@havenoidea I agree with you completely about the soul searching part of why his grades aren’t where they should be, but most of them did go down a letter grade due to participation (for example, in advanced geometry, he ended the semester with a 78.9, which would have been above an 80 if the teacher hadn’t given him a C in participation 
Unfortunately his school doesn’t do +/- grades, and all of his Cs but one would have been C+ in a +/- system (or a B if he hadn’t been downgraded for participation…frustrating—)
That said,
You are absolutely correct that my son needs to do some soul searching, and basically we’ve concluded that he needs to work on talking in class, meeting with his teachers one on one to discuss issues as they arise, and he needs to improve his attendance record as well (he missed a lot of school due to some illnesses last year, which didn’t hurt his college grades but his high school teachers didn’t seem to have much compassion). Either way, communication is important to success in all parts of life, and my son definitely needs to work on it with his teachers.
Overall, I feel things are getting better, and his counselor has been very supportive of my son’s various academic interests, so hopefully if he can pull it together junior and senior year (with a powerful personal statement explaining his growth and journey throughout high school), he may still be a candidate for top schools.
I agree too there’s more to life than going to a top school, it’s actually more important to find the school that’s the right fit. We’ll see how it goes over the next couple of years, but my gut says he hasn’t closed any doors yet…if anything, all of these problems he’s had over the last two years might make the next two years even stronger 
I wish you all the best with your children and their journey—