There has been something weighing on my mind for a while and I honestly didn't know how to even bring it up, much less blog about it. When something involves your child you tend to take things cautiously, even over-cautious at times. So goes the way of things in Little Queen's life. As the school year progresses, I regret my decision more and more to stop homeschooling her. I have several reasons for this, so hear me out before judging one way or another. Please note that NONE of my regretful reasons have anything to do with the public school system, or public education, or letting my child out of my site for longer than a minute.
My biggest problem is her particular elementary school, and her teacher in particular. On paper, her school sounds great. There are 1051 elementary schools in the state of Missouri, our school ranks in the top 30 in the state according to schooldigger.com. I don't want to give away the exact number because I am trying to keep things semi-anonymous for the sake of my children. So this school sounds great, right? Sure until you realize the rankings are based on ONE test taken by the 3rd grade and ONE test taken by the 4th grade. Now this school is great for comparing two or more schools together, especially if you have prior experience with one school already. If moving within the same state you would know that the new school has better/worse scores and can assume that the new school will presumably turn out students with slightly better/slightly worse grades. You know, focusing on all the presumablys and assumptions.
What about the students that don't test well, but get good grades anyway? Budget? How accountable are the teachers being held? There are a whole slew of other factors the parents like me never considered, until a lot of hard core research was done. So I was a little disillusioned when placing little Queen in school. But you know what? That's not even anywhere NEAR the honest reason though.
My problem isn't with that, really. Its with her teacher. When we first started we had some difficulties and a The Pool of Tears ensued thereafter. She's great now though. She loves school and actually got mad and pouted in her all day during our last snow day. I even had to give her some homeschool lessons during spring break. This kid LOVES school now. The things that she went through during her first few weeks at the place are the same things that kindergartners go through during their first few weeks. She had never been to ANY school before, of course there was a few week adjustment period! Poor Little Queen has been labeled now as a cryer, a whiner, and a child that generally doesn't adjust well to ANYTHING. Her friends are great and loving and supportive. The bias comes from her teacher! Her latest and greatest scheme now is to have me contact all her friends parents on the "book of face" (actually saying to me that there is this new social networking website that allows people to stay in touch called facebook) and let the kids talk sometimes over the summer through that and to "make sure I am doing my job as a parent and scheduling playdates for her." "every responsible parent knows to do playdates." Well call me irresponsible then because I didn't realize academic success and good grades were directly related to the level of popularity of the student. Translation in this teacher's mind, Most popular kid in school= Highest achieving and best grades. I've received phone calls from the teacher stating that Amy would do a lot better with her math if she would just make some more friends. (I swear this is true, you cannot make this stuff up!) Then there was the phone call about Little Queen wanting to be by herself during recess. RECESS! The poor kids gets ONE 15 minute recess a day, who cares if she is needing some alone time? In your class, you focus on socializing and friends instead of teaching. Then teacher, you wonder why she can't make the jump from adding two single digit numbers to multiplication in a week next week. Teacher has even admitted to having the kids work in pairs and teach each other and thinks this is one of her best ideas in all the years of teaching. TEACH EACH OTHER? Isn't that YOUR job, not the job for a bunch of 6 year olds?
When we sat down before making the decision to homeschool, one of our goals was to have our children row up in an environment where learning and education is unswayed by popularity. My husband and I both were picked on and bullied in school for being smart. I learned early on to dumb myself down to avoid the bullies, and that was something I never wanted my girls to experience. Now it seems that this behavior is almost encouraged. Sure the bullying is not there but the idea is still the same behind it. To be popular is more important than actual learning at SCHOOL.
We also have the issue of how teacher treats me. Apparently because I used to homeschool, realized my child needed help, and got said help for her; that means I am totally uneducated, illiterate, and incapable of not only teaching anything at all to my child, but of also making decisions for her as her PARENT. I've been lectured for 15 good minutes by this person about the importance of technology and that I really need to get online and sign up for the schools parent portal which is NEW and none of the teachers really understand how to implement it and send everything home in writing anyway; and the only way I ever contact the teacher is by email. You're right though, I totally don't understand this whole inter-webs things. Teacher has called to inform me that she took the liberty of registering Little Queen for summer school so that she wasn't just sitting around all summer doing nothing. (Yes because a family of soon to be 4, actively involved in church and all three girls dance, we regularly sit around for days and stare at each other.) Then tells me that our private tutor we are paying isn't the right route to go with her, and she really needs summer school. Wait, let me get this strait. You have decided that my choices as a parent are not good enough for a child that you have known only a few short months, so you are over riding my authority as a parent and making different choices for MY CHILD.
Not. Cool.
I am in a very difficult struggle right now with whether or not I should even send her back to school next year. On one hand I want to because I know it will be a different teacher. I also know I will have a new born and very actively be trying to sell my house for a decent price and having the Little Queen and Mad Hatter starting kindergarten out of the house would be a big help. On the other hand what risks am I taking by letting her go back to this school to potentially the same type of teacher for only about a month, give or take, just to rip her across the country and throw her into a completely different school system?
What do to, what do to? Where is that wise old caterpillar and his magic hookah when you need him?
