Stress!!!

 Today I scheduled 7:45am Bradley called me, angry and almost in tears.  The school contacted him and told him that one of the courses they assigned him to graduate suddenly will not count, and he had to complete and entire course credit in chemistry to be able to graduate.
The person who came up with this is the same assistant principal that we have been communicating with to make sure that everything was done that needed to be done for him to graduate on time.  I have spoken with her on a regular basis for months, and this never came up before today.
To say that I was angry is a massive understatement.  It took four calls to the school and the threat of showing up in her office to get a return call, but she finally called back, with the principal and school superintendent on speaker-phone.  That tactic backfired on her pretty badly.  She started out apologizing and said that the class instructor has known since last December that this was a problem.  What I didn’t understand, and what I questioned, is why this has never come up between her and me before now.  In February, we had a two hour sit-down meeting where she had his complete high school transcript, and SUGGESTED the course that is now useless.  She had no ready answer for that.  
She did say that Brad didn’t turn in his work until the school deadline and that she might have caught it earlier had he done so.  He turned in this course, Food Science, several weeks ago, she just hadn’t looked at it, so it had no bearing on this situation other than she wasn’t keeping up with what was going on with the student in question; my kid.  Oh, but no….Mr. Frazier is not tolerant of these kinds of mistakes, and then attempting to blame it on the student.  While  I agree that Brad could have applied himself sooner, the fact is that he DID apply himself and he DID get the work turned in by the schools deadline date as outlined in student policy.  He completed the course that SHE recommended he take in lieu of chemistry to graduate on time.  I was livid.
In short,  I um…."spoke" to them in a not very civil tone and recommended strongly that they make whatever accommodations were needed to see that he was able to complete the course and graduate on time this next Thursday.  I followed this up by having my attorney fax a letter of intent to them advising that his failure to graduate on time endangered his scholarship and his enrollment in college scheduled for July, and civil litigation would ensue should that occur.    Within an hour of receiving the faxed letter, they contacted us back and had discovered that the Food Science course they had found insufficient now once again qualifies as a valid credit for graduation.  
When my sons are at fault, I am the first person to let them know.  This wasn’t the case, and for whatever reason, this assistant principal and her little Hitler complex got me worked up.  This is the same person who called down Brian by yelling, "Hey Mexican boy" once in the hallway earlier in the year.  Another mistake she won’t likely make again.
I have the greatest respect for educators, they work long, hard, thankless hours for far less pay than I think they deserve.  Once in a while though, one bad apple leaves a bad taste in your mouth and you avoid the entire orchard.  
At least he’s graduating on time again.