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> He's a good kid. He didn't deserve that. Where's the mentors? Where is the help for him? Well obviously at the school but... > was late or absent 272 days.

• nkrisc 6y ago
  As I recall from reading this article the other day, she's also working three separate jobs to support three kids.
  • xienze 6y ago
    I guess that’s too much working to check a report card say, once a year? I get being busy but the choice parents face isn’t “micromanage every aspect of your child’s education” and “do absolutely nothing.”
    • ethanbond 6y ago
      Is your theory that checking the report card once a year would’ve been a meaningful intervention of some sort?
      • prepend 6y ago
        It would have shown some minimal involvement. For me, I don’t think checking a report card once would matter. But never checking in three years is indicative of many other problems.
• chrismcb 6y ago
  While I agree, I think there is blame to go around. As the mom said, she knew he was getting a failing grade, but thought it was OK when the kid was promoted to the next grade or next class. Why is it may now they are learning he is still in 9th grade? As there were indications he was promoted to 10th when he shoukdnt have been. And what about the other half the school?
  • jjeaff 6y ago
    It also says that the school claims to have requested only one parent teacher conference with the parent and the parent denies even getting that one request. I would expect a little more involvement from the school if any child is doing so poorly. Also, was the kid just not showing up? Or were they showing up and then slipping out before classes started or just not going to class. Because once you drop a kid off at school, I would expect them to make some effort to keep them there or notify the parent when they are not.
    • dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It also says that the school claims to have requested only one parent teacher conference with the parent Actually, if I read it correctly, it says that school records indicate that only one teacher requested that a parent-teacher conference be held, and there is no supporting evidence that the school acted on that.
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  > > was late or absent 272 days. [...] > I feel like the story here isn't that the schools are failing parents If it's possible to miss that much school in 3 years without repeated, urgent, in-person contact with parents long before reaching that point, the school has horrendously failed the parents. > She ignore her childs education for 3 years But did she ignore it, or fail to understand mixed messages and place inappropriate trust in authorities. On its face, the assumption that promotion means adequate progress to advance to the next level is not unreasonable. Now, as someone who has a college degree, who has worked in education, whose parents both had college degrees and both worked in education, whose social network is full of people who have college degrees and who have worked in education at various levels, I'm quite aware of the existence of a variety of differences in promotion policy, the potential disconnects between promotion and assessments of progress, and that the fact schools cannot be trusted to provide a clear picture of what is going on, especially to minority parents (because of both classic racism and neglect-as-conflict-avoidance.) But I'm also aware that other people with different backgrounds are very often very much less aware of those things.
  • foobarbaz33 6y ago
    It sounds like the school is overwhelmed. Special protocols and interventions can't realistically be applied to the entire student body.
    • dragonwriter 6y ago
      If a school is so overwhelmed that it can't do its basic legal duties, it shouldn't be news after it's gone on for at least three years. It should have worked it's way up from the administration to the local district and from there to both the local public and state authorities immediately after each body found itself unable to do what it is required to do (and there appear to be fairly black-and-white legal requirements being missed here, especially concerning handling attendance.) “The job the taxpayers are paying me to do is hard, so i just won't do it and hope that nobody who matters notices” isn't acceptable. A kind of nonfeasance that is all-too-common in entities serving poor and/or minority communities when they aren't actively malfeasant out of malice toward those they notionally serve, sure, but not acceptable.
• maxk42 6y ago
  > 272 days That's more than the number of days in a school year. She admitted she knew he was failing. He missed more than a full year of school. And now she's trying to blame the school for it instead of taking responsibility for her own parenting. The clear fuck-up I see on the school's part is the school moving him on to the next year's classes when he's failed the previous year so thoroughly.
  • chrisseaton 6y ago
    > The clear fuck-up I see on the school's part is the school moving him on to the next year's classes when he's failed the previous year so thoroughly. Can you 'fail' a year of school? Where I am school years are based on age. You can't fail to get older so you can't fail to get into the next year of school.
    • ethanbond 6y ago
      You’re getting downvoted because this isn’t how US systems generally work in theory, but it’s a good point because this actually is how many of them work in practice. Schools are extremely loath to fail students because, well, parents flip.
      • chrisseaton 6y ago
        So if you're just very academically limited and have a ceiling to what you can achieve what do you do? Repeat one school year for the rest of your life? After how many attempts do they let you out so you can earn some money?
        • ethanbond 6y ago
          If you’re “academically limited” ie you have learning disorders, you have a different rubric and track through the system obviously.
          • chrisseaton 6y ago