I took a blessed nap after posting earlier. I never do that. NEVER. But it was beautiful. I don't regret it.

The parent teacher conference.

I was going in with such trepidation.

First, as is typical, I was given E's report card. Waiting for all the Commendables and Grade Levels to have gone to Needs Improvement, and the 1's {highest} to have become 3s and 4s.

Not so.

She had all 1s. Except self control. Reason? She's so engaged in the classroom discussions that sometimes she still shouts out answers (but they do roundtable discussions -- so it's less inappropriate than in a "you must raise your hand or be silent" classroom setting).

She went down in NOTHING - she didn't go up in any categories, but her teacher is constantly saying what a hard grader she is.

In the little "teacher's comments" paragraph? It said she's an excellent student. That she's having a wonderful year academically. That she's ceased having trouble with other students, and that she is solving any small problems that do come up beautifully and on her own.

I raised my questions. There had been 3 mediocre grades that I had seen. One on "prepositional phrases," one essay which E did at home and I saw the mistakes, but sort of didn't realize it was a BIG end of unit project, and so let it go. I thought she was sloppy, and deserved the feedback. The final was item was a geometry test.

The teacher told me that the prepositional phrases was an "advanced unit" that an outside specialist is coming in to work on - I think, from what she said, that they're uber-prepping the advanced kids. She said E will see it again in a couple of YEARS, and that she was never expected to be at the level that a perfect grade would have indicated.

She said yes, on the essay - it was a mess. But nothing has been since, and she's glad I didn't fix it for E.

On the geometry test, she said yeah, E struggled, but the test was very hard, and she's done well since. She said it was an exception, not a rule.

She said E is NOT slipping.

She said E got in trouble twice for talking. One of the times, she made E write a letter of apology and that E was clearly VERY upset with herself for her behavior, and she didn't think any other action (i.e., a call home) was required.

____________________

E is fine. I need to keep up with her, and be sure things DO NOT slip. But it seems like if I caught anything, it was the very early stage, and I can still help to avoid it being an issue. Like Housewife commented on my other post, this is a challenge year for E. I think, however, that she will pull it off.

E is still in the highest reading and math groups, and is getting 100% on science and social studies tests (she doesn't get 100% on the others, but is performing at the high end of class).

She's relieved. So am I.

Why, I wonder? Do I jump to the most negative conclusion? At least my freak out happened on the day of a parent-teacher conference, so I could quickly be set straight.

And she did still go too slow this a.m.

So there.

Labels: kids, school

posted by Zuska @ 6:09 PM

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