Parent-Teacher Conferences

Today was a teacher work day / conference day, so Ben and Rebecca did not have school. They went to Schools Out / J's In at the JCC, where they went on a field trip Space Kidets and swam in the indoor pool at the J. I on the other hand, went to two parent-teacher conferences and of course I did not have the wherewithal to schedule them back to back so Ben's was at 1pm and Rebecca's was at 3pm.

Ben's conference was pretty typical. His teacher said he is very bright and scored off the charts in his literacy MAPS testing and "solidly" in his math MAPS testing. He is reading well above grade level. He also does sloppy work and doesn't take the time to go over his work / correct mistakes. He is perfectly bright enough to get all A's but because of his inability to really sit down and focus and concentrate on what he is doing, his grades for the first quarter are a 95, 3 92s and a 90. This is 1 A and 4 B's although since the cut off for an A is a 93, he was 1 percentage point away from an A in three of his subjects. When I told Ben that with just a *little* more effort he could have had 4 A's this quarter he was not pleased. (Especially since we pay him for each A!) Hopefully he will try a little harder next quarter although if he doesn't, his teacher said those grades will start to slip because she is going to be cracking down on careless mistakes (the kind Ben always makes).

This was Rebecca's first conference, and Joel left work early so he could come to it. We were hoping for a decent report from her teacher since her behavior in terms of the color she gets every day, has been improving - usually she is on green but sometimes she has been on blue or purple (very good / excellent) and the yellows have decreased to maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks. Her teacher said that academically she is right where she needs to be, doing fine, and socially in terms of appropriately interacting with the other kids/making friends she is fine. But she doesn't pay attention / participate in class discussions at all, and often rocks back and forth at her desk and is totally zoned out/ not doing any work/ not following directions/ not having any idea what question the teacher has just asked her, etc. Of course Rebecca has been rocking since she was a baby and has been very good at not paying attention / not following directions at home, but we were kind of hoping she might pay a little bit of attention at school. But apparently not. Her teacher says so far it is not affecting her learning (she knows everything she's supposed to at this point) but she expects it will start to affect her learning if it continues. So at the moment Joel and I are not really sure what to make of it or what to do about it, if anything at this point. Ugh!