Grade grubbing

We just switched to a new semester last week---so I got new students. It is truly refreshing. I can toss lessons/policies that do not work and start all over. Since my 8th graders never take "Do Nows" seriously [I kind of think they're lame too], I am instead having them do 5 minutes of freewriting. Though it isnt that much time, it certainly feels like a LONG time to them. The kids are enjoying it, thus far. I have a writing prompt website that I show on my Smartboard and they can respond to whatever they want--or they can write something else unrelated to the prompts. The topics are ludicrous and fun... for example: what would you do if cows gave root beer instead of milk? Since the students also have Language Arts class in addition to Reading [and since LA is considered core and my class is "supplemental,"] I can basically do whatever I want with the curriculum. The focus of the freewriting is not grammar, paragraphs, etc. It's just a way to get them focused for class...and it is working so far! I also use the time to write---although I find that my writing is choppy and UNeloquent. I want my creativity back!

Today at the end of the day, a student from last semester came to my classroom. I instantly said, "Let me guess- you want to know about your grade." This is a student who is "smart" but has been lazy in my class. I gave him several opportunities to hand in a very important assignment [I even sent a handwritten message to his new teacher for this semester] and he never did... this resulted in his final average for marking period two coming out to a C. I HATE how students think a C= an F. Furthermore, I am very clear with my expectations for my course. If a student gets a C or below, he is either having tons of difficulty with my class and NOT doing homework or he is doing nothing at all.

I explained why he got the grade and of course he gave me "puppy dog" eyes, saying he handed in the work to the Absentee bin in the classroom this past Monday and blah, blah, blah. I asked when he dropped off the papers and he said, "You weren't here; the lights were off but your door was open." Hmm...interesting coincidence...I just so happened to be out of the room when the work was handed in. Then he continued talking and had the audacity to say, "Maybe you lost the papers I handed in." I ended the conversation by telling him that I saw no papers in the Absentee bin and, additionally, the marking period ended last Friday so if he handed in the papers on Monday, then I was not under any obligation to even accept the work.

It doesn't surprise me that this student came to see me about his C average. This is the same student whose mother, upon him being written up for disruptive behavior, stated that I have a "personal vendetta" against her son--- ridiculous!

The whole situation just pissed me off. I get more and more of these grade arguments all the time. Kids have a thousand excuses--- so do their parents.

What makes me even more upset are the kids who are doing poorly in my class [D/F] and whose parents I call...sometimes the parents don't call back or just sound nonchalant when I say, "Your child is failing."

Being a parent is a hard job, obviously...but there has to be a middle ground between the passive, non-chalant parent and the ridiculous, excuse-making parent.