May 22, 2007
This same thing is posted in a bulletin of mine as well...but I figure since I'm on a roll, I want to put it where as many people as possible will see and read it...
Here is a copy of what I e-mailed to the school district as well as the local paper tonight...
And yes, if you don't pick up on it by reading the following...I'm pretty ticked off...
Monday, May 21, 2007
At 10:30 this morning, I took off work to attend my son's 2nd grade End-of-Year Academic Awards Program. I was looking forward to the program and watching him receive recognition for his work this year at school. Despite the fact that he made 1 B the entire school year, he is an excellent student. I was a little disappointed that he made the B because I knew it prevented him from receiving an award for All A Honor Roll for the year. However, I am still extremely proud of him. He is an excellent reader as well and almost always brings home a couple new "AR" books each day. The kids get points for reading and successfully testing on these books. I was also looking forward to him being recognized for his reading efforts as well. He is good with math and sat down this past weekend, on his own, and filled an entire sheet of paper with multiplication facts. He tries to teach his little 4-year-old sister how to spell. I know that every parent most likely is proud of their children and think that their kids are "the smartest kids in the world." I am no different. I think my children are exceptionally bright.
What a shock it was to me as I sat there through the awards program waiting to hear his name called and to watch him receive his deserved awards…I sighed a little to myself as the awards for All A Honor Roll were presented, wishing that he had pushed just a little harder in order to avoid that 1 B. Then…there was the time they presented the All A's & B's awards for the year and the awards for ABBIT (A's & B's Because I Tried) Society all year long…they never called his name…I never got to see him walk up there and receive his awards…What was the problem? Did he bomb out this past 6-weeks? Did they just forget him? They called his name and presented him with a Citizenship Award for Outstanding Conduct Throughout the Year, which is the award I least expected him to receive…where were the awards rewarding him for his good grades?
Once all of the awards were presented and the assembly was over, I found his teacher and asked her why he was never recognized. The reason he didn't receive any academic awards was because he transferred into the school district during the school year. I'm sorry, but I am under the impression that his grades from the first part of the year were sent to Jefferson with the rest of his school records. I know for a fact that his AR points were printed out in a report that was given to Jefferson because his teacher from the first school printed them out and gave them to me…I brought them with me when I enrolled him in Jefferson.
His teacher told me that she had something she wanted to show me, so I returned to the classroom with my son and his class. His teacher showed me his test scores. He scored between 3rd and 6th grade level on every subject, with an overall score showing him on a 4th grade level. I think that for 2nd grade, he is doing very well. His test scores, she told me, along with a few other students in her class, resulted in the entire class average being much higher than it would have been without him. She also told me that she has never faced this situation before – transfer students being left out of the awards assembly – but that this year there were 4 transfer students in her class that should have received awards but didn't. (I may have some of my facts wrong here because I am not looking at the paper I wrote the scores down on…but my point is that he does exceptionally well…but that's not good enough to tell him that he did a good job.)
I would like to know why somebody thinks it's right for kids like my son, who transfer into the school district during the year, to sit there and watch their other classmates receive recognition for their academic accomplishments when they, the transfer students, know that they did just as good, if not better than some of the kids who get recognized and receive awards. What are they supposed to think? How are they supposed to feel? They didn't even get mentioned…somebody could have stood up there and said something about them or presented them with another award...I'm sure that something could have been done. Instead, even though they are extremely bright…even though they have excellent grades…even though their test scores are higher than most of the other kids in their class…even though they worked hard to do their best and make the grades…they get NOTHING!
I realize that this most likely bothers me more than it does the kids. However, I have tried all day to calm myself down and "get over it." This morning I was in tears by the time I got back to work. After the awards assembly when I went back to my son's classroom it was extremely hard for me to see him sitting there at his desk looking "down" because there was nothing I could do "fix" it for him. He knows that he should have received something; he knows that he has made good grades; he knows that he did better than some of the other kids who did get recognized. It was not his fault that he changed schools. I'd almost bet money that the other transfer students didn't have a lot of choice in the matter of changing school districts either.
I've already said it, but I am extremely proud of how bright my son is. I am proud that he makes good grades. It makes me very happy that he enjoys school. He has had a very tough little life. He has been through things, which neither of us could control, that no child should have to experience. He is a very insecure child because of what he has had to deal with. It hurts me deeply to know that he has been hurt. He has very low self-esteem and needs all the positive praise he can get (and all that he deserves). I was very hurt that this opportunity for some positive praise and "building-up" was not given to him. It was very unfair to him, as well as the other deserving transfer students, to basically have their academic accomplishments ignored just because they transferred into the school district.
I am very curious as to the reasoning behind such logic…why it's okay for these kids who have worked just as hard, if not harder, and have the same if not better grades are not recognized while their classmates who didn't have the stress of moving to a new school are recognized. I just really see it as completely unfair. These kiddos have had a harder time and still have the excellent academic achievements…yet they are ignored. Think about how you would feel if you were one of them. Would you think it was fair to watch your classmates receive awards while you got nothing when you knew that you did as good as or better than they did?
Sure, I've most likely said the same things over and over several times…I'm most likely making more out of this than I should…BUT…somebody NEEDS to make a big deal out of it because nobody did a blasted thing to make a big deal out of those kids today and they deserved recognition just as much as the kids who were in the same school district all year long. I think the transfer students who still managed to do as well as they did in school actually deserve MORE recognition than the kids who didn't have to deal with that change during the school year. A change like that is hard on kids to begin with…for them to still excel academically despite the fact they were uprooted and put into a new situation with new people in a new place is wonderful!
It is a shame that the school cannot see this or understand why it seems so wrong to me. I am not sorry for thinking about the feelings of these transfer kids here. They deserve the same recognition as the rest of the kids.
I'm done venting for now…maybe somebody can do something about this problem...
