Conference time {Spencer}

It's conference week which means it's the busiest week we've had in a while

Tuesday night we hustled to the middle school to wait in a packed library 

Each teacher set up shop with their lap top,

probably praying only the star students parents would show up

One of the biggest concerns I had a middle school was the lack of communication

Over night, these kiddos are expected to take on some major responsibility

They still have the agendas they are supposed to write their assignments in

I sign the agenda every night and read over the messy handwriting and sometimes ask what something says

Conferences give us the extra assurance so we (as parents) know what's going on 

and how our child is doing in school

I ask a lot of questions at home:

What kinds of fun things are you doing at school?

What have you learned about levers and pulleys in Mrs. Welsch's class?

What did Mr. McCormick say about your Social Studies project?

I've learned that I can't ask questions like:

 How was your day? 

How was Science?

How did you do on your Social Studies Project?

With boys, the answer will always be- FINE

Some times I feel like I have to pry a little bit but once he's fired up, he usually won't stop

By asking questions, we also know what the teachers will talk about at conferences

{They usually go over what they have studied and what type of things are coming up}

Spencer must have caught site of his grades on power school before conferences last night

Not that we have ever had to worry

{I hope it stays this way}

We spoke with his language arts teacher first

Spencer is with her 2 periods out of the day

Before he hit middle school, I heard horror storied of this teacher

Spencer says she expects a lot but deep down I think he enjoys the class

Mrs. Sturms says that Spencer is her ray of sunshine

Always Smiling and always telling her hello when he walks in

She had wonderful things to say but has 2 concerns

He tends to blurt out and he sometimes rushes through assignments

She told us that he always does well on assignments but could do even better if he took more time

{we've heard all of this before}

We spoke with his math teacher

She loves Spencer and gave him a 5

{5's are tough to come by in the SBG grading system}

Mrs. Fick said she's so glad she has Spencer in her first hour class

She loves that he's wide awake and ready to participate while the other students have the glazed over look

Mrs. Welsch is Spencer's Science teacher

She wishes she had a hundred more of him

He works well in every group she puts him in and knows that she can count on him to help when needed

Our last stop was the teacher I was dreading the most

Social Studies.... Blahhhh

Spencer has never liked social studies and struggles to keep an A in the class

He just finished up a project and got the maximum amount of points which gave him an A

Mr. McCormick enjoys having Spencer in his class and says he knows he can count on him to be on task

Spencer gets to spend extra time with Mr. McCormick because he also has him for home room

His teacher asked if he talks about things he has seen on CNN and he does

In fact, Spencer has the news on every morning when I get up

I think he likes to be a step a head of class in knowing what's going on

Mr. McCormick said, whatever you're doing- keep doing it! He's a great kid

Every parent struggles

 We feel like we sometimes fail at the job of parenthood

I'm sure I walked out of there with a smile from ear to ear

It may only last today but it meant a lot

I'm not sure what we did to deserve this boy

He doesn't have to be told to do homework and everything comes easy

The kiddo has a 4.0 and we couldn't be more proud

The school was holding a book fair so as a treat we let Spencer pick out a few books

We don't believe in paying our kids for good grades but we do believe in praising them

 Way to go Spencer, keep up the good work!