Please Help: Private School Wants My Child to Stay Back A Grade... (Dallas: attorney, unemployed)

[DallasNewbie001]

Unfortunately I do not have the financial resources to hire an attorney.

Can anyone provide advice about the rights of a parent and child in a private middle school in Dallas which demands that the child stay back and repeat the grade because of the English teacher?

The English teacher insists the child is not yet ready for the next grade in middle school because they felt that my child was unable to keep up with the pace of the assignments and most importantly did not proactively inquire and make up the assignments missed during a relatively short COVID illness & quarantine) when in all the other subjects they are doing extremely well.

Despite my requests for alternatives such as summer school, allowing the made up work to be sufficient, or repeating just the English class, the school told me that my child will be staying back and repeating the whole year curriculum.

We would great appreciate any help. Thank you so much!

[WorldKlas]

Find another school?

[DallasNewbie001]

Originally Posted by EP45

It seems pretty apparent, right?

Can not change schools... already signed contract and huge financial relief for this year [and next year as well] from the school as I am long term unemployed [unfortunately, desperately trying to get a job]...

siblings do not want to change school... it is a good school except for this major issue...

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Why not just repeat the grade? Are you certain that isn't the right move? What were your kid's grades this year?

[NP78]

Originally Posted by DallasNewbie001

Can not change schools... already signed contract and huge financial relief for this year [and next year as well] from the school as I am long term unemployed [unfortunately, desperately trying to get a job]...

siblings do not want to change school... it is a good school except for this major issue...

Why not enroll the child in question in public school? Siblings can stay in their current school and that eliminates the concern about tuition burden. Obviously will make logistics less convenient with kids in different schools.

I assume the default if you enrolled in public school would be to place them in their appropriate grade by age. Now, if there is a real issue, that might come up again in the public school, but if it isn’t a real long term concern they should be fine.

[NP78]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

Why not just repeat the grade? Are you certain that isn't the right move? What were your kid's grades this year?

This is probably the right answer. I don’t think schools make that decision lightly, especially at that age (I see a lot of “redshirting” in some private schools at Pre-K/K such as the “primer” grade, but not in middle school).

[DallasNewbie001]

Originally Posted by EP45

Not much you can do if the administration backs the teacher. Maybe you should listen to the professionals? It’s pretty hard to see how a short term absence causes a failing grade.

It’s also fairly difficult to understand how an unemployed parent doesn’t find the time to collect work due for their absent child or have the time to validate that back work was complete.

Whole family came down with COVID. We were busy with taking care of all our children. We tried our best... the children did catch up eventually...

[DallasNewbie001]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

Why not just repeat the grade? Are you certain that isn't the right move? What were your kid's grades this year?

All A and upper Bs... except for English... they did not say failed for English... they wrote incomplete on the report card.. my child said the English teacher finally said they were caught up with the homework but then the administration had me come in and told me fait de complit that my child was staying back..

[DallasNewbie001]

Originally Posted by NP78

This is probably the right answer. I don’t think schools make that decision lightly, especially at that age (I see a lot of “redshirting” in some private schools at Pre-K/K such as the “primer” grade, but not in middle school).

Actually my child is the youngest in the class so they are saying that my child is not mature enough...


As per the schools motivation, I feel that there is something going on. Why would the school wait till right at the end of the school year to announce that the child needs to stay back? There was no previous communication that threatening that he would need to stay back. I am trying not to sound conspiratorial but looking at the current grade enrollments on the schools intranet, there seems to be population distribution problem as in there are more than 24 kids going into the grade they should be going into and less than 12 kids going into stay back grade. There might be trying to even up the class sizes, but using my child as a patsy...

[TurtleCreek80]

Definitely think it is odd teacher didn’t raise the issue earlier unless the Covid illness / absence was this semester and he recently fell behind.

That said, rarely do schools recommend upper elementary & older kids get held back unless there are serious concerns about ability to work at the next level due to skills gap and/or maturity. I would err on trusting their judgement especially if you overall have a good experience there with that many kids enrolled. I would want to know how they plan to keep him challenged next year in the subjects he already mastered.