Posted on 07/28/2012 7:16:18 AM PDT by rawhide
Bowen Bethards, 17, was a sophomore in Peggy Carlock's chemistry class at Albany High School in Albany,Calif., outside of San Francisco, in the 2010-11 school year when she gave him the C+ grade at the center of the suit, according to court records first reported by the Albany Patch.
Bethards, in a lawsuit filed with his mother, Laureen, in Contra Costa County Superior Court last month, claims that he has suffered severe physical and emotional suffering, damage to his academic reputation, and diminished chances of getting into his college of choice because of the grade.
The Bethards claim that Carlock, who no longer teaches at the school, punished Bowen for missing class on a day that his fellow students performed a lab. Bethards, according to the suit, had to miss class to attend the adoption hearing for his younger sister and so informed Carlock of his absence ahead of time. The two agreed upon a make-up date but when Bethards showed up on the agreed-upon date, he says, Carlock said he could not make up the lab and was instead, "going to fail him," according to court documents.
"My son was denied his rights and they stole his grade from him,"Laureen Bethards told ABCNews.com. "He had a 106 percent and he always went to class and he missed that one class and he was entitled to make up that missed lab and they didn't let him."
The suit says Carlock's refusal to allow the teen to make up the lab violated California Education Code Section 88205. The missed lab, according to Bethards, dropped his overall grade from an A+ to a C+.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
By the way, he had a lousy excuse for missing an important lab the day it was first scheduled, imo.
Remember that the last few POTUS/TOTUS have been C students or worse.
A 17 yr old sophomore? That age is normally a late junior, senior year. Apparently, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Whiner, too!
>> and diminished chances of getting into his college of choice because of the grade.
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.
To self, you probably just read it wrong.
Yes, but, according to the article, the teacher agreed to it before the date in question.
We had to see this coming.
Litigation aimed at teachers may well have a silver lining. If they get held personally responsible for punitive damages, they may stop encouraging this kind of entitlement behavior.
The teacher sounds like a bitch.
I know he got the excused absence approved prior, but his reason for missing lab that day, as least to me, was not very important, especially since this was an important lab assignment.
The teacher was wrong in not letting him do the make-up as promised though.
Like I said, let him do the make-up lab today and give him the proper grade.
This was a Doonesbury sequence decades ago. Somebody sued over a B+ and was awarded something like $4 million in damages.
“Lousy excuse?”
Perhaps he was required at the adoption hearing so the judge could evaluate the entire family. Maybe he wanted to voluntarily to welcome his new sister to the family — in such case, he is very family oriented. Either way, it is a great reason to be excused from school for the day.
Dropping the student from an A+ to an A or A- might have been appropriate, if the lab was truly significant -- but not two whole grade levels for a single day!
Even skipping the most overrated final exam I ever took would not have that huge effect!
Looks like the teacher is an @$$...
Considering how cowardly the average administrator or bureaucrat is, and considering that the parents went all the way to the school board, if there was any question or leeway here, the grade would have been changed. The fact that it wasn't by the powers-that-be is a relatively good indication that there is more to this story than was printed. But, of course, let's believe Yahoo news blindly!
“Bethards, according to the suit, had to miss class to attend the adoption hearing for his younger sister and so informed Carlock of his absence ahead of time. “
Horrible excuse for sure...
His attendance at the hearing may well have been ordered by the court...
I believe it means he’s 17 now, but received the grade in the 2010-2011 school year when he was a sophomore.
Since he was attending an adoption hearing for his sister, he should have been excused. Perhaps he was ordered to be present at the hearing. We don't know the circumstances of the adoption, that required his attendance. He sounds like a kid who enjoyed learning and didn't miss school.
Where’s the teachers union? All they have to do is send some goonion brothers over to adjust the family attitude—hey no more problem.
Yahoo has more credibility then the average public school teacher
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