I know a japanese student, 17f, the private highschool has told her that she will be “let go” due to her poor performance in recent tests.
I’m trying to figure out if this is a common thing or if the school is just trying to scare her into improving her performance.
I never heard about this procedure before, I would’ve thought that setting her back a grade below would be the ultimatum instead.
I’m not Japanese, just trying to figure out if this is true or not.
UPDATE: She confirmed to me that it was her first warning, there was a parents meeting, she won’t be expelled for real.
13 comments
It’s not unheard-of, but there’s usually quite a process including multiple meetings between staff, parents, and the student, with a final decision only coming after several “second” chances.
It can happen in private high schools but it’s not usually a case of “Well you messed up this semester, bye.” They are often given chances to clean their act up. Sometimes if they are expelled, they then have the option to take correspondence classes to get their diploma.
Private schools, from what I’ve seen, will tolerate a lot of screwing around before they do an expulsion.
Yes, it is totally possible in private schools. Schools I’ve been at, a student has to screw up consistently and severely to get kicked out, but it can happen.
I haven’t seen it happen at my private school, but I’ve heard that it’s possible. With the declining birthrate and number of incoming students, private schools want enrollment first and foremost. But if there comes a point where the student is too much of a hassle for the teachers and admins to deal with, and if that student would likely skew numbers and make the school look unfavorable to prospective students, then they might be let go. They’ll make it look like it was the parent’s idea though.
Depends on the prestige of the school x the wealth of the parents lol.
No prestige? Prolly fine.
High prestige no money? Uh oh
Etc
Is she well-off/rich?
If she’s rich, she’s paying the full tuition and the school will keep her unless they have no other choice (she doesn’t get enough marks to go through to the next school year), most likely.
If she’s not rich, and in the school because of subsidies from the prefecture, that’s a different ballgame, because there are sometimes stricter rules about what kind of marks they need to be getting.
Either way, private schools don’t go out of their way to axe kids, so as long as she gets good marks or at least tries, she should be fine.
Sometimes….
Most of the time when kids are let go from my school it’s for behavior. But occasionally for grades. Usually they’re encouraged to leave at the end of JHS.
But there’s definitely a common mentality that many private schools need to support the kids to the end of HS so unless it’s a really exclusive school they may try a lot first.
They can and will expel a student for poor grades if that’s their policy. If the parents talk to the school, maybe they can work something out
With almost any high school in Japan it will be a last resort kind of move. I’d be willing to bet this kid has been warned for a long time and has again and again failed to put in the work.
High school is not mandatory. Private ones have a “reputation” to take care of and they will force out any student that may hurt their perfect university recruitment numbers.
For the second part of your question, I’ve never seen a kid get held back a grade. They get pushed through to graduation with extra credit/teachers fudging their grades, or they fail to meet even the bare minimum and flunk out.
My school divides the students by academic level, so a poorly performing student will get moved to the lower level class the following year, but they won’t get held back a grade.
I work for a private high school – I’ve worked for 3 in my time – and friends work at them too.
For a student to be “let go” or basically expelled, they were given warning after warning after warning. Usually from half of their first year, all of their 2nd year, and now into their 3rd year. They would have needed to: do poorly on exams AND do no homework AND have low attendance. Rarely would a school remove a student from their roster before 2nd term of the third year – when third year students only go April-December – unless it’s been a steady low or she has done something egregious recently.
I work at a private school that has done this. A private school is considered a ‘business’ and has no obligation to follow the literacy mandates of the BoE. I mean they usually abide by the general operational standard but have no restrictions like *koritsu* schools or penalties. They’ll stay operational as long as they have money coming in and “good students” are their tickets to more yearly applications.