Nathan Whitlow returns his report card in the office.
CLAY TURNER – Hoof Prints Staff
Mr.Rose made an announcement over the intercom the first week back from Christmas break.
“Attention students,report cards will go out tomorrow and remember to give them to your parents. I doubt any of you will fail to do so because I think we’re going to try something different this year.”
The students wait anxiously.
“If any of you fail to return your report cards this time, you will make it up by serving three hours of detention in the gym because I’m afraid 76 students couldn’t fit in one room.”
Less than 50% of the report cards were known to have been returned to the school after supposedly being taken home and signed by their parent or guardian last term.
“That could mean,” Mr.Rose said, “That over 50% of the parents never saw what their kids were making.”
Many students were said to have actually tried to trick him prior to the enactment of his new rule by signing their parent or guardian’s name in their own hand or simply not taking the report card home at all. Also prior to the rule, he said that parents were prone to approach him at times and ask him when the report cards themselves would be released after the actual release. This was insufficient to his standards by a long shot.
Besides completely ignoring the rule every time it’s shoved under their noses, some of the students are still puzzled as to why the whole process is still important in the first place.
“What do they need them back for?” Corey Wood said.
“It’s a way of keeping in contact with the parents in an attempt so that they will not be surprised,” Mr. Rose said. “When y’all (the students) take your report cards home, if they need to talk to us, we can set up a conference. That’s a part of what we do here.”
“The detention I don’t understand ‘cuz I’ve heard he hasn’t always done that,” Wood said. “And why is he just now doing it?”
“It’s just laziness on my part,” Mr.Rose said. “I never did stop and count them. We should be making sure they are returned every time.”
After the enactment of his new rule, all students except one were said to have returned their reports with a signed signature from their parent or guardian.
Mr. Rose says that he plans to keep his promise to take disciplinary action with any other students should this happen again.
“Maybe next time I’ll not mandate it and just see as an experiment how many will return them because they have now been told that that is what they’re supposed to do,” Mr. Rose said.