Passing a failing student?

amother

Mon, Mar 18 2013, 9:20 am

chani8 wrote:

DrMom wrote:

If his poor performance is due to some sort of psychological problem or family crisis, perhaps you can work with the school psychologist/counselor to arrange for him to attend summer school and to give him his grade at the end of the summer, taking into account his summer performance.

Sometimes hypercompetitive kids feel that anything other than perfection might as well be a failing grade, so why bother?

Someone should be more concerned with his mental health than with his grades right now.

This. It sure doesn't sound like minor teenage problems here. No kid wants to fail. I would bet money he's been abused.

Learning problems don't make sense, because how did he even get into such a school if he had learning problems. LD usually shows up by 3rd grade, but certainly well before high school.

Last add mother here, this is a total myth. LD usually only show up in hs, especially with ADD because the hs curriculum and expectations are so much greater that they can't slide along based upon their great memory anymore. They really have to study for the first time in their lives and they don't know how to do that. This is what all the experts will tell you.

amother

Mon, Mar 18 2013, 10:25 am

Another question is, what will failing accomplish in your school? I have worked in several frum high schools and I have seen that failing a student - even across the board - doesn't really mean anything. The school isn't going to hold the student back, and all it achieves is making the situation look worse. This is not to say that I would always advocate passing a student who has not made passing grades, just that it is important to look at the bigger picture sometimes. I definitely think that you could sit this student down, explain the situation, tell him you know he doesn't want/need to fail and give him some special assignments that could raise his grade even just a tiny bit. I would hesitate to give an F if it's just going to be another in a slew of Fs that don't change anything. You might as well just give him a D if it's all the same.