Letter to the teacher

I sent this letter to Rocky's homeroom teacher this morning:

Rocky has not been availing himself of all his educational opportunities and has not be completing his classwork. Since he does his homework, I am assuming that there are other factors at school which are, ahem, interfering with his education.

After a long and confusing conversation with Rocky in which he finally revealed the reasons for his less-than-stellar performance in his classes (along with numerous other facts which were apparently intended as red herrings to distract me), I have the following concerns (and this is just the list about school).

I do not have an email address for many of his teachers (and I like you), so would you please forward this email to his subject teachers?

Language Arts: Rocky has been showing a poor performance on POD's, which are given at the end of class. He said (after careful cross examination and considerable head banging on my part) that he is in a hurry to get these done so he can read quietly. While I am thrilled that Rocky is enthusiastic about reading and impressed and a bit amazed he wants to do anything quietly, I emphasized to him the importance of prioritizing work. He and I came up with three options, which I told him he needed to discuss with his teacher. First, he could be moved to the front of the class for class so he won't lose focus for the POD (fewest popular votes and a wide-eyed "yikes" expression). Second, he could be given extra time to complete the POD by not being permitted to read quietly but could sit quietly until class was over and/or he completed the work correctly and had it checked (needless to say, that wasn't a favorite, either). Or he could do the work correctly the first time and then read. I will be tracking to see if he does any better.

Keyboarding: Rocky is taking this during the last period of the day. Unfortunately, the timing on his meds is sketchy there, and he might be lacking focus during this time. We see that he did poorly on the Internet safety assignment, and we would like to give him ample opportunity to learn this essential information, so could we please have access to the assignment, either online or on paper? If this does not change the grade, that is fine; as you know, I am a firm believer that education is its own reward, and if the paper is blank and he needs to start over, it will be an excellent chance for a review.

And, saving the best for last: Rocky is at a table with Bobby for science labs. He and Bobby are great friends. They goof around. He reports they are not showing off for the girls at the table, as he doesn't like them that way, but since he is not always an accurate reporter in his own affairs d'amour, then who knows. I told him that, if he and Bobby didn't work together and his grades didn't come up, then I would request that a third girl be exchanged for Bobby, leaving him the only rooster in the henhouse, so to speak. Or, after living with his sisters, it might be a capon in the henhouse.

Anyway, Rocky's dad just accused me of composing War and Peace (little did he realize the irony of THAT), so I will stop.