Newbie with a big problem... so it is going to be long...

HerMamma
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:27:26 +0000

Hi. Sorry that this has to be an introduction and a cry for help, but I’m just not sure what to do.

We are Canadian, and my daughter is at a boarding school in Ontario, while I live out west. She is 14 years old, and in Grade 9. Last year she went to a great school on Vancouver Island, but sadly they closed down due to money pressures. A bunch of the kids from that school are at the new school.

She is having the WORST time at the new school :(

First off everything is new, and she had a hard time with the adjustment. I expected that, like I expected the calls begging to come home etc. and figured everything would work itself out like it did last year. Maybe with a few more roadbumps, but she has always been a good student, who is fun to be in class with.

But it hasn’t sorted itself out. She is failing one class, and squeaking by in the other two core subjects. Though as always is doing great in Art. And the core subject teachers are all saying that she is miserable and is “dragging the class down.” (Science teacher’s words).

The school didn’t tell me that anything was wrong until the middle of October, and since then I have been disappointed in thier response.

I was told in October that she would be put on “academic probation” automatically if she got less than 70% on her midterms, and that they would find her tutors in any classes that she was struggling with.

It is now the first week of December, and final exams are less than two weeks away, and they have not yet set up the tutor in two of the classes (including the one she is failing) and the student tutor in math has only been helping her for a week now.

It took them until last week to get the “academic probation” in place as well (FOUR weeks after report cards). This probation is supposed to limit her time outside of dorms, and provide a more supervised homework schedule, but so far they don’t seem to enforcing the homework, though they are enforcing not being allowed out of dorms.

The principle was supposed to meet with my daughter and the dorm coordinator last week, but when I emailed to ask how it went she told me that the dorm coordinator had met with my daughter alone. But my daughter said that meeting didn’t occur.

I feel like they are letting her fall through the cracks. I don’t even know who to talk to about this at the school because it seems like everyone from the principle down is saying it is someone else’s fault.

Any suggestions?