I meet the challenges by calling parents a lot. I think that avoids a lot of later problems if you’re in contact with the parents. I go through my grade book twice a week and I look down to see where the blank spots are and then you know about every other week, I’ll make a phone call to about eight or ten parents and I will say, “Your son or daughter is in jeopardy of not passing my class because they haven’t been doing their homework for the last couple of weeks.” It sure avoids a lot of later problems after you bubble in that low grade. It really avoids all of that. And if you call, you know, during the day time, most of the time those parents are at work, so you can leave a message. Otherwise, parents like to talk a lot and they can take 20 minutes of your prep period really fast. They’ll talk to you for an hour of their child. A lot of times, if I do get a hold of somebody, I’ll say, “I’m right in the middle of class, I need to end. I just wanted you to know that we need to work on this problem with your son or daughter.”
