Returning student
Last week the secretary called me over the intercom in the middle of class to let me know that I had a new student, who was actually a returning student, and to make sure to check my box before I left school so I could see who it was.
I was actually quite excited to hear this, going through in my mind which of my past students I may be getting back. I and the teacher next door to me both had an embarrassingly low number of students (her especially), and I was actually starting to worry that They (whoever "they" are) may decide soon that we have too few students and do something drastic about it. So after school I went to the office to see who my returning student would be. It turns out that it is a student who was dropped from my class list about 7 weeks ago due to too many days in a row of non-attendance, and no contact from the family. I had tried calling this student a few times, but couldn't find any working phone numbers, so had assumed they had quickly moved, and that was that.
Apparently that is not what happened. A family member (not in the nuclear family, but in the extended family) had been sick, and for some reason this necessitated that the child not attend school, any school at at all, for nearly 2 months.
This child is a pleasure to have in class, and I was sad when s/he stopped attending and had to be dropped from my class list. I am glad s/he is back. I only wish s/he had been somewhere else the past while. This child was already struggling in many ways, and had been dropped back a grade earlier in the school year (to my class from a grade 2 classroom). Hopefully the child is able to remain in my classroom (or any classroom) consistently for the rest of the school year.
There may have been other things going on making it an obstacle for the parent to get the child to school, and obstacles are understandable. However, this was not fair to the child. If I see the parent next week, I hope to let her know that if a similar situation comes up again to let the school know if there some major difficulty in getting the child to school. We are very eager to help in any way we can at our school and will do nearly anything to help the child get to school.
I was actually quite excited to hear this, going through in my mind which of my past students I may be getting back. I and the teacher next door to me both had an embarrassingly low number of students (her especially), and I was actually starting to worry that They (whoever "they" are) may decide soon that we have too few students and do something drastic about it. So after school I went to the office to see who my returning student would be. It turns out that it is a student who was dropped from my class list about 7 weeks ago due to too many days in a row of non-attendance, and no contact from the family. I had tried calling this student a few times, but couldn't find any working phone numbers, so had assumed they had quickly moved, and that was that.
Apparently that is not what happened. A family member (not in the nuclear family, but in the extended family) had been sick, and for some reason this necessitated that the child not attend school, any school at at all, for nearly 2 months.
This child is a pleasure to have in class, and I was sad when s/he stopped attending and had to be dropped from my class list. I am glad s/he is back. I only wish s/he had been somewhere else the past while. This child was already struggling in many ways, and had been dropped back a grade earlier in the school year (to my class from a grade 2 classroom). Hopefully the child is able to remain in my classroom (or any classroom) consistently for the rest of the school year.
There may have been other things going on making it an obstacle for the parent to get the child to school, and obstacles are understandable. However, this was not fair to the child. If I see the parent next week, I hope to let her know that if a similar situation comes up again to let the school know if there some major difficulty in getting the child to school. We are very eager to help in any way we can at our school and will do nearly anything to help the child get to school.
posted by Not Quite Grown Up... at 11:07 AM
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Tag, you're it! http://teachingbio.blogspot.com/2008/12/seven-randoms.html
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