Little Marissa

I have a student in my class who started out this year hanging out with the wrong crowd and not doing anything classwork. She had a 22% last quarter and about 30 absences. About 2 weeks into the next quarter, she spoke with a counselor and myself and stated "I have been doing everything wrong. I don't know why I was doing what I was doing, but I want to do better. What can I do to bring my grades up."

Now since she basically learned absolutely nothing during the first quarter and math builds on itself, she had none of the previous knowledge necessary to complete the second quarter successfully. She knew this. She spent at least 2 hours every single day after school working to get caught up in JUST my class as well as an hour or 2 every week in the morning. She was failing all of her classes. Yesterday she showed me her updated grades and has about a 3.1 GPA excluding my class. I told her that her grade would not be accurate until she completed her two tests (she needs extra time to complete things) and turned in her notebook.

Today she came up and asked if she could see her final grade since everything is completely updated minus her final exam. She has a C in my class. I never saw a student's face light up as much hers did at that moment.