Doofus

Me: It's nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Parent. Allow me to introduce the team to you....

Me: We are meeting today because you are concerned about Doofus.

Parents: Yes, we want to know when the school is going to do something for our son.

Me: Can you please tell me exactly what you want?

Parents: Yes, we want some special accommodations for our son's ADD. He has ADD for crying out loud.

Me: We are emailing you daily with updates, providing you with weekly progress reports, and allowing extended time on assignments. We have 125 students on our team. No other student or parent receives daily updates from us regarding grades or missing assignments. All data...including benchmarks, state standardized tests, reading level tests, etc. indicate that Doofus consistently performs above grade level. We are providing accommodations appropriate for a diagnosis of ADD.

Parents: Those tests are crap.

Me: Um, ok. Well, again please let me ask you what you would like from us.

Parents: We want to know what you're going to do for our son. We are worn out.

Me Thinking: (So really you want us to rear your son for you because you're tired...)

Parents: We want an action plan.

Me: Ok, first...let's go over some of Doofus' work. As you can see on this writing assignment Doofus did not write a final draft. His rough draft and final draft are exactly the same, word for word. I returned the assignment to him and asked that he re-submit his final draft after some revisions. I explained what revisions he should make and how to make those revisions effectively. Yet, he handed in a third copy...with the first two copies and again, the assignment was exactly the same word for word.

Parents: And how am I supposed to know this? You never called me to say that the rough draft and the final draft should be different!!! I saw that he did the assignment, but if you don't tell me that they're supposed to be different then how do you expect me to know this?

Me: Well Mrs. Parent, all assignments are posted on my web site with instructions.

Parent: I don't have time for that. You should have emailed that information to me.

Me: I don't have time to email something to you when it's already on my web site. I'm sorry.

(The idiom, "The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree" seems to apply here. What idiot doesn't know, or can't figure out, the purpose of a rough and final draft???)

However, I would be happy to explain the difference between a written rough draft and a final draft. I'll include that information in the action plan.