<p>S is rising senior at boarding school (he's been there since 9th grade). This week they had to put in their preferences for next year's dorm room. As you would imagine, seniors get priority for this. He has been in the same dorm for soph and jr. years; this year, he and all of his friends put in requests for a different dorm. All of them got placed in the requested dorm; he did not. The dorm head likes him and likes having him in his dorm; we feel certain that Dorm Head requested that S stay where he is. When he approached S to ask what he thought of the assignment, he told him that he was very unhappy - all of his friends from current dorm are either graduating or are moving to the other dorm. Dorm head's response was "well, you made friends here before; I'm sure you'll make friends again." At this point, he doesn't want to make new soph/jr friends; it's his last year and he wants to be with the friends that he's already made.
He sent an email to the person in charge of rooming assignments, but has not gotten a response (3 days ago). He just sent him another one, saying that he would really like to meet with him today to discuss this. He has figured a way that he can still be in the "new" dorm.<br>
As parents, do we get involved here? I am willing to wait and see what happens after he talks to the person in charge of room assignments, but if the answer is "no", I don't feel it's fair that we should let it go. He is an excellent student and citizen of the school; we pay full freight for him (not that that should matter, but still...); and he's a 4 year rising senior.<br>
I like the dorm head and he has been very good to S; he is also one of his teachers and a coach - we don't want any hard feelings with him. But I do feel that he put his own preference ahead of that of his student.
If it doesn't work out, do we contact the person in charge with our concern/complaint and CC the headmaster? Do we just contact the headmaster directly? Or something else? I don't want to be a helicopter parent, but I really think that it's not fair!
Any advice???</p>
<p>what a disaster. so sorry. if it is that important to your son and he does not get some help, i would get involved. it could change his perception of all four years if he feels isolated his senior year. he has worked his tail off and should have as much enjoyment his final year as possible. my 2 cents</p>
<p>my2sunz - I can imagine how frustrated your son must feel. Senior year is a special time and a last chance to bond with close friends. </p>
<p>A few thoughts:
Did your son express interest in being a proctor/prefect/whatever his school calls it? Perhaps he is being kept in his old dorm for that purpose?</p>
<p>Does your son intend to use this dorm head/teacher/coach for college recommendations? If so, I would hesitate to burn any bridges as it seems this adult holds your son in high esteem.</p>
<p>Personally, I would try to let your son handle it. He should talk to the dorm head, the housing person, his advisor, etc. </p>
<p>If all fails, sometimes things happen for a reason and it will be a valuable lesson to your son to make the best out of it. In my own life, I’ve found that when life takes a turn that I did not desire, sometimes it is for the best. Cliches exist for a reason. A few that come to mind:
When one door shuts, another one opens.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.</p>
<p>I know you probably didn’t intend it as such, but I would definitely refrain from the “paying full freight” thing if you decide to get involved on your son’s behalf. It should have zero bearing on the situation.</p>
<p>Agree with creative1. Your son is senior enough at the School to handle this problem on his own…win lose or draw.</p>
<p>I would not get involved. I would bet that there is a reason for the placement decisions. It sounds as if he is already taking steps to rectify the situation, if possible. Even if he remains separated from this group of friends, it would be a better outcome than to have a parent “fix” things.</p>
<p>Hi …thanks for the quick (and thoughtful) replies.
First, to answer creative1’s questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Prefects have already been selected for next year (S is not one), so that is not why (but good question!)</p></li>
<li><p>Likely that he would not be using this teacher for any letters of rec. (even if there were no dorm issues…)</p>
<ul>
<li>Although I didn’t make it clear in my original post, I would never refer to the “full freight” thing as part of a discussion on this matter with the school…just mentioned it on this post. I guess it really shouldn’t matter (and I did kind of allude to that); didn’t mean to sound crass or bully-ish! :-)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>At this point, I would like him to try and resolve this on his own (which he is working on on his own)…but for some reason he has had disappointments in past years with the rooming lottery and we did not intervene and always wondered if we had piped up if it could have been better. I really hoped that this year would not be an issue for him! </p>
<p>I am a big proponent of the “things happen for a reason” school of thought; it’s just hard when it’s your child! And he is already dealing with the disappointment of not being chosen as a prefect… 
Would like for something to work out the way he wants at the end of the year (yes, I know life doesn’t always work that way :-)</p>
<p>I’d get involved - you are a senior parent, have paid tuition, and seniors do get perks! My daughter’s school has senior only dorms, all the others are mixed classes. It has been a great experience for her to do that final bonding with her class.</p>
<p>You haven’t mentioned whether your son would even want you to get involved. My 9th grader would be mortified if I got involved in an issue like this, so I wouldn’t even consider it, but every kid is different. </p>
<p>I think that there’s a good chance that he’s not going to get into the new dorm. So, I’d be careful about the message he’s getting from you and wouldn’t reinforce that this is a great tragedy—I’d sympathize, I’d say I know it’s frustrating, it’s too bad, but I know he can deal with it however it comes out.</p>
<p>^good point…
I wouldn’t intervene unless he wanted us to (if we decided to go that route); and he IS trying on his own. I’m glad to get opinions, but I’m going to wait and see what happens first before deciding what to do. I still keep coming back to why the preference of the dorm head (wanting to keep a good kid on his dorm) supercedes what the student wants (as a senior - who are told throughout their early years at the school that they will get preference in this area when they get to be seniors).<br>
Also, though I didn’t mention this in the OP, he is not an outgoing kid and isn’t one of those kids (like my younger one) who finds it easy to make friends. He’s forged these friendships over the years and I hate that he’ll be the one isolated from them (I know not all the time, but it’s not the same as living in the same dorm).</p>
<p>As a senior, most schools would expect that your son would be an advocate for himself. However, gently alerting the the staff people that he is lobbying with that you support his efforts might be a reasonable middle ground. Boarding schools loath parents (but like parent money) so one would not want thier dislike of you to wash back on the issue at hand.</p>
<p>I am sorry that you felt that you needed to apologize for your “full freight” comment. I appreciate that we who actually work hard and pay for these schools are perceived as the bad guys with a dirty secret of having paid full tuition, which we are suppose to keep a secret, but that all gets so old. Parent who are paying for all this should not have to apologize.</p>
<p>Are you sure that he wasn’t moved because the current dorm head wanted him to stay? I find this hard to believe. It’s common and reasonable for dorm heads NOT to let a kid into their dorm (for a reason), but I’ve never heard of dorm heads “forcing” a kid to stay when he wants to move somewhere else. I’d want to hear from the Dean why he wasn’t moved. I would also recommend that you let your son handle it for now; intervene only if he isn’t getting anywhere after talking to the Dean in charge of rooming assignments.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that’s why (as Dorm Head has expressed this to us at spring conference day), but you make a good point that I should know for a fact what the reasoning was. I think at this point, if the housing dean doesn’t work it out with S, it is reasonable for us to contact him and find out why he was not moved. If indeed it was because Dorm Head didn’t want him moved, I think that’s enough reason to have us step in and try to get it changed.</p>
<p>Is the process transparent like a lottery system or is it less so where students give preferences and the chips fall where they may?</p>