For the first time since.....

my oldest son was in first grade, I am going to a parent teacher conference.

Now, to some that may sound horrible. I always hear parents going to conferences even when their child is doing well and that's fine, but that's not how our schools work it.

I found this out in first grade. I went to my son's first grade conference and the teacher, who was not a pleasant woman and had been teaching for 30 years, says come in, why are you here?

I told her I was G's mother and I just wanted to meet with her. She said well, he's doing fine and that's about it. Okay. So I waited for the gushing praise that she was bound to tell me about my wonderful son. I mean the kids is smart and funny and talented and well, let's face it, he's just brilliant. But she told me that he's just fine and there was no need for her to meet with me. Then she explained how the whole process worked. Okay, that would have been helpful BEFORE I signed up to meet with you. She told us that these meetings were for the kids having trouble or for the parents of the children who had no idea that their child was having trouble. So basically we wasted her time. She was just such a lovely woman and I was never so happy when she retired at the end of the year so that neither of my other two children had to be around her.

So, we learned our lesson. Besides that, I was a regular at the school with volunteering and other things so most of my kids teachers knew me and knew that they could stop me at any time to discuss anything with my children.

I now have a son who is in 11th grade. He is an honors student and is always in the top 20 of his class. Told ya he was brilliant Mrs. F!

And he's the child that I now have to go up to the high school and have a parent teacher conference with the head of the English Department. My son had a wonderful man teaching is AP English Language course. That man blew a ton of sunshine up my butt on back to school night telling me all about how my child and the others were going to come out of this course writing like Shakespeare. This was important to my son since he loves to write. THIS was his course!

That twerp decided to leave the school 2 weeks later to take an administrative position in a charter school. He did this before and then came back, now he has done it again and it's really starting to irritate me. So, we get the new AP English teacher. And that is the reason I have to go to a conference with the head of the department.

The new teacher started in the beginning of October and was absent on Monday, Oct. 11th which was Columbus day. Yeah, she went camping with her friends on the weekend and was just too tired to come to work! Now, not only does she do this, but she tells a class full of 18 boys. Mind you, I'm paying approximately $5300 a year for my son's education in this school and this chick couldn't get her ass out of bed? Sweetie, if I'm out of bed, so are you! I get it if you are sick, we all get to be sick. But do NOT tell a class that the reason you were out was because you were too tired. Is this chick serious?

Then the last semester papers finally came home. Now, my son had a 96 for the report card so that's not the problem. But I'm having a problem with other issues he's told me about her and then when I see a big red underline with SPELLING written next to it under the word "persuasive". I'm about ready to blow. My son says how can she mark this wrong, it's right, it didn't come up as misspelled when I typed it in Microsoft Word. Then I whipped out not one but TWO dictionaries and guess what????

Now, I misspell and use the wrong grammar etc. all the time. But I'm not a high school AP English Teacher and if I'm thinking something is spelled wrong, I'm double checking it!

Then today they were reading from the text book, a lesson you would think she would have prepared, and they come to the word "infinitesimal". The teacher can't say it. Ok, we all have that happen, it gets stuck. A student says it for her and she says "what does that mean?", the student tells her "very small". She says "how did you know that?" Ok, seriously??? If you don't know as the English teacher, how about faking it! Or better yet, before you teach this lesson, look it over and if you see one of those big words on the page........LOOK IT UP!

This girl is not qualified to teach this course. This is an AP course, college level. My son and 17 other boys had to apply and be accepted to take this course. They had to meet certain qualifications...........why doesn't the teacher??

I would love to know how many other parents are there to discuss this teacher. I've heard I'm not alone in my concerns since I'm friendly with a few of the teachers and administration up there. This should be interesting.

And that is why I now get to go to Parent Teacher Conference night for the first time in 10 years!!!