Percentages

What would a reasonable person expect? If you sent out personal invitations to parents a week in advance, left options for them to pick an alternative time and date, and made calls to remind them of their commitment - wouldn't you expect them to show up for a fifteen minute conference with their child's teacher to receive their report card? Perhaps I am being unreasonable, but I growled and grimaced as I made my way up and down the steps from the library to my classroom, trying to gather students and their wayward parents.
Schools are being closed, teachers are being fired, administrators are being shuffled, and no child will be left behind. Now, please understand that I should be grateful for the sixteen of twenty-five parents who did manage to make their appointments. I should be, and I am. The most frustrating part of this equation is that the sixteen students whose parents came for the conferences were those who are already very aware of their child's educational experience. These parents have already made the necessary connection - the one that we are trying to promote by having them in to sit across the table from me and listen to my appraisal of their child's fourth grade skills.
In a couple of instances, I spent almost as much time praising the mothers as I did the kids. I know how difficult it is to get a kid out of bed to school with a full stomach and a ready mind. It all starts at home. I wish I could say that I was such a fantastic teacher that I could stir up enthusiasm for the volume of prisms on any given day, but I know that it helps to have an audience that is there for the same purpose that I am. That's where the missing nine come in: These are the kids who show up late, unprepared, and uninspired. I can work around two out of the three of those on any given day, but every day becomes a battle. Now, in March, I find myself making hard choices. I have to decide how to move the sixteen I have ahead, and let the rest sort themselves out. Many of these kids have already been retained or are receiving some assistance or program that keeps me from being able to hold them back for another tour of fourth grade. I had one mother announce this to me at the beginning of the year - almost as a dare. "You can't hold him back again." Well, I suppose that's true, but in my mind I hear myself say, "But you can."
There is no moral or shiny truth to this one. It's simple percentages and the reality of the surroundings. You get back what you put in, and the sixteen who showed today will get to have the satisfaction of knowing they did what they could for their kid, and so did I.