Well, I went to Golder today with Junior and his dad to get his report card for second quarter. The good news is his math teacher picked him as her student of the quarter for outstanding improvement in math. (This is the basic math backup class, not algebra, but he got a C in algebra, so I'm happy.)
The other good news is he brought his civics grade up from a D to a C-. That may not seem like a lot, but I know he had to work hard to do it because the class isn't easy.
Now for the bad news. His other D last quarter, in physics, sank to an F because he bombed the final. He got less than half the questions right. We talked to his teacher and she said she knows he is trying but he just didn't get it. This quarter Junior will stop in and see her after school on Tuesdays to go over the homework with her and make sure he gets help on the parts he doesn't understand. Wednesday is her office hours, and he may go see her then, too. The thing is, he'll also have to take a make-up class after school to earn the quarter-credit he missed in physics. The class will either be on Mondays or Wednesdays-they don't know yet.
The other bad thing about failing physics is he will have to pay for the makeup class. It costs $140, which is a lot of money for his family. His dad wasn't too happy about that, as he noted in the car on the way home. "Junior plays Nintendo three, four hours a day. Too much," he said. Dad's right.
The last bad thing is that Junior still hasn't gotten paid for the After School Matters program he did back in the fall and early winter. An administrator assured us she has done all she could to get the debit card from ASM to the handful of kids who haven't received theirs yet, including Junior. Maybe if we're lucky he'll get it in time to use some of it to pay for the makeup class.
Showing posts with label Golder College Prep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golder College Prep. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Pre-Thanksgiving Update
Well, Marshfield Avenue had to get along without me for a week while I was out of town on business. Since I got back I've been scrambling to keep up on the work and home fronts (meaning housecleaning, and failing miserably), so community relations haven't been the highest priority.
But of course, when you make friends, they show up whether you wanted them to or not. So last night Junior and his little brother, plus Oldest Brady Boy, two of his sisters and his mom, all arrived on the doorstep within 15 minutes of each other. Junior needed help understanding the difference between to/two/too, your/you're and their/they're/there, which is something I have spent more than my share of time teaching people, so I couldn't say no when he asked for help. Even though the Bradys had already come by earlier asking me to help them with high school applications for Oldest Brady Boy. He's interested in the Noble Network schools, especially Rauner, since his cousins go there. I hear the Nobles will be opening three new schools next year, which will be the easiest to get into since there won't be siblings getting preference, but I don't know how to get those applications. Yet.
Oldest Brady Boy has his hands full this Thanksgiving--he has to write three 150-word essays, one for each of the Nobles for which he does have applications. Rauner asks him to talk about a teacher who has helped him succeed. The others ask about a friend (peer) or someone in the community who has helped you succeed.
Brady Mom is the first mom I've talked with who was really open about being uncomfortable writing much. She said she read the parent handbook in Spanish, but while filling out the application she was talking about how she doesn't write much and how happy she is her son can write more than she can. She did fine, though. The application was in English only, so I didn't expect she would be able to figure out how to fill it out without some explanation.
Meanwhile, Junior got his latest progress report yesterday from Golder. He has As and Bs in everything but--you guessed it--civics and physics, where he has Ds. I think he needs more help in both those subjects than he is getting. I need to email his civics teacher now to see if she has any ideas.
Supposedly Picasso, Junior and his brother are coming over tonight to make chocolate chip cookies with me. For the occasion, I just washed the kitchen floor for the first time in over a month. Let's just say I was a little embarrassed to have Brady Mom in here yesterday, but it was all fine in the end.
But of course, when you make friends, they show up whether you wanted them to or not. So last night Junior and his little brother, plus Oldest Brady Boy, two of his sisters and his mom, all arrived on the doorstep within 15 minutes of each other. Junior needed help understanding the difference between to/two/too, your/you're and their/they're/there, which is something I have spent more than my share of time teaching people, so I couldn't say no when he asked for help. Even though the Bradys had already come by earlier asking me to help them with high school applications for Oldest Brady Boy. He's interested in the Noble Network schools, especially Rauner, since his cousins go there. I hear the Nobles will be opening three new schools next year, which will be the easiest to get into since there won't be siblings getting preference, but I don't know how to get those applications. Yet.
Oldest Brady Boy has his hands full this Thanksgiving--he has to write three 150-word essays, one for each of the Nobles for which he does have applications. Rauner asks him to talk about a teacher who has helped him succeed. The others ask about a friend (peer) or someone in the community who has helped you succeed.
Brady Mom is the first mom I've talked with who was really open about being uncomfortable writing much. She said she read the parent handbook in Spanish, but while filling out the application she was talking about how she doesn't write much and how happy she is her son can write more than she can. She did fine, though. The application was in English only, so I didn't expect she would be able to figure out how to fill it out without some explanation.
Meanwhile, Junior got his latest progress report yesterday from Golder. He has As and Bs in everything but--you guessed it--civics and physics, where he has Ds. I think he needs more help in both those subjects than he is getting. I need to email his civics teacher now to see if she has any ideas.
Supposedly Picasso, Junior and his brother are coming over tonight to make chocolate chip cookies with me. For the occasion, I just washed the kitchen floor for the first time in over a month. Let's just say I was a little embarrassed to have Brady Mom in here yesterday, but it was all fine in the end.
Friday, October 24, 2008
A Happy October Surprise
Junior and his mom and I went to first quarter report card pickup and teacher conferences at Golder College Prep this afternoon. Before we left, Junior told me he was nervous. "What if I got bad grades?" he wondered aloud. "If I get bad grades my parents won't let me out for Halloween." He's hoping for an Xbox for Christmas and bad grades would really mess up his chances at that, too.
Junior's mom was teasing him about his bad case of nerves in the car. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" she asked him, smiling. When she wasn't teasing, she told me that she's seen a very positive change in Junior since he started at Golder. "Es muy hombre," she said. "He's very manly." I see it, too--he's matured some. Most importantly, he's stayed the nice boy he was before he hit puberty. Meanwhile, Junior's mom is really worried about Picasso, Junior's buddy who is now drifting away. "He's not listening to his mother. He doesn't care about his life. All he wants is to do graffiti," she said.
Junior had told me before today that he was working hard on improving his grades. His first couple of weeks were a little rocky. He had trouble remembering where he was supposed to be when and earned a slew of demerits for tardies and things like forgetting the socks for his gym uniform. He did get busted for talking in class, which to me is more serious. His advisor told us he's stopped earning so many demerits and they even offer chances to have some of your detentions come off your record if you can go two weeks without earning any more demerits. Junior might be just about ready to do that, now that he knows how things work over there.
Once we got his notebooks organized, I hadn't heard from him in a while about homework. I was hoping that meant good news. According to his report card, it mostly did. His overall GPA is a 2.45 and his worst grade was a D- in civics. I felt bad about that because I didn't stay on top of him enough about his work. He did his assignments, his teacher said, but sometimes it was clear he didn't understand the question and other times the quality of his writing was too weak to pass the assignment. That we could have worked on, but he didn't call me and I didn't nag him. He's been good about not bothering me because he knows I'm busy, but that's a course I could actually help him out with.
Overall, however, he did much better than I was afraid he might. Academically, I've been very afraid the work would be way too challenging and he wouldn't be supported. I was pleasantly surprised tonight to see that's less the case than I expected. There are co-teachers in his math and English classes and they just created new support classes for kids with IEPs. Each class--one for math and one for reading--has fewer than 10 students. The reading teacher said he'll be checking their progress quarterly to see if they've mastered enough skills to move back into the regular class. I don't know whether Junior will always need that kind of support or not, but I wanted to press them to see if this was intended as a warehouse or if it's a real effort to help them ramp up their skills. From what I heard tonight, I think it's enough of the latter to appreciate what they're doing, though checking in regularly with them to make sure they keep pushing him still seems like a good idea.
Social studies (civics) and science (physics--they do physics first) don't have co-teachers so I'm not surprised that's where he got his worst grades. His health and PE teacher was the most strict with him of all of them. She gave me a good idea--she was saying he needs to be reading aloud every night to improve his English. His six-month-old brother needs someone to read him a bedtime story. Junior is nominated. He says he'll do it. I think we should tell his teacher after he's done it for a couple of weeks. That would be a great two-fer; I've been thinking for months about how somebody needs to be reading to Junior's baby brother regularly in both Spanish and English.
The special ed case manager told me Golder never received Junior's IEP from Chavez. At this point, they would just as soon re-evaluate him as go through the hassle of trying to track down his IEP. Junior's mom was fine with that. Based on the lack of useful information I saw in Joey's IEP, I think re-evaluating Junior would tell us much more than his existing IEP would, wherever it is. I got most of his teachers' emails and some phone numbers. He's working out a plan to stay after school regularly and get help, especially with civics and maybe with physics, too.
Interestingly, I asked Junior today while we were waiting to speak to one of his teachers which of the 8th-graders on our block would really benefit from a place like Golder. "Oldest Brady Boy," he said right away, which is what I was thinking, too. "Maybe Peter Pan, but I don't know," he said, which is also what I was thinking. Peter Pan is supposed to come over tomorrow and talk to me about what high schools to apply to.
Man I wish they had cousin preference, not just sibling preference, in these lotteries. Oldest Brady Boy really needs a good school, and some of his cousins go to another of the Noble schools,
Rauner. Junior said he was talking about going to Curie but he probably can't get in with his current grades. From what one of his sisters told me, I don't think his grades are very good. But he's a good kid and smart--he needs to be someplace where they will get him to stop playing and focus. I bet he would grow a lot at a Noble, the way Junior is.
Afterwards, we stopped at Burger King to celebrate. That was where Junior wanted to eat. His mom doesn't really like hamburgers. Maybe next time we'll go back to Ocean Buffet.
Junior's mom was teasing him about his bad case of nerves in the car. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" she asked him, smiling. When she wasn't teasing, she told me that she's seen a very positive change in Junior since he started at Golder. "Es muy hombre," she said. "He's very manly." I see it, too--he's matured some. Most importantly, he's stayed the nice boy he was before he hit puberty. Meanwhile, Junior's mom is really worried about Picasso, Junior's buddy who is now drifting away. "He's not listening to his mother. He doesn't care about his life. All he wants is to do graffiti," she said.
Junior had told me before today that he was working hard on improving his grades. His first couple of weeks were a little rocky. He had trouble remembering where he was supposed to be when and earned a slew of demerits for tardies and things like forgetting the socks for his gym uniform. He did get busted for talking in class, which to me is more serious. His advisor told us he's stopped earning so many demerits and they even offer chances to have some of your detentions come off your record if you can go two weeks without earning any more demerits. Junior might be just about ready to do that, now that he knows how things work over there.
Once we got his notebooks organized, I hadn't heard from him in a while about homework. I was hoping that meant good news. According to his report card, it mostly did. His overall GPA is a 2.45 and his worst grade was a D- in civics. I felt bad about that because I didn't stay on top of him enough about his work. He did his assignments, his teacher said, but sometimes it was clear he didn't understand the question and other times the quality of his writing was too weak to pass the assignment. That we could have worked on, but he didn't call me and I didn't nag him. He's been good about not bothering me because he knows I'm busy, but that's a course I could actually help him out with.
Overall, however, he did much better than I was afraid he might. Academically, I've been very afraid the work would be way too challenging and he wouldn't be supported. I was pleasantly surprised tonight to see that's less the case than I expected. There are co-teachers in his math and English classes and they just created new support classes for kids with IEPs. Each class--one for math and one for reading--has fewer than 10 students. The reading teacher said he'll be checking their progress quarterly to see if they've mastered enough skills to move back into the regular class. I don't know whether Junior will always need that kind of support or not, but I wanted to press them to see if this was intended as a warehouse or if it's a real effort to help them ramp up their skills. From what I heard tonight, I think it's enough of the latter to appreciate what they're doing, though checking in regularly with them to make sure they keep pushing him still seems like a good idea.
Social studies (civics) and science (physics--they do physics first) don't have co-teachers so I'm not surprised that's where he got his worst grades. His health and PE teacher was the most strict with him of all of them. She gave me a good idea--she was saying he needs to be reading aloud every night to improve his English. His six-month-old brother needs someone to read him a bedtime story. Junior is nominated. He says he'll do it. I think we should tell his teacher after he's done it for a couple of weeks. That would be a great two-fer; I've been thinking for months about how somebody needs to be reading to Junior's baby brother regularly in both Spanish and English.
The special ed case manager told me Golder never received Junior's IEP from Chavez. At this point, they would just as soon re-evaluate him as go through the hassle of trying to track down his IEP. Junior's mom was fine with that. Based on the lack of useful information I saw in Joey's IEP, I think re-evaluating Junior would tell us much more than his existing IEP would, wherever it is. I got most of his teachers' emails and some phone numbers. He's working out a plan to stay after school regularly and get help, especially with civics and maybe with physics, too.
Interestingly, I asked Junior today while we were waiting to speak to one of his teachers which of the 8th-graders on our block would really benefit from a place like Golder. "Oldest Brady Boy," he said right away, which is what I was thinking, too. "Maybe Peter Pan, but I don't know," he said, which is also what I was thinking. Peter Pan is supposed to come over tomorrow and talk to me about what high schools to apply to.
Man I wish they had cousin preference, not just sibling preference, in these lotteries. Oldest Brady Boy really needs a good school, and some of his cousins go to another of the Noble schools,
Rauner. Junior said he was talking about going to Curie but he probably can't get in with his current grades. From what one of his sisters told me, I don't think his grades are very good. But he's a good kid and smart--he needs to be someplace where they will get him to stop playing and focus. I bet he would grow a lot at a Noble, the way Junior is.
Afterwards, we stopped at Burger King to celebrate. That was where Junior wanted to eat. His mom doesn't really like hamburgers. Maybe next time we'll go back to Ocean Buffet.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Junior Gets Organized
Well, I just spent the last three hours helping Junior get his Golder College Prep stuff organized. He had all his papers for all his classes stuffed into one binder. He gets a million years' worth of homework every night--that was the point, but now I have to help him. Thank God one of the older Brady girls came by and helped him with math. She's good at math; I wasn't.
They do have a system of office hours--teachers stay an hour after school ends (that's 4 to 5 p.m.) and make themselves available to help. Of course it is different teachers every day, but I looked through the list and starred all the ones I thought could help Junior. They do physics first at Golder, too, which may get a little rough for him as it goes on.
So far he likes it, he says. He's made six or seven friends already. He's not worried about getting in fights anymore. He says there are a couple of guys you can tell are gangbangers but they keep it on the downlow. He already got his first detention, which he has to serve on Friday. Older Brady Girl was giving him advice about the buses so he can make it to school on time--he was late the first day and then was late to class, which together added up to four demerits, one detention.
I read through all the syllabi and as many papers as I could find. One teacher gave her phone number and email on the syllabus, so I'll be contacting her. My worst fear is that they won't modify their curriculum enough for him to keep up and then throw him out for bad grades. I asked his mom if she had copies of his IEP and she said no but she would check with Chavez and Golder about getting them. I've never seen his IEP either and I'd just like to know what it says. His teachers seem pretty willing to help out but I know how swamped high school teachers get. His detention slip had a note from a teacher about the second tardy and the person used the wrong first name for him. That doesn't surprise me at the beginning of the year but I want to make sure Junior gets known as a nice kid who needs extra help before he gets frustrated or anything bad happens.
It took us three hours to do his homework, get notebooks and folders at Walgreen's and organize his stuff. He's going to have to go it alone again next week, but he gets that he needs to go to the office hours after school.
I went to his house to work on the paper organizing, and his parents invited me to join them all for dinner. We had quesadillas with chicken and some spicy beef dish. Then Junior came back to my house with me so I could get him some construction paper for a project he has to do.
On our way across the street, Yup-yup came by, kind of loud and frantic. "I'm hungry," he said. "I just need four dollars."
"I don't have it," I said, which was true. Junior's mom had given him $20 for school supplies but what we got cost $29. I paid for $20 and Junior picked up the $9. Between school expenses and child care for the younger two boys, this Golder College Prep venture is costing Junior's family an arm and a leg.
"But I can give you something to eat," I continued. "Just give me five minutes to take care of this guy," I said, pointing at Junior. Yup-yup went away.
"Man, I feel sorry for him," said Junior. "I bet he never even went to high school."
"You're right," I said. "I bet he never set foot in one."
On his way out, Junior thanked me again, profusely. He's a really good kid. He's thinking about commercial art as a career possibility. I've never really seen him draw, though, so I don't know if he's good or if he's just picking up the bug from Picasso. I'll have to see if we can hook Junior up with Marwen next summer.
Oh, so after Junior left, I scouted around and found a nice peach for Yup-yup. I went outside with it and he came to the gate. "I have something for you," he said. It was a painting of four leopards. I believe he said he liked this because he himself is like a panther. Whatever. I handed over the peach, thanked him for the painting and headed back in the house.
They do have a system of office hours--teachers stay an hour after school ends (that's 4 to 5 p.m.) and make themselves available to help. Of course it is different teachers every day, but I looked through the list and starred all the ones I thought could help Junior. They do physics first at Golder, too, which may get a little rough for him as it goes on.
So far he likes it, he says. He's made six or seven friends already. He's not worried about getting in fights anymore. He says there are a couple of guys you can tell are gangbangers but they keep it on the downlow. He already got his first detention, which he has to serve on Friday. Older Brady Girl was giving him advice about the buses so he can make it to school on time--he was late the first day and then was late to class, which together added up to four demerits, one detention.
I read through all the syllabi and as many papers as I could find. One teacher gave her phone number and email on the syllabus, so I'll be contacting her. My worst fear is that they won't modify their curriculum enough for him to keep up and then throw him out for bad grades. I asked his mom if she had copies of his IEP and she said no but she would check with Chavez and Golder about getting them. I've never seen his IEP either and I'd just like to know what it says. His teachers seem pretty willing to help out but I know how swamped high school teachers get. His detention slip had a note from a teacher about the second tardy and the person used the wrong first name for him. That doesn't surprise me at the beginning of the year but I want to make sure Junior gets known as a nice kid who needs extra help before he gets frustrated or anything bad happens.
It took us three hours to do his homework, get notebooks and folders at Walgreen's and organize his stuff. He's going to have to go it alone again next week, but he gets that he needs to go to the office hours after school.
I went to his house to work on the paper organizing, and his parents invited me to join them all for dinner. We had quesadillas with chicken and some spicy beef dish. Then Junior came back to my house with me so I could get him some construction paper for a project he has to do.
On our way across the street, Yup-yup came by, kind of loud and frantic. "I'm hungry," he said. "I just need four dollars."
"I don't have it," I said, which was true. Junior's mom had given him $20 for school supplies but what we got cost $29. I paid for $20 and Junior picked up the $9. Between school expenses and child care for the younger two boys, this Golder College Prep venture is costing Junior's family an arm and a leg.
"But I can give you something to eat," I continued. "Just give me five minutes to take care of this guy," I said, pointing at Junior. Yup-yup went away.
"Man, I feel sorry for him," said Junior. "I bet he never even went to high school."
"You're right," I said. "I bet he never set foot in one."
On his way out, Junior thanked me again, profusely. He's a really good kid. He's thinking about commercial art as a career possibility. I've never really seen him draw, though, so I don't know if he's good or if he's just picking up the bug from Picasso. I'll have to see if we can hook Junior up with Marwen next summer.
Oh, so after Junior left, I scouted around and found a nice peach for Yup-yup. I went outside with it and he came to the gate. "I have something for you," he said. It was a painting of four leopards. I believe he said he liked this because he himself is like a panther. Whatever. I handed over the peach, thanked him for the painting and headed back in the house.
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