Dealing with a not so bad student

This past week has been one of my busiest. I am on my second week of teaching 7th and 8th grade girl’s and boy’s classes for a total of four classes. I have had a few students between all the grades who at one time or another have struggled with doing work in and out of the class. Most of these issues were easily dealt with by communicating with parents using “pink slips” which I will describe in a moment. However, I have an 8th grade boy that is beginning to slack off. He has been an average student but for some reason lately he is showing little interest during class. He also has started missing homework assignments. I quietly tried to encourage him in his work during class and after school I tried to casually talk to him, but it was obvious he didn’t really care to talk to me. I asked other teachers how he was doing and they said he was doing okay in their classes. So for now I am going to keep my eye on him and if he continues to miss assignments I will go beyond the present method of dealing with missing assignments, which is “pink slips”. When a student does not have an assignment they fill out and sign a pink slip that goes in their file, they also receive a sticker that must be signed by a parent that explains the missing assignment. Everyday the student fails to bring in a parent signature they have lunch detention. My next step in dealing with this student will be a student conference followed by a phone call to the parents.

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