What went wrong, and what could I do better

The day before Thanksgiving and I made 2 parent phone calls. The good news was that there weren't any offenses to make these phones. Its really about the poor attendance and progress of one student and the lack of focus and constant tardiness of another. Both present the fact that they want to pass, but it is really easy to see it coming that when marking periods come around, they never really hold their end of the bargain, and wish to try and make their grade change overnight. Did that make sense? When they are surprised of their grade, they thought they were angels, and deserve better. I dont think so. I have my first conference with a parent. It is not a harmful one, its more of an informing type of conference. The weird news is that I have worse students who have far more absences and much much worse grades. It is not that I have given up on them, but they just dont care, so it's really up to them to tell their parents that they did not pass because they never came since the first three weeks! 

It is after 21 days of not being in the class that there is no possible way to be aloud to pass for the semester. I am fine with that.  I know when a student has cut my class with no excuse.  I am wondering what they are doing, this was never that case at my school, you couldn't cut.  Discipline is a factor.  Well, there's discipline and then there's nothing to lose.  Many have nothing to lose, so they just go carefree into the world.  When they get out there in the real world, their nothing to lose attitude becomes nothing to ever gain.  So i suppose the parent phone calls were a pro-active move, It is better to be pro-active than reactive.

I have a couple more weeks of Student teaching, and I think I need those couple of weeks.  I have finally made it to the part of student teaching where the idea of getting experience is synching in.  I am running ideas now past my mentor that are for what goes on in the class, as well as outside the class.  My goal is that I leave something he can use.  Not all the ideas I have suggested are my own but I can get around to something soon.  The grading is piling a little, and hopefully he starts to retrain himself on grading since I have been taking care of it most the semester.   I have lost the point of all this, I might have lost the point in most of my ramblings, but all is well,  cant wait for monday after I get a plan together first.