High school conferences, at least at the school Kat attends, are a whole new experience. I left for conferences at 8:00 this morning and returned at 11:00. No one has a pre-set conference. You show up, put your name on a bunch of lists, and wait. More important, this is high school and they teach subjects. This morning I learned that no one coordinates information. I think I�ve gained a new hat. I�m now the educational coordinator.

In general, Kat is doing quite well with a very heavy schedule but it�s been a harder road than I realized. Each teacher had a little piece of the puzzle but no one assembled it. If I had had the information, I would have known that her transition to high school was not as smooth as she wanted it to appear. Almost every teacher described oppositional behavior in the first month of school. The person they were describing was the Kat of several years ago. If I had heard any of it from anyone other than the social studies teacher, I would have known that she was in distress. Maybe it doesn�t matter though because she�s worked her way out of it.

I also discovered that her organizational skills are not as far along as I had believed. She is getting good grades but they would be better if she did not have missing assignments here and there in almost every class. It�s time to clean out the homework folder again and to see what she�s doing with the assignment notebook. I know she can get high grades on tests without doing all the homework but paperwork is part of the job. I guess it�s life lesson time.

Report cards are not going to tell me what I really need to know about Kat right now. I know she can get decent grades. What I don�t know is how we are coming on the key organizational skills and the report cards won�t tell me. I don�t need to know that she is getting an A in math, although that is nice. What I need to know is whether that would have been an A+ if she had managed to get all the homework in. I need to know it before things drop so far that she ends up scrambling to pull a grade to passing.

Now that we are in high school, few people are likely to tell me that she�s starting to fall apart. From what I�ve seen, they are not likely to notice until the problem is out of control everywhere.

Ultimately, of course, the point is for Kat to recognize when things are falling apart. I can�t teach her where that point is unless I see it. I can�t see it without information. The teachers can�t see it without sharing information and now there is no opportunity or time for doing that.

I think I�m about to become the teachers� nightmare. If they can�t see it, I�m going to have to bug them about the little things so I can spot it in time. Annoying, over-involved parent category, here I come!

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