[Teachldsseminary] CHAT: oh help, wise list!

[Marji]

Dear wise list,

I'm really at a blockade with a problem we are having in our seminary this
year.  The class includes my two daughters, so it is very personal to me as
well.  This is EMS with only six regular students total.

I was the seminary teacher for the past two years, and then because we were
planning a possible move, I was released "because they didn't want to have
to change teachers mid year".  Well, as it happens, we are still here.  The
new seminary teacher has missed an extraordinary amount of class days since
the beginning of the school year.  Four times she has been gone for three to
four days at a time, three days she has overslept, and multiple other days
(I've lost count) class was cancelled.  Of those, she asked her father to
sub two days, her mother to sub one day, and a brother in the ward to sub
for *one* of the three day stretches she was gone.  Other than that, class
has been non-existant on those days.  Only once she assigned very extensive
written homework which took about twice the hours to complete that class
would have taken, and only two students completed it, giving the others
automatic absences.

I have volunteered to sub multiple times, my husband who drives the girls to
seminary and sits in the foyer every day has offered to sub, and I have
spoken with our CES rep about my concerns that so many days are being
cancelled over and over and over.  So far, the teacher has missed
*approximately* 20 days since the beginning of the year.

This week so far Monday and Tuesday are cancelled because her grandmother is
sick.  I called her and offered to sub but was turned down because I was the
"former seminary teacher and I would do things differently."

My oldest daughter has had perfect attendance for two years now which is
being destroyed, and this on again off again schedule has made it
exceedingly difficult for my non-morning and difficult to get up daughter to
even want to go to seminary.

Tonight this teacher told me that her plan to make up these many lost days
is to meet on Saturday mornings, or double the class time in the morning, or
hold seminary in her home, or give written assignments to the students.

I communicated to her that my daughters are very discouraged when seminary
is cancelled - that I hear the student side of it at home.  My daughters
really want to attend and enjoy the spiritual discussions and study.  In
addition, they are homeschooled and this is their social moment of the day,
and they look forward to it.  They are good, attentive students.

Is there any recourse in this situation?  Do we just have to grin and bear
it, or are there some official policy problems occuring with this terrible
attendance problem of the teacher that can be addressed somehow to the
benefit of the students?

As my daughter reminds me, the point of seminary is to prepare students for
their school day - and as I said, my daughters complain at missing their
hour of spiritual preparation.  The other students in the class are also
complaining at church - and they come from homes where seminary is their
main hour of spiritual scripture study - it doesn't really happen outside of
class.  These are kids that I carefully nurtured and taught for two years
and it pains me greatly to see this travesty.  At the beginning of the year,
one student who had gone inactive started to attend, until the erratic
behavior of the teacher discouraged her and she is now gone again.

I have communicated to the CES rep and to our branch president that I or my
husband (an experienced teacher) are more than happy to substitute at any
time, with or without any notice, so that seminary does not have to be
cancelled.  The CES rep apparently doesn't recognize the seriousness of the
problem, and so far I have not taken it any farther.  I don't know if there
is a solution - but do I, on behalf of my daughters and my former students,
have any recourse in dealing with this?

Thanks so much,

Marji in GA