The Boy gets his report card tomorrow.

Yesterday, he said that his teacher told the class that only one person is getting all “A”s on their report card.

This bothered him. Not because he thought it would or wouldn’t be him, but because he felt like a lot of kids in his class had been paying attention and working really hard.

“How can there be only one of them getting all ‘A’s?” he asked.

We can check his grades online, and so I did (without telling him). They are dated January 24th. The grading period ended January 20th.

He has all “A”s except for… reading.

He has a B+ in Reading.

Specifically, he has an 89.94%.

And they are giving him a B+ instead of an A-.

(His other grades are one A- and three “A”s. He has a 94% average across all 5 subjects.)

~ AYFKMWTS? ~

I’ve bored you enough with stories about The Boy and books, so I won’t explain to you how absurd this is, except to say this:

• This is a kid who read by the side door light when we were driving back from Massachusetts at night until he was so tired he was about to fall asleep.

• This is a kid who asks the teacher if he can stay in to read during recess.

• The school has an Advanced Reader program where the kids get “points” for extra reading. They are called “AR Points”

• He has 125 “AR Points” which is the most in the entire school.

• The second highest in the school is someone who has 87 “AR Points.”

But I guess that’s not worth 0.06%.

(Or, you know, how about rounding? Why do 3rd graders need GPAs accurate to two decimal places?)

This is also the kid whose teacher has repeatedly said is the only one she doesn’t have to get after to do his work, pay attention, etc. There are apparently several kids in his class who are in constant trouble. This has been the year of school that he has enjoyed the least, and I am quite sure it is because of the (mis)behavior of other kids in the class.

We have a friend who was a substitute teacher in his class one day and she said that he was the only one doing what he was supposed to, and all the other kids were “absolutely awful.”

He came out of school one day as angry as I have ever seen him. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that they had a [different] sub. and all of the kids were being really rude and it made him mad.

But that’s not worth 0.06%.

~ Perspective ~

Yeah, I know, it’s one B+ in one quarter in 3rd grade. It’s not like it’s going to keep him from getting into a decent college. But at the end of the year they have an award for kids who have gotten all “A”s all year. He has always been on that list. Now he won’t be. Because of 0.06%.

(Hrm, on second thought, maybe he will be, it might be that they take the average for the entire year not for each report card. I hope so.)

I showed the grade to The Wife who said “This is going to crush him.”

To which I replied, “We shouldn’t let it.”

But all we can do is soften the blow.

~ Hrm… or maybe they’re wrong? ~

I noticed another place on the school website which allowed me to see all of his grades in his Reading class. I’ve been running some numbers and I think they might actually be wrong. (See image above.) I think he actually deserves a 92.93%.

I have no idea why 3 of them are blank/missing. He did miss some school because he was sick, but we picked up his homework for him and he did it all.

p.s. — that’s Soulver which lets me write notes around the math and it does the calculations for me.

p.p.s — shut up it is completely normal for me to have double checked the math. IS TOO.