[Jims5543]

Let me say this first so you understand who my son is. I always get compliments from his teachers about how well mannered he is and how polite he is. He is not a A student more of a C student, very average and has has some learning problems we have worked very hard with him on over the years.

We discovered in Kindergarden he had issues and we have worked with tutors, learning centers and a lot of our own time end effort at home to get him back on level with the kids around him.

He is somewhat aware of his issues and his self esteem isn't the best but we work hard on that as well. He works his butt off to get passing grades where most kids can put in a minimal effort to get A's and B's.

That said, his mit term report came with an F in Language Arts, a class he normally gets high C's and low B's in. He is in 7th grade now.

He was to go on an incentive trip from the school to Epcot Center and because of the F on the mid term he can not go.

The teacher anounced to him, so the class could hear, that he had an F and he could go to the office to get his trip money back. He was very humiliated and enbaressed by her actions.

I felt handing him the report and a "See me after class" would have been a better way to handle this.

He came home and was visibly upset. When we enquired he was all misted up when he told us what happened. He is not a drama queen and I consider him to be a really normal kid, he rarely gets emotional about anything so this was something of concern when I saw how upset he was.

I decided to go talk to his guidance counselor and discuss this with her. I told the guidance counselor that in the past (grade school) we had a couple of teachers that were mean to him and we let it go because we did not want the teacher so retaliate against him. I told her that the issue was not the F, my son was already being punished loosing his rights to video games TV and computer. We were dealing with it and trying to get the grade back up.

I was more upset about how things were handled. An E-mail was sent to the teacher who half heartedly tried to call me leaving no return number to talk to her on my voice mail. I have caller I.D.

I called her and she went off about how she prays to Jesus every morning to make sure she is nice to her kids. A hell of a smoke screen was thrown up, she denied ever saying a work to my son about his F. Wrong answer, she should be concerned about how to get his grade up and what he can do with her to do that. When I was at the open house I did not like this teacher and knew there were going to be problems. She talked to us parents like we were 2 year olds, like Mr. Rodgers neighborhood. I never said a word to my son about this and when the problems started I told my wife I should have went with my instincts and changed his class.

The next day, the teacher was on vacation and my son was called to the guidance counselor's office. She forced him to write a letter of apology to his teacher for lying. When he refused to saying he did not lie, he was told he would go to the principles office and recieve worse consequences. My son suggested I be called and that was dismissed.

He wrote and singed the letter.

I am so pissed off right now because the teacher is the liar not my son and now I have to deal with this. This really set an awesome example to my son about how adults can lie and get away with it.

Does a public school have the right to force a kid to write and sign a document against his will?