Hello Little Birdie!

We had a parent meeting today with a parent and her son, who is not only failing, but failing miserably because he turns in absolutely no work whatsoever.  None.  Nada.  Even classwork.  I called Stubborn Boy's mom about two weeks ago because it was really apparent that he was on a fast track to nowhere.  She said she was going to set up a meeting and about a week later she did.

But of course, she never showed up.

We called her up and she said she'd forgot about the meeting she scheduled, but we managed to get her to come in today and have our little meeting.  She said that Stubborn Boy makes his own choices and his choice is to do nothing as he'll just get passed on like he always has been.  This kid went to something like eight different elementary schools, and is on his second middle school.  We also found, when his records finally showed up, that his sixth grade teachers last year were planning on retaining him in 6th grade, but our admin decision was to move him to seventh and see how he did.  So we brought in Stubborn Boy to the meeting and he blamed - surprise! surprise! - all his problems on another student (who, truth be told, is annoying beyond belief).  His claim was that this other student was picking on him, and making him mad, and keeping him from doing his work.

Really?  Even in the classes they didn't have together?

Apparently so.  At least according to Stubborn Boy.  So, we put together a plan where mom wrote down what she's going to do (holding my breath here), we wrote down what we were going to do to help him, and Stubborn Boy wrote down what he was going to do (make up his 24 missing assignments to start.)  We also made note to separate Stubborn Boy from his tormentor and keep them apart as much as possible.

Which I did.  Stubborn Boy is on one side of the room, with his back to Pest Boy, and Pest Boy is on the other side of the room.  They are as far apart as two kids can be.

Which is why I was a bit surprised when Stubborn Boy decided to turn around, right in the middle of class, and flip Pest Boy "the bird", right in front of me and everybody.

What the ????

Both boys earned a trip out to the hallway with me where we had a bit of a discussion about what had transpired.  Stubborn Boy said Pest Boy was picking on him, and Pest Boy claimed, typically, "that I was just teasing, I was being funny."

"Really?" I asked him.  "Did you see Stubborn Boy laughing any?  Did he find that funny?"

Long, long pause while Pest Boy processed this.  "Uh....no?"

"No kidding.  He didn't find it funny."  Jeez!

So both boys earned my first discipline forms for the year.  What a shock.  They're in the Seventh Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself.  Although Stubborn Boy is moving.  After today, I don't even want them in the same classroom.