Tardy

My daughter’s a little upset. As a result of getting a low grade in one class, she’s got two problems. First, she didn’t get on the honor roll for the last marking period. This is the first time that she hasn’t been on the honor roll since she started school. That wouldn’t be so bad, but it also means that during the current marking period – the last one of her high school career – she won’t qualify for ‘senior privileges’. Mostly, she doesn’t care about that, but one of them is the right to skip the first period of school, and she likes that a lot. Now, she has to be there. She’s going to try to make the case that it’s just one class, and that her average is still a high B – but we’re talking about high school administrators here – the sort of people who are comfortable using words like ‘tardy’ and ‘privilege’. (Did you know that having a locker is a ‘privilege’?) They like things cut-and-dried, black-and-white. Well, of course, we're sorry, but those are the rules, there's nothing we can do. Pursed lip smile.  So, I’m not sure. Any reasonable person – but these aren’t reasonable people. 

More importantly, she’s afraid that the drop in her GPA will be seen as the classic ‘senior slump’, and colleges have been known to revoke acceptances for that.  I think it unlikely – again, it’s one grade, and she’s still passing the course; her other grades are fine – but who knows?  The real killer is that she's got the lower grade because she thought it would help her to take the a challenging course on english literature now rather than waiting for college. Colleges like that, seeing you push yourself.  Yeah, they likely do.  Not too thrillled when it means lower grades, though.

So she’s a little glum, this morning.