How best to deal with grade sag

I use the word "sag" to mean lower grades achieved due to what (i think) is the perceived weight l of burden of homework at the end of the year. Seems to be a trend with this kid--end of the year burn out. But this last year, the math grade for my older child dipped alarmingly in last quarter. None of us wants this happening happening at all in HS, but the possibility is already causing fear in us and we've not ever started Columbia yet. I have strong feeling a tutor won't help, as she gets the stuff...I suspect it's simply a lack of focus/drive, skipping homework, careless mistakes on tests. Maybe lack of sleep. But I'm open to all tips anecdotes about dealing with this kind of stuff.

I really think they're kept in school too long.

What kind of incentive does the student get to maintain good grades? Things such as special privileges, praise, a tangible reward.

you can try punishment, but that can cause resentment and oppositional behavior instead.

While it is debatable, if the student would like a day off from school just to relax, you can permit it half way through the last marking period if the grades are kept up...this would be your personal parenting choice to make....1 parent would be against it, but another for it....In some jobs people get cash bonuses for better work...many people are against that for kids..but again as a parent it is your choice about what is right for your child.

We had plenty of "personal days". Perhaps too many. Maybe my Older Kid didn't make up a quiz or something in math. I don't know because to tell you the truth I "trusted" Older Kid and did not even get the Power School access code. Opposite of the Younger.

Since final report card, I've asked kid to try to locate the specific problems, really give it thought. Older's suggestion was "I dunno, a math tutor?" But, without statement that concepts are not understood, I think maybe this suggestion comes more from wanting to have the time marked out to do the work. I'd rather that the the Older Kid do the work without a person to hold hands with.

At 3rd quarter report card, things weren't looking so good for either kid. (Well, worse than before, not "bad.") I told them both which grades I expected to see improvements in. The Younger pulled it off. Older did not, and in fact got worse.

The computer/phone/music while homeworking is definitely a problem. I always ask about homework, and am always assured it's "done". To alleviate distractions, I started taking the phone out of the room during homework and at "bed" time, and urging Older to do homework in common area with the rest of us. So I was really pretty shocked that, with all that, the grade dipped so terribly!

Edited to add: incentives are vaguely given. Do they work in a lasting way?

You really need to know whether grade is due to grades on tests and quizzes and related to mastery or missed assignments or combo of both. Sometimes students that did not have to try hard to do well reach a point where material is more difficult and real studying must begin and be maintained. For some persistence is difficult to achieve. Is there any ADD type issues? What about other subjects

I have a close friend who has a general tutor for her rising 9th grader. Last year, the tutor focused on helping her son organize his planner, make sure he was "on track" for long term projects, and would literally sit with him while he did his homework. Her son is highly gifted, so no teaching or reviewing of concepts at all. Just someone who would make sure her son was focused, had a solid plan for upcoming projects and was up to date with all homework, etc. I guess you could call the tutor more of an "executive function" coach. She said it was well worth every cent for her to be relieved of the task of bugging and nagging about schoolwork. Before the tutor, her son would also claim everything was done and he was on top of everything, and then she'd go online and see a ton of zeros and late work, all which really wrecked what should have been a great GPA.

And her son really liked the tutor and wanted to impress him, so it worked all around.

My experience with a big incentive did not work. 8th grader was told in Jan if she got B's or higher final grade for every class she would get a MacBook Air. In March she was looking pretty good, then She got some kind of end of middle school-itis and stopped working as hard. It is very frustrating because she is good at accomplishing very defined tasks (eg. Math homework) but so lazy about studying and essays. More frustrating is that she has no idea what 'studying hard' means. An hour for a major test? And that includes texting her friends/listening to music? Finally, she doesn't know what she doesn't Know. Comes out of every test thinking she did well, whether the end result is an A or an F. Aaarrrgggg!

Anyway kid missed the Air by a decent margin (a C+ and 2 and apparently we "don't understand how hard I worked". Believe me, I know exactly how "hard" she worked.

Kid is in Huntington as well and it significantly helped math (she understands concepts, basically gives her extra practice) and I'm hopeful for the LAR stuff to kick in. It is VERY expensive and time consuming though.

My strategy for the new school year for both my kids (9th and 7th) will be to "punish" the kid for a bad grade (tbd...probably C- or lower? May vary by subject/ability) by making them redo/relearn/re-whatever the material. This accomplishes both a punishment in having to do "extra" work (which should have been done before the test) and reinforces the material To actually help them learn. My friend says I shouldn't call it a punishment but I'm trying to teach my kids that more work on the front end will result in less work trying to make it up, and to help them figure out what / how to study in a way that helps them. Right now they get the crappy grade and oh well. If they have to do "extra" work to make it up that may give them an incentive to work harder To achieve a decent grade.

Anyway that is my new strategy, we'll see if I can implement it in Sept and keep it going!

Good luck!

From my own experience on the kid side: If you want to be the 'executive function coach' for your own kid, I'd suggest starting out very strict (e.g., no screen time at all until homework is completely done) and checking absolutely everything starting at the beginning of the school year. If the kid demonstrates that they can manage this functioning on their own (and when they tell you homework is done, it really is done), relax a bit, and just do occasional spot-checks.

This way, (strict at the beginning) sets the expectations, then (relaxing over time,) feels like earning privileges.

If you go the other way (start off relaxed, and then step in only after something goes wrong), it will be a lot tougher, and possibly meet resistance, since it seems like expectations were low at the beginning, and raising the expectations with taking away screen time feels like punishment, and also seems like not-the-way-things-were-done.

We found this book to be helpful in creating an environment for getting homework done and addressing issues related to procrastination etc. It's supposedly written for boys, but I think it should work for both boys and girls. I didn't find anything too boy specific.

http://www.amazon.com/That-Crumpled-Paper-Last-Week/dp/0399535594/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437076486&sr=8-1&keywords=the+crumpled+paper+was+due+last+week&pebp=1437076489648&perid=0W2TNKMPXQ9Z68EEYG49

To echo Mod and others - have you looked back at PowerSchool to see if the grade sag was due to missed work or low test/quiz scores or some combination? I find that many students who struggle have trouble identifying their own academic weaknesses.

As a teacher, I find one of the most useful aspects of PowerSchool is that I can generate a report that breaks down a student's grade into categories. If you can't do it with the parent/student version I'm sure the guidance counselor could.

If PowerSchool access is closed for the summer, it would be worth contacting the guidance counselor and asking for some insight.

This might already be what you do, but I found that the times when I take phone/devices to charge out of their rooms, they go to sleep earlier and everything is better...