Teachers and Emails and Websites. Oh My!

Now that we're at the end of the school year, I'm completely out of steam.  Yesterday, Braden told me he got a 44% on a vocabulary test I never knew he had, and my response was little more than, "Bummer.  Well... we're almost there, kid!" with a firm pat on the back.

A few months ago, I might have lectured him, written the teacher and asked for a retest, told Braden he needs to tell me when he has these tests so I can help.  Today, I'm all, "Whatever.  Just pass the class and I'll be happy." 

You see, Braden has four teachers.  Each has a website.  Because he doesn't write homework in his agenda (and the teachers won't see to it that he does), this means I have to check four websites for daily updates and homework assignments.  A couple of those sites aren't updated on a regular basis, so getting up-to-date information is a crapshoot. 

In addition to the four sites for his teachers, I have to check a website for his grades and another for his force-books-down-the-kids-throat reading grades.  Then there's Learning Ally, which he is supposed read with every night.  This is a total of seven websites I'm expected to stay on top of... just for my son. 

Kaelin has a total of three websites.  So we're now up to ten websites I have to check to stay on top of the kids' grades and homework assignments. 

[This is where I'd like to recognize parents who have more children under your roofs than I do.  For three kids my son's age, that would be 21 websites!  TWENTY-ONE!  To you parents, I send my most heartfelt fist bump.  You guys are awesome!!]

At the start of the year, I did try.  But I think I quit some time before Christmas... though I may have already been overwhelmed by Halloween.  I'm really not sure.  I just know that every time I wrote a teacher and said, "if this was so important, why didn't I know about it?" he came back with, "if you checked my website, you'd have known."  What can I say to that? 

We parents of dyslexics can argue till we're blue in the face about how teachers need to make sure our kids write in their agendas or how we need reminders, the occasional friendly heads-up regarding major projects and deadlines.  We can argue that our kids understandably hate writing, that they have memory problems and communication shortfalls, and that we need help helping them.  None of it will do any good because while we have two or three kids to manage, they have thirty times that number and other cranky parents.  Both sides could go round for days about who needs to do what or what's fair.

What it boils down to is that teachers have websites now.  Even if those sites are vague and crappy, we are expected to check all of them.  All of them.  Daily. 

Oh, and before you have the chance to ask me why I didn't just print up the assignments every Sunday afternoon before the school week began, I want you to know I was doing that at the start of the year.  But:

• The dog ate the print-outs.
• The cat peed on them.
• The printer broke.
• The printer ran out of ink.
• They were too hard to track.
• Too much paper to keep organized.
• I had to wash my hair that day.
• I shouldn't have to check so many websites.

Anyhow, if you flash forward to today, when we enter the last month of school (thank god), organization and motivation have gone completely out the window.  I think Kaelin went to school with one pink striped sock and one orange sock.  I don't care too much because, hey, they were clean and she was wearing jeans, so nobody will see them anyhow. 

This year, I'm limping across the finish line and I'm dragging the kids behind me. 

And no sooner did I get that last sentence typed out than my phone notified me I had a new email:

I'd like to request a conference at your convenience because Kaelin seems to be struggling with tasks that were previously easy for her. 

*sigh!*

Twenty-nine days, my friends.  Only twenty-nine more days.