Troubled teen

This school year has started off like a nightmare, and I am wondering how in the world I am going to make it through 4 more years of this stuff. The second or 3rd week of school, I got a call from Galen's math teacher informin me that he wasn't turning any homework in, and that he was basically getting a 0 in her class. I of course talked to him about it and told him that if he didn't straighten up, there would be some repercussions. So the very next week, I got a call from his social studies teacher telling me that she had sent home some papers that she needed signed the first week of school, and she hadn't gotten them back yet. So I assured her that I would get them signed and returned, and while I had her on the phone, I thought to ask her about how he was doing in her class. It turned out that he wasn't turning in any work in her class either, and to make things worse, she didn't even give "home" work - it was assignments she gave to be completed in class.

So, right then and there, I called up Cricket and had his cell phone turned off. Then, I grounded him completely for 2 weeks, and told him that if he didn't bring his grades up, he would continue losing things - his guitar, the PS2, etc. And that seemed to work for a few days. I actually saw him doing some homework, and thought maybe he had turned things around. Until today.

I got a call at about 9:30am this morning from the assistant principal at Meadows stating that Galen was in some kind of trouble. Apparently, someone took a kid's cellphone, and then gave it to Galen to give back to the kid. So it wasn't him that took it, but he supposedly knew who did it, and the asst principal was trying to get Galen to give the cuplrit up. Needless to say, my blood pressure probably went up about 100 points. So I asked to talk to Galen. He claimed that he knew absolutely nothing about the phone, and that he didn't even know why he was in the office. So I talked to the a/p again, and asked if it was possible that the kid who ID'd Galen had lied, and he said that was possibility, but that he felt Galen knew who did it. And, because they don't want to send out the wrong message - that stealing will be tolerated - they are going to suspend Galen if he doesn't tell who did it.

Now, if Galen had not already been on my shitlist for everything else that has happened this year, I probably would take his side, no qestions asked. But it is a little hard when he has been in SO MUCH trouble.