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!
