My son, Sean, is in a play this fall. He's going to be Daddy Warbucks in the musical Annie. he's been very excited about it since he got the part in May.
He's also in band.
His band director has scheduled the holiday concert for Sunday, December 9th at 2 p.m. There is also a matinee of Annie at this exact same time. he has told Sean that the concert represents 40% of his grade. If he is not there, the highest grade he can get in the class (and also in choir, which he is also in) is 60%...a failing grade. Sean has never gotten anything lower than a 98% in band, and he is probably the best male singer at his school. If Sean fails band and choir, he will not be able to be on the XC ski team, where he is the second or third best skier. He will not be in National Honor Society. He will have a very good chance of not getting into a decent college (unless he gets into Northwestern early decision, which would happen before the 9th...but I'm not sure we can count on that). the band director is being a total asshole about this, with no flexibility at all. (The choir director said it sounded like a reasonable excuse to her, but she is not the chair of the music department.)
Let me just mention that there is almost nothing that happens at that school that my son does not put his heart and soul into, that he is always exhausted from doing all the school work and community volunteering and sports and band and choir and what have you that they ask of him. He has never said no to anything. He is currently ranked 5th in his class. he's a great kid. he loves theater more than anything, and he cannot miss a performance.
My question is: why would the school do this to a kid as smart and motivated and gung ho as Sean?
I dedicate this song by the Bell-Rays to the pin heads at his school. It's much too good for them.
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3 comments:
There has been some relenting. Sean will not, in fact, be flunking two classes because he misses the holiday concert. So it looks like I should retract the "asshole" part and I would take down the video, except I like the song a whole lot.
Man, I was just coming here to say the guy sounded like a massive fucking asshole; glad there's been some relenting, because that was RIDICULOUS.
You know, the one thing that was cool about it was that a lot of people at the school seemed to recognize that it was ridiculous. I had one of the nicest conversations ever with one of Sean's guidance counselors, who basically said that she was not going to allow this to happen. So he's going to miss the concert with no penalty now. I talked to him on the phone this afternoon and he sounded more alive and happy than he has in days.
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