I am a asian parent. My child will be High school 9 th grade. I couldn’t speak English fluently that I can’t participate school well. My child is awesome in academic but she didn’t get special award during the middle school and graduation. The school gives PTA children awards it sadden me. My child applied high school trial team but rejected, the president said that my child eill take,so much hard course at 9th grade that is overwhelming and overload at work. Its cause ridicules but more ridicules thing is that students passed are PTA child or team president neighbor ( team judge was theam president grand father and this time is his first try after real teacher quit) . I know all students,being accepted since elementary school. They are always benefited by school even not smart, they can’t get gpa award but get special award things some of them even are basic in state standard test. I am so angry. Our elementary school abolished reading count since my child was top of the school every years. How can I solve this problem? I feel racism or their favoritism.
Which state are you in? Does your child have out of school activities? I wouldn’t depend on the school for extracurriculars. It does sound like they are run poorly.
I wouldn’t worry about middle school awards. They are meaningless.
Are freshman usually on the Trial team?
Can you talk to the Principal about how students are chosen and if it is a fair system?
For example, do they have a rubric they use?
Yes. They use a rubric but they didn’t tell about score she got. Just president of trial said she is overwhelming. I live in California and we are attend in Orange district. I know my complain is like try to break big rock with a egg . They are very strong. What can I do?
I agree with bopper; find out how the team is chosen. If you ask the principal or team coach and they can’t tell you how the team is chosen or why your daughter was left off the team, they may decide for themselves that it was unfair. I would phrase it as wanting to know on what criteria the team is chosen because your daughter would like to improve for next year’s try-outs. If you seem accusatory or upset, it may make things worse.
Unfortunately, in some places this is just the way it is. Top achievers get ignored in favor of average students. When they get to college it all evens out. The kids who never truly earned anything don’t do well and the kids who worked for everything tend to do well and finally get recognized.
I would replace “some” with “most.” While you can certainly ask how members are chosen for a team, you should assume that the coach’s decision will never be overruled. Many schools have a clause in their handbook saying something like:
Calling other kids “not smart” is not helping your cause. To be included in things, children and adults also have to be likable, so it goes beyond stats. People that are involved in a school are giving their time or money to help other’s kids succeed. There are sometimes benefits to that, it is how the world works in anything one does. Some parent’s that work aren’t there to volunteer in class or run activities like other parents do - they are making money for their family, while others help their kids by volunteering for no monetary benefit. So sometimes the volunteers get perks to balance out the benefits, and they should. Takes a village. It doesn’t sound like you want to be part of the community and just want to be angry at them. It may be better to let your kid handle his school stuff and you find other interests if you don’t want to be involved, since being involved at this level causes such anger. If you want things, sometimes you have to be nice, give back, and be involved.
I’ll add my ideas too.
- PTA awards are generally character type awards. Criteria is often subjective and mostly based on whether the kid is helpful, cooperative, responsible and likeable. It is not based on grades.
- Sometimes my kids get awards and sometimes they don’t. There is very little they can do to change this since most awards are primarily based on subjective factors. This is also not something I can control. What I tell my kids is that they know and we know what kind of students they are, regardless of whether it is recognized by an award.
- I have no idea how the trial team is determined. No one is turned away from our school’s academic teams. But I can tell you that kids here will not vote in officers who are arrogant, overly brag, or drone on about their grades. I’ve heard that play out multiple times with a student in my daughter’s grade.
While the term team applies to both academic and sports teams, I was referring to it as academic team such as speech team, mock trial team, WYSE, JETS etc. The local high school had no cut sports like football. Yep, lots of bench warmers but anyone who wanted on the team was on the team. The academic teams had nothing in the school handbook as to how the team was chosen. Some academic teams were open to any grade level and others were normally just upperclassmen since they didn’t want a freshman making a senior look bad because they were outscored by a freshman. Sometimes the team sponsor listed to the upperclassmen and other times they looked more at will this freshman help make the school look better in state competitions.
If you can’t beat them, join them!
Seriously… consider joining the PTA! Anyone can! Most of them are desperate - really desperate - for volunteers. No one will care that your English isn’t quite fluent. They’ll find something you can do to help out AND feel comfortable doing AND that will work with your schedule. In turn, you will often learn school news ahead of uninvolved parents, have frequent access to school administrators, have a network of other parents to answer questions and offer support or advice, and most importantly, send a powerful message to your daughter about the importance of helping the community and “giving back”(she already knows the importance of a good education and that you care about hers). There will be no guarantee your student will get an award, but no longer will you feel it was because you were left out or discriminated against.
A very high number of the honor roll students in DD’s junior high had PTA parents. You could tell by reading the directory and comparing names. That DID NOT happen because of favoritism. It was due to many different sacrifices made by people who care enough about education and helping the community, despite working full time jobs, caring for sick or elderly parents, raising multiple kids (some not in the same school), etc. Parents who went out of their way to support the school often raise students who follow their example.
School fundraise isn’t theirs. They are just a leader and we donate under them. The public schools fund come from government not their pocket money. Favoritism is immoral. Volunteer has to end as a volunteer If they want to get benefits from volunteer instead of money? Why they call it volunteer? I want they should make thier own team , Don’t mess up school team with corruption. I think the school didn’t establish for small group of people. And not smart students means they don’t get grade good.
So…what IS your rising ninth grader doing? Sure,y there is some activity or something that your kid enjoys, and participates in…right?
I hate repeating this story, but my younger child graduated 8th in her class…top 5%. She NEVER…repeat that…NEVER received a school award except from her music teacher. Despite her outstanding academic record, she never got one academic award…not one. Oh, and I should add…the other top 10 students received TONS of awards over the years, often getting multiple awards in a single year each.
You know…it didn’t matter a bit in the long term. The kid had some great ECs outside of school where she did get some awards.
Oh…and our older kid…who wasn’t a top student also never got awards at school either.
Both were state ranked musicians by ninth grade…and those awards were what went on college applications.
Frankly, I think the awards given by the teachers at school are highly overrated. They are sort of a popularity contest…same kids get the awards all the time.
So…what does your kid do? Is she a musician? Sports? School plays? Artist? School paper? What?
Spend your time and energy finding great activities for your kid. If that’s outside of school…so be it.
You are expecting change where it is not likely to happen soon. So…bark up a different tree!
My son never received a single award from his high school, either. To be honest, he never cared about any of these high school awards. When we went to the banquet that honored high school graduates, all of his top 10 friends received plaques of some kind. He didn’t care. What he did get was a bunch of local, state and national level awards and honors – all EC’s outside of his school – that we believe played a huge role in his successful college admissions. No one at his high school knew about any of these outside achievements, except very few who were close to him. So, the point is to don’t sweat the small stuff and, as @thumper1 appropriately advised, “bark up a different tree!”
Your child will be on 9th grade and is taking a lot of difficult classes. After looking at that class load, the team coordinator decided that your child should not be on the team this year. Trust the judgment of that person. If that person has been coaching for a while, that person knows how much time and energy are needed for the team, and how mich time and energy are needed for the classes your child will be taking. Next year when your child has demonstrated the ability to handle those hard classes, your child could well be accepted onto the team.
A lot of high school activities require that students work their way into certain positions. For example, my daughter was the Stage Manager her senior year, but she started on the general stage crew, and worked her way up through light crew to head of the light crew to stage manager. If your child is serious about getting onto the trial team, there probably are other activities, or even related classes, that could help her get there.
Please stop worrrying about other students’ grades. Unless you see their report cards, you can’t be certain that your information is accurate.
Lastly, help your child understand that grades and hard courses aren’t the only things that matter in life. A good heart and strong social skills will take them a long way. My own daughter, the former high school stage manager, now professional stage lighting designer and MFA candidate, did not have perfect grades in high school or in college. She would be the first to tell you that while her artistic skills may get her an initial gig, she gets called back for the second, third, and fourth because of her strong work ethic and good people skills.
Previous posts indicate a trend for thinking other kids aren’t as smart. I would quit feeling threatened by everyone else and let your kids achievements speak for themselves.
“My acceptance?”
If a kid is good enough they will be recognized and chosen, it isn’t all about corruption. It is about having the qualities that is being sought in that award, that team, that college, that job, etc.
The school gives all A grade from first trimester to last but the kids accepted didn’t receive any award for academic all,A or A plus B that recognizes people how they aren’t good at academic. Proved. My daughter wasn’t accepted that is,ok but anyother chance she also couldn’t,be accepted because of corruption.
@Jayku You have been leveling accusations against the people in your school’s community. Corruption, favoritism, racism, etc.
What evidence do you have to prove that? None, except for what you see and hear. If you want to make changes, then be a part of the school community. Like many have suggested, join the PTA.
I would just let your daughter get used to the freshman year courseload before joining clubs such as mock trial. The president is right, mock trial is a very time-consuming extracurricular.
This is not corruption.
You need to LET THIS GO.
Your daughter is not even IN ninth grade yet. Many groups give preference to upperclassmen, or kids with experience with a certain activity.
Surely your kiddo has some other activities she likes.
Grades don’t matter one bit for these things.
I realize you come from a culture that might weigh grades as the be all end all. But in this country, there are lots of other considerations beside grades that enter into decisions.
My very very strong daughter received no awards in high school. So what? It hasn’t affected her one single bit and she is now 30. She is pursuing a great career, and has had many opportunities both while in school and after.
Frankly, getting all A’s should NOT be the only consideration for activities.
Your kid will be fine.
Can you let the your daughter grow from this? What are her other interests? What else does she do beside academic pursuits? Or is it all grades, grades, grades.
IIRC, at one point you wanted her to take the SAT as an 8th grade.
This kid is a young teen. She also needs to grow socially, and interactively. She needs to understand that she probably won’t be selected for everything she wants. She needs to look at her interests and find multiple ways to pursue them.
Wonderful expression in English: Is this the hill you want to die on? It means, have some perspective.
9th grade isn’t all about what you want. It won’t start for 2-3 months. You can load her with tough courses or drop some courses to free her schedule for more extracurriculars.
But you cannot go accusing folks of corruption and expect to be liked. You cannot expect your daughter to get privileges when you make others angry. Think about it. Do her a favor and let her talk to the GCwhen she starts 9th grade. Let her handle this.
It sounds like your daughter has overloaded on tough classes for freshman year. I would rethink that. The coach of that team may be right. When starting high school, it is good to allow time and room for some down time, and for extracurriculars that can be enjoyed with others- versus many AP’s etc. Let her enjoy high school without undue stress. Ironically, that approach (and having time to pursue interests versus grades, and learn to be a good friend) are more helpful for college admissions. But that should NOT be the point.
I would take the coach’s opinion as a helpful one and reduce the difficulty or number of courses your daughter is taking next year. Then she can participate in that team or other activities.