One of the requirements of the juvenile probation program for both of the boys was for them to maintain at least a C average in school. We knew that wouldn’t be any problem for Riley, he is usually an A and B student and we NEVER have to worry about him doing his homework or school projects. We also knew that this would be a huge problem for Bryce (the older boy child) and guess what …. it was.
The report cards were mailed to us a few weeks after school ended and just as we suspected, Bryce flunked three classes. After the blow up in January over us grounding him for bad grades, we told him that at his age there really wasn’t much we could do to change his crappy attitude about school and grades so weren’t going to punish him for bad grades anymore. We also told him that we weren’t going to go to Parent/Teacher Conferences or ask him about his grades, homework, or school projects.
Some of you are probably going to think that’s an uncaring and a somewhat cruel attitude. To that I have to say …. baaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha … come live a few weeks in our world. A world where we have slowly figured out that you cannot force a teenager to care about something that they don’t care about. However, you can make them face the consequences for their actions (or in this case, inactions). So if Bryce does not graduate high school, then that will be his doing, not ours. Will we be upset? Sure. Will I probably cry about it? Of course I will. Do I still want my son to get his head out of his ass and realize that life isn’t going to hand him things? Oh yeah. Are we willing to keep beating our heads against the wall hoping that we can force him in some way to care about his life more than we do? Um …. NO!!!
We gave the juvenile probation officer a copy of the boys’ report cards and Bryce has to go back to the “board” tomorrow to discuss his bad grades …. and as much as we can, we are staying out of it.
I know … I know … bad parents … blah blah blah. 
Children (and adults) do not learn responsibility by having someone always covering their asses. Children learn responsibility by having consequences for the actions (or like you said inaction). The best thing you can do for him is to let him learn from his mistakes. When we helicopter parent and continually jump in to save the day they only learn that someone will always be there to clean up their mess.
You are definitely doing the right thing by letting him learn from this one. Too bad he has to be 18 in order to begin learning these valuable lessons.