doing in school. It pretty much remained that way until my dad’s cancer came back—or so it seemed anyway. As soon as we found out the cancer was back and stage 4 it immediately started having an effect on my daughter.

Things were really rough for a while, but she is incredibly resilient and strong. She is right back to having averages of over 100 in pretty much all her classes including her AP classes and a college dual credit class.

Then there is her brother. Yes, I know we aren’t supposed to compare our children, and we are well-aware that his concern for school and hers are polar opposite and there’s not much that can be done about that.

But understand this, my son is incredibly smart. The kind of smart that I worried at some point would become “uncool” in his world. Well, that time has come it seems. It seems it began last school year at the end when he managed to get the “All As” award, but when all the final grades went into powerschool he managed to fail Venture. Ironically, Venture is the gifted program. So yeah, we sported that “All As” certificate on the fridge for a year all while knowing he actually literally failed his “gifted” class. Now this happened the semester that dad died so I figured all-in-all I had to let go of the first F as a final grade. It was not easy for this straight-A kid myself to let go of though, haha.

Fast forward to this school year and I am spending a decent amount of time with my daughter who is struggling some with other things going on and subsequently not paying enough attention to what my sweet baby boy is doing in school. Like a big dummy and complete sucker, I would ask him how things were going in school, and he would always say fine. The tricky thing is that for so long when either of them told me that, it was the truth! However, now that my sweet angel boy is 13 and on the football team….well things have changed a bit. I know with certainty that school is at the very bottom of his concerns….and it shows.

My mom guilt comes in strong at this point because the school does have this nifty system where you are able to check their grades. I just hadn’t been doing that because honestly, I have never had to do that. Their grades have never been an issue and checking their “powerschool” obsessively wasn’t my bag.

Maybe it should have been my bag this year though.

I won’t go into detail with his grades last quarter/1^st semester, but they were less than stellar. His sister described them as diabolical, so there’s that. The cute part is that I didn’t really realize how bad it was until I was checking my AOL email randomly and realized one of his teachers had emailed me several weeks prior about her concerns with his grades and letting me know how poorly he did in her class Q3/S1. Apparently, the school had not updated my email and so here I am looking like some bum of a mom who doesn’t even respond when a teacher with hundreds of kids takes the time to reach out to me. Ugh…it made me feel sick.

Of course, once I realize what has happened, I email her from my correct email account and find out that (just as I suspected) there was basically zero concern over his ability or intelligence and pretty much this issue is 100% his apathy. Fabulous. You can get tutors all day long if a child is struggling academically, but it’s a bit harder to get a kid to care more about making better grades and turning his work in.

So, recently I have been checking his grades pretty much daily and asking him questions about things and driving him completely insane as I make my point that finishing up this school year with the best possible outcome given the state of his grades at this point—IS the priority. In doing all this checking of grades I have had a few things that I had questions about, especially since I thought I was pretty clear on our expectations.

Today I reached out to his art teacher. Normally he makes 100s on things in there and I don’t think I have seen lower than a B, until now. He has a grade listed as a 50/F on a “drawing of a bunny/rabbit.” So, I asked him about it, and he says that the main teacher was out that day and they didn’t know it was for a grade that carries more weight, etc. Uh huh. He then says to me in a text, “apparently I traced the whole thing when I only traced the outline because I couldn’t draw it good enough.” He went on to say that “everyone” got a 50 and the teacher is getting some heat about it. So, what do I do? I emailed the flipping art teacher – something I never thought I would have to do. I ask her about this 50 and if she could explain. Her response back was pretty clear. She said she had clear instructions left for them and that they have been doing these particular drawing videos all year and were supposed to show her what all they had learned. She said his was traced. I haven’t seen said bunny drawing, but I feel pretty certain an art teacher can tell the difference.

Well, S***. Fortunately, she told me that she told those who did poorly they could redo it, and she would average the grade. Guess who failed to mention that to me? That’s right, my sweet baby boy. So, guess who is drawing the most fantastic rabbit/bunny you have ever seen before he does anything else after school today?

Y’all. We are so close to the end of this school year…I don’t think I have ever been so ready. How are things going at your house?