I'm wondering what interventions your school employs to help
these kids? One answer you've gotten assumes the problem is a
lack of motivation to - buckle down?
Is this a new school? In the old days, parents put kids in
private schools believing their kids would have smaller
classrooms and get more attention from their teachers -
teachers they believed were more motivated to work with kids as
they sought out the smaller place that was a private school.

Things have changed ... only the special needs private schools
still tout themselves as places where kids will get special
attention - but parents still come to your school and mine
thinking we're going to do something different for their kid
and so they pay what - here, $26,000 a year(!) for us to do
basically the same as any other school - but we're got this
lovely campus and we still do have somewhat smaller class sizes.

I'm wondering if in these new times we live in we might as
schools be able to return to what was once our mission - doing
something more, doing something extra, trying to be schools
that do more than boot kids out the door when they don't pass
muster.

Here I'm trying to get my school to have a different 'track'
within the school. Do we want these kids to struggle all the
way through? Unless your admission office is perfect, ours lets
kids in with some weak skills. How do kids with weak skills
keep up with those who have strong skills?

It comes down to two things - why are your kids who are doing
poorly doing so? What's their skill level? Do they need more
support than they're getting? Do they need a different
curriculum or a 'track' just for them until they're back on the
regular track?

And how motivated is your school to live up to the older
tradition of private schools that was a tradition of working
with kids and not booting them out the door but for big time
behavioral issues?

All that said, I'm still amazed that in these times any
administrator thinks this is time to formulate a successful
'boot you out the door' policy. How large an endowment does
your school have?? I see these times as an opportunity to
return to the old tradition and try to be schools of excellence
with teachers committed to being the same and going the extra
mile or two or more.

> I teach at a private elementary/middle school in southern
> CA, and we've always threatened an academic probation
> policy in the past, but we never followed through. The
> students continue doing miserably year after year, holding
> back the other students, and they really aren't getting the
> quality education that they deserve and could get in a
> public school with a special needs program. We've designed
> a committee to write up an academic probation policy for
> the fall that we will stick to; students not performing up
> to our standards will be dismissed from the school; this is
> one of the perks of a private school! My question is,
> would anyone be willing to share their school's academic
> probation policy? Do your parents sign a contract at the
> beginning of the year with certain steps to be followed or
> attained? Thanks so much for your time. This is my summer
> project, and I want to get it out of the way!

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