The new bad word

The new "bad" word in our house is..."seriously".

Yes, I'm serious. It sounds ridiculous, but when you hear a nine year old say "seriously" every time you ask him to do anything, something obviously needs to be done. Thus, I have banned the word from our house. That is extremely hard for me b/c I say that word a lot. I don't use it in the same context as W. When it's coming from my mouth, it doesn't seem like blasphemy. By the tone in his voice, he might as well be saying "are you fucking kidding me?". The kid has hears like, well, whatever animal has good hearing. He could be upstairs playing Rockband, hear me say "seriously" and yell down the stairs "Momma!!".

I love that kid, but sometimes I want to beat him. Seriously.

Argh!

Remember the troubles I've been having with The Girl, her math grade and her math teacher? Well guess what? School ends in 2 days and I still don't know what her math grade is. Her teacher just started updating grades last night. From March. That's right, he still hadn't input any of the scores - or, in many cases, the assignments - since March. I have no idea where my child is in that class. Has she turned in all her assingments? Is she scoring well on tests? Does she understand the work or need a tutor? I couldn't tell you. And what's worse? Neither can her teacher.

I've met with him and the principal several times over the last few months, called him almost daily and sent him countless emails. Every time I spoke with him he assured me we wouldn't come to the end of the year without me knowing where my child stands. And yet here we are at the end of the year and I still don't know.

I am not unaware of my child's faults. When it comes to completing her homework, they are legion. The D she had at semester time is 100% her fault. But I put full blame on her teacher for my not knowing about it until it was too late to do anything to correct the problem. The same with this final grade. Whatever it is, there will be no way I can correct anything now.

On Monday I sent him an email asking for an update and reminding him that he assured me I wouldn't be caught flat-footed the last week of school. His response?

Last week, I returned the previous week's quizzes, and The Girl's was the only one without a name. After she wrote her name on her quiz, that score was entered. It was a C or something like that. The remainder go in today and I will submit final grades this evening.

That's it. That's all he had to say about it. She's hovering on the brink of FAILING ALGEBRA and his only response is "it was a C or something"?

I wrote a formal letter of complaint and sent it to the school board president and the superintendent. I also included a complaint about the principal, because she's been NO HELP whatsoever. I just found out that she's leaving after this year, however, so I don't figure my letter is going to matter much. But still..

I honestly don't understand how I'm the only parent upset by not knowing what my kid's grade is. And what about those kids who are really struggling? Are they going to find out the last day of school that they failed math? Do those parents even care?

I also don't understand how this teacher can get away with not doing his job. Because part of his job is grading assignments and working with parents, right?  I'm just sick over the whole thing. Especially since there's a very real possibility The Girl won't have a B on her final report card and will end up grounded for the whole summer.

I'll tell you, though, I've never been so happy to see the end of a school year in my life.