2.0! 2.0!

Wahoo!! He got more than a 2.0 in his first semester!! PHEW!!

As you can imagine, I am SOOOOO proud. /sarcasm

Actually we are all quite relieved. Just one week before the grading period was to end he was at 1.83. Yep, had 4 D’s – all the academic classes. He was saved this semester by PE (A) and his elective of Video Film (B). Three of the 4 academic classes ended in C- . All of them just percentage points over 70! math ended with a D+ which was a bit of a shock. We hadn’t been focused on that as a potential D because we could always track a path up to C with it, or so we thought! Also, it was the last one to drop to a D so he had less time to dig out. The other 3 he ended up doing extra credit work at the end to push over the top. So now you all know where my focus has been the last few weeks. It’s been a struggle no doubt. Even after meeting with his counselor and coming up with a plan of action towards improving his study skills and organization, he still missed two major homework assignements turning them in late and incomplete. Drove me NUTS!! He simply didn’t write them down properly in his agenda. Argh.

So we start the new semester with Drama as the new elective which he LOVES. He and I have both talked to his math teacher and agreed that he should stay in the honors algebra class despite the grade as he really is solid on the concepts (and is actually *excited* about the current chapters! Hah) and would be bored silly anywhere else. He’ll see the counselor again next week to reinforce those organzation steps, go to math tutoring from the start and Sat school for sure in Feb. He may have to take a 3 week summer session to re-do the 1st semester of math, but that is only if he struggles again.

I talked to a mom who had a son go through this school recently and she said he went through the exact same difficult transition as SportsBoy. Talking to the teachers to establish a good working relationship like they all had in elementary school was just too scary and too socially harmful (can’t be a teacher’s pet now!) so her son also never asked for help or communicated in any way as he started to slide. Thankfully it did improve as he matured and he is doing fine in high school and each semester at jr high showed improvement SO – I feel better about my boy’s chances to turn this around 🙂

He better! Because 2.33? It’s really not all that awe inspiring.