Parent-Teacher Conferences

The good thing about homeschooling is that you can talk to yourself and claim you are having a parent-teacher conference. Or, you can schedule a date night with your husband in the name of needing a "conference". A parent-teacher conference is a flexible thing in the homeschool world.

Not so in the public school world.

I still have one child in the public school systems. Last night was conference night. I anticipated a night of bad news, given The Big Girl's level of stress the last few weeks. Overall, it was much more pleasant than that.

The music teachers love her, and think she is hard-working and sweet. The history teacher thinks she is doing great and is hard-working. The LA teacher thinks she is polite and hard-working. The Chemistry teacher thinks she is doing great and is hard-working. The math teacher has high hopes because she is so very hard-working. Though the class is very difficult, she'll do fine. Are we seeing a pattern here? Oh, then there are the Spanish teachers who love her, and think she is, yes, hard-working, and has a natural ability in Spanish and should major or minor in it in college. Wow. Then we go to ACT Prep. ACT Prep has two teachers. The first thinks she is doing great. Why the poor grade in that class from a student that primarily gets A's? Hmmm....well....she has almost all A's in my part of the class. Better talk to the other teacher.

And the fun began.

Getting on a merry-go-round and singing at the top of my lungs would have been more productive. The teacher never figured out who my daughter was, and spent the entire conversation lamenting the poor grammar skills of the high school students. Apparently seven out of eight students in her class, after weeks of instruction, still cannot identify the subject and verb in a sentence. So, she is attempting to teach juniors the grammar they should have grasped by third or fourth grade. Eight years of grammar in one semester. For ACT Prep.

Oh, and my daughter? She was the one out of eight who got the questions right. She had no idea she had a poor grade in the class because she has never seen her tests since they were graded. She doesn't know what to work on because she doesn't know what she missed.

I was left scratching my head in wonder and amazement. I'm so thankful for all the other teachers because their reports were consistent and positive. I'm choosing to dwell on them, but I'm left questioning how in the world to help The Big Girl keep from sabatoging her GPA with this class. And I'm looking forward to tonight, when I can have a homeschool-style parent-teacher conference, snuggled up to my husband.