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Old 11-02-2008, 07:26 PM
 
Location: Finally back "home" in Ohio
620 posts, read 1,946,682 times
Reputation: 406

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You have been given some great suggestions about what to do about helping your nephew. I am sorry that you are dealing with this. I am not sure where you are getting information about the legalities. If you go into the school and explain the situation, I am sure that someone would speak to you. It might not be what you want to hear, however.

Yes, there are confidentially issues to protect the child. But there ARE WAYS AROUND IT to a degree. If you go in and speak to the principal with a set of incidents that you are aware and DOCUMENTED proof what is happening, then they will know that you are there in the child's best interest and may guide you personally what YOU can do to help the situation. Here we can only give you suggestions, but if you talk personally to the principal he/she can help you out with your nephew personally.

Has your nephew been tested? Would his parents even tell you if he had been? If he hasn't been before it usually takes A LONG time to get the process started unless the parents are being a thorn in the side of the district ( sad fact). If he has been struggling with school for over three years, there are HUGE red flags. Other than his school work, how is his behavior? Behavior often times is an indicator of underlying things. Has he ever had a positive school experience? Does he flunk every subject or just one? In our schools you can pass with a D. You cannot flunk two CORE subject areas. Maybe you could find out some of the specifics.

I am not sure why you think the school is pushing things under the carpet. If your nephew is TRULY struggling and has been, I am sure the teachers are WELL aware what is taking place. I am sure they want SOMEONE to step up to the plate from his HOME environment. I urge you to please help your nephew. Be the advocate that he deserves in his life. If your other relatives also see it, I would encourage you ALL to band together and do SOMETHING now.
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Old 11-02-2008, 09:49 PM
 
Location: Virginia
1,938 posts, read 7,099,755 times
Reputation: 878
Wow...kids arent held back here in CO. Parents have to fight the school to retain...
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Old 11-04-2008, 06:55 PM
 
67 posts, read 284,440 times
Reputation: 63
No principal in his right mind would talk to an aunt/uncle without written permission from the parents. As far as your original question, there is such a thing as educational neglect, but that is VERY hard to prove - its mainly used for truancy. You have hit upon a big problem in education - how to educate children whose parents don't care. There is no easy answer, and no way for the school to 'force' the parents to get involved. If retention didn't wake them up, then it will probably take their child's continued struggles in middle school and high school to make the point.
In my state, a child can be held back once at each level, so your nephew may very well be retained again in middle school. As a former coach, I can tell you that when parents learn that their child who has been retained 2+ times now has 'aged out' of school sports they finally wake up to what is really important. Unfortunately, it is usually too late.
Sad.
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Old 11-04-2008, 07:57 PM
 
3,532 posts, read 6,393,842 times
Reputation: 1647
Default 4th Grade Teacher with 16 years of experience

Quote:
Originally Posted by steelstress View Post
Since this is my nephew, I have no authority in this matter. I am concerned as to what can/may happen if he fails 4th grade for the 2nd time.

We're in California. For the past 3 years, nephew's teachers wanted to hold him back. His mom (my SIL) begged and pleaded and convinced the teachers not to. Well, the 3rd time, they finally held him back. So this year, he's repeating 4th grade. His parents were supposed to get a tutor for him over the summer, but that didn't happen. Nephew tells me he's having trouble in school, but doesn't care. He's 10, of course he doesn't care. All he cares about is playing baseball and football. Evidently, that's all his parents care about, too. The kid never does homework. The family spends 4 nights a week at the park for nephew and his older brother (who's doing fine).

So, my question is, if he fails again, is there something the school may have to do to push the issue with his parents? Again, we're in California. I'm asking so I can bring this up with his parents. I've never had kids, so I don't know what the laws, rules, protocols are.

Steelstress
As you probably already know, California expects every 4th grader to write mutliple paragraphs, be able to infer, make generalizations, draw conclusions, summarize, predict, and evaluate passages, write compound sentences, define and identify figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole), and that's just 25% of the Reading and Language Arts Standards.

4th graders are required to read up to 123 words per minute. The reason for this is because the average adult reads about 200 words per minute. In order for anyone to comprehend what is read, that person needs to read at a rate that doesn't hinder his comprehension. Students who struggle with reading are kids who don't practice reading at home enough so that they can read at the rate and prosody that's necessary for proficiency and they don't know those 200 common English words by memory.

In Math, the state of California expects all 4th graders to be able to solve algebraic expressions, calculate the mode, median, and mean, read line plots, multiply up to two digits, do long division, problem solve, and learn the formulas to finding the area of polygons.

In Science, they are required to complete a science project, as well as learn earth science, life science, and physical science, which in my district includes understanding how a circuit works as well as defining its parts. I didn't include health, pe, Social studies, and art because I hope you are seeing what is required of your nephew.

You said that his teachers had been thinking about holding your nephew back for 3 years, so I guess this started when he was in the 1st or 2nd grade when his 1st or 2nd grade teachers recommended him to be held back. I'm curious as to why didn't his parents listen or see the signs in those early grades?

At my school kids who were held back in the primary grades do so much better because they were given that extra year to learn those skills that they couldn't get. Had they not been held back, they would have become further behind, and, like your nephew ,not being able to keep up with the very rigorous 4th grade curriculum.

Just from my experience, kids, who fall in your nephew's situation, are given a free pass by their parents not to take school very seriously. Also, what happens is that parents, out of their frustration with their child, mask the guilt of their child's low academic performance with sports or extra curricular after school activities and just don't deal with the school or their child's teacher. If his parents can afford for him to play sports, I am sure that they can invest in getting him a tutor.

Since you nephew evidently doesn't have an advocate for his learning, I am pleading with you that you ask your brother or SIL if they can have his teacher tell you what is it specifically that he's deficient. If it's all subjects that he's deficient in, you need to see is it because he has a learning gap from not doing well in his previous grades which can be solved with simple after school tutoring or you or his parents sitting him down and making him do his homework. If it's something medical, you can find that out by simply having his eyes and hearing examined or see if he's ADHD, dyslexic as others have mentioned in this forum. I applaud you for caring about your nephew. We need more family members like you.

When a child gets to the 4th grade, the research shows that holding that child back doesn't help. In fact, it makes it worse on the child because they child's self esteem becomes even lowered, and from the studies that I have read, a retained child doesn't improve in school either. I don't retain any of my 4th graders, unless that child is so low academically we need to do some type of intensive intervention.

If I were your nephew's teacher, I would be able to tell you exactly what the problem is, and what you or his parents need to do to help him achieve. I am fortunate enough to help all of my students improve which doesn't mean that they all score proficient on our state's CST Test. But I hold each and everyone of my kids accountable for their learning, and each year God has blessed me to move up every student in my class.

What works for me is that I sit my kids down and conference with them individually to let them know what they are strong at and what they still need to improve. I even go as far as telling my students how close they are to scoring proficient or advanced on the CST test. Just doing things like that may work your nephew. Kids that don't learn the skills that I am teaching, I offer after school tutoring or intervention when I am off track to work with them in smaller groups. In class, I work with struggling kids in small groups too, and just drill and kill those standards that they are still having difficulty learning by reteaching them over and over and over until they get it. You may need to do that with your nephew. Let him know how serious his education is and how concerned you are as his aunt or uncle about him getting his education. Maybe he has never been told that. I have seen parents tell their child that they were dumb, and that they couldn't do anything right in life. It's just sad.

Many people don't look at elementary school as serious as middle or high school. But the elementary years are so cructial. This is where all kids either get a good foundation or a crappy one, and this is the time when the parents still have such a power role and influence on their child's education before he enters his teen years.

It's quite unfortunate that we have parents who could care less about their child's progress, and when it's too late, they blame their child's teacher or school district for their child's lack of proficiency. All you can do right now is be there to help him with his homework on weekends since he's too busy during the week to do it or suggest to his parents that maybe sports should be put off until he improves in school.

Last edited by antredd; 11-04-2008 at 08:28 PM..
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Old 11-06-2008, 03:47 AM
 
1,655 posts, read 3,389,545 times
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I'm sorry but I find it absolutely ridiculous to fail a 3rd grader...3 times, c'mon. Too bad his parents aren't taking his education seriously. I hope he gets the help he needs ! The state standards for CA are ridiculous too.
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Old 11-07-2008, 12:43 AM
 
3,532 posts, read 6,393,842 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdmom View Post
I'm sorry but I find it absolutely ridiculous to fail a 3rd grader...3 times, c'mon. Too bad his parents aren't taking his education seriously. I hope he gets the help he needs ! The state standards for CA are ridiculous too.
Tkdmom many would agree with you. When the standards were first adopted as law in 1997-98 school year, most teachers didn't have a clue that 10 years later we would be now mainly teaching to the test in order to help our students pass the CST test.

But I will say this, 10 years ago, my school only had 20% of its students proficient in Reading. Today, that number has increased to almost half of our student population. We are slowly getting there, but the method is almost killing the teachers.
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Old 11-08-2008, 09:43 AM
 
Location: CA
830 posts, read 2,703,531 times
Reputation: 1025
Quote:
Say what you want (you as in anybody reading this) about the public school system, but one thing that they are not are babysitters. If a student is not moving forward in the least satisfactory way, then they will be asked to leave.
Umm... where exactly in the country can public school students be asked to leave because they are not moving forward in a satisfactory way?
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Old 11-08-2008, 10:07 AM
 
Location: SoCal - Sherman Oaks & Woodland Hills
12,974 posts, read 33,843,691 times
Reputation: 10491
Quote:
Originally Posted by steelstress View Post
So, my question is, if he fails again, is there something the school may have to do to push the issue with his parents? Again, we're in California. I'm asking so I can bring this up with his parents. I've never had kids, so I don't know what the laws, rules, protocols are.

Steelstress
California is a HUGE state and many different school districts. So by saying you're in California really gives us nothing to work on. What school district is your nephew in? What city?

If it were me, Id sit his parents down and straighten them out. If they still only want to play with the child, I'd call Child Protection Services on them. That childs future is too important to risk to parents who obviously are not giving him what he needs.
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Old 11-09-2008, 10:18 AM
 
Location: So Ca
26,592 posts, read 26,478,904 times
Reputation: 24536
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaBeez View Post
If it were me, Id sit his parents down and straighten them out.
It sounds like the OP has already tried this with no success.

Quote:
If they still only want to play with the child, I'd call Child Protection Services on them. That childs future is too important to risk to parents who obviously are not giving him what he needs.
CPS cannot intervene on the basis of a child's academic needs being neglected.
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