No detention!

For Gary that is.

See one of the conditions of his probation is getting at least C's in all his classes. He got two D's this past semester.

Now technically, that's a probation violation and violations are felonies for which he may be sentenced 180 days in detention. So the PO could have reported him for one OR TWO violations and then required him to spend as many days as she thought was necessary. No one thought she would do that, although we weren't sure that she wouldn't make him spend 10-30 days in lock-up.

She sent me a letter and I, as requested, called her back. I told her that Gary hadn't, technically, been lying to her when he told her his grades were fine. He remembers what grades he received on the work he has done and it has always been good. The problem is that some large assignments overwhelmed him and he didn't do them at all. When he reported on his grade he underestimated the effect that has.

That made her feel better about it all. She decided that she didn't need to come out right now to sit down and talk to him. She will come out the week before school and warn him that if his grades don't come back up she will make him go back to the regular high school. I told her I hoped it didn't come to that because he the big high school was so emotionally stressful for him. She says she doesn't want that to happen either.

So, I reported to Gary what she said. He wanted to know how angry she was; he doesn't like it when she is angry. He felt better after, although he did protest that there was nothing anyone could do to make him work harder than he wanted to work. Even if she had sent him to detention it wouldn't bother him. His social worker had said that it might be good for him to spend two weeks in detention while we were on vacation. He said, "Two weeks? And then I get to COME HOME AFTER? Ha! That's NOTHING."

I asked him though if she really could make him switch schools. He said she can make him do anything she wants, because if he doesn't, she can send him to detention. He wasn't laughing then.