Bad Year 2011-2012

At the end of the 2010-2011 school year I made the decision to home school. I had two children in our local elementary school. My kindergarten student had wonderful teachers. We loved them and enjoyed every minute in their class. I was welcome no matter what was taking place. I had a bad year with our local school/1st grade teacher. I never felt welcome and was made to feel like I was intruding on them when I arrived at school. I missed all of her parties because I felt very uneasy in the 1st grade classroom. They started out not wanting parents to walk students to class or pick them up at the room at the end of the day. I stopped walking my daughter to her classroom but other parents never did.

I would go to her room in the afternoon and go to the library with her so she could check books out in my name for us to read for the night. They told me that I would have to check her out of school in order to take her to the library. Now mind you I am talking about the school library. We were not leaving the school to go to the library. I was told she was missing instructional time because of being checked out. I said ok and spoke to the library about how late they stay so we could check out books. They were very understanding and we worked it out so she could check out books. When my daughter was in kindergarten they would allow us to check 7 books out in my name and my daughter would take AR test. At the end of kindergarten my daughter had 150 AR points. However, when school started for 1st grade I was told she was only allowed to check out 5 books because the policy had changed but one day when I was waiting on her to get to the library after school there was a student checking out 7 books but my daughter was not allowed. At the end of 1st grade she had 268 AR points and received a trophy for it. She had the highest AR points in 1st grade. You go baby show them you can do it. I felt as if she was being discriminated against this year. At the beginning of the year they told my daughter that if she read another kindergarten book she would have her card moved that she should be reading only 1st or 2nd grade books. They said she was racking up AR points to fast. I wouldn’t mind this tactic if the school was doing their job. Not to mention that another student’s parent was going up to the school and was allowed to take her child to the library and nothing was never said. 

It took an entire year to get her tested for gifted. I started asking about gifted testing the 1st week of school but they couldn’t do it until the end of the school year but other schools were testing there students and these schools are all in the same system so I don’t understand why our school had to wait. The 1st week of school I went to the teacher and told her that my daughter knew all of the spelling words when she got home that afternoon and was there anything that could be done to give her a harder spelling list so she would have a little bit of a challenge or a reason to be doing homework. I was put off and told that spelling was only 10% of her grade. Well that would be fine if she was failing but I want to see growth. 9 weeks later the finally did a spelling inventory and put her in an appropriate spelling level. I also asked about a higher reading level and they mentioned crossing her over grade levels for reading but nothing ever happened that is all it was a momentary thought and nothing more came of it. She would get her new reading book and sit in the back seat on the way home and read the entire book. I asked about skipping a grade up but they never would do it. I guess because she was not related to someone or back to the discrimination thing again.

During the wait for gifted testing my daughter was accused of hitting another student with her book bag. My daughter came home from school crying saying she had to lie to the vice principle and say she did something that she didn’t do. I asked her what happened and she told me and said they told her they knew she did it and she might as well admit to it. What why would you tell a 1st grader that. The assistant principle approached me to talk to me about it and I told her yes I had heard and my daughter had also told me about the incident in the gym when the same girl accused her of hitting her again. I went to the assistant principal’s office and told her that my daughter said she didn’t do it and I was told that she admitted to it. I told her that no they told her she did it and they forced her to say she did something she hadn’t done. I told them that I told her to never admit to anything she didn’t feel she had done again. I also told them that I didn’t see how my daughter was able to go across the room and hit another student in the head with a book bag without the teacher or other students seeing it. They talked to the teacher and she didn’t know anything about it until the assistant principle spoke to her. The assistant principle went to the gym teacher and spoke to her about that incident. The gym teacher said that the other little girl complained about my daughter hitting her. They had the other girl show them where my daughter hit her at. They didn’t see any marks but the other girl kept crying saying it really hurts and making a big deal over it. They gym teacher looked at her told her they don’t see any marks to be quite and get back in line. They ended up telling me not to worry about it because they felt the other little girl was just doing it to get attention. Ok, my daughter is ok to get into trouble because they don’t want her hitting another student but the other student doesn’t get into trouble for lying or making up stories about my daughter. No it is not ok, I am not having my child picked on by anyone. This was not right nor was it fair. I had to tell my little one just to stay away from her. I told her don’t talk to the little girl. Whey would parents run to the school for every little thing that takes place, their daughter was in the wrong and the one causeing problems. Their daughter is the one that was calling my little one ugly but I never ran to tattle on her.

Throughout all of the problems with the teacher I wanted to volunteer in the classroom but when I went to the vice principle about this I was told that I couldn’t volunteer in my daughters classroom but I could volunteer for any other classroom. I said that was fine and volunteered for a little while. Toward the end I just backed off of everything because I was just tired of dealing with the school. Now mind you another parent was allowed to volunteer within the classroom. I had not done anything to this teacher but offer to help and yet the made me feel like I had threatened her life.

Finally toward the end of the school year the school added a shelter at the pickup area and they roped off the parking lot trying to keep parents from coming into the building and picking up the students. Talk about trying to make your parents feel unwelcome. It didn’t stop me. I still parked only in a different area and I still walked in and picked her up. One day when I was in the hall I heard a parent ask the principle of the school how the new set up was working out and she responded that it was going well and most of the parents had stopped coming in the afternoon. Ok, they want parent volunteers but they don’t want you there unless they choose for you to be there. How do they expect parents to want to back up the school when it comes to discipline problems but yet they don’t make parents feel welcome?

At the end of 1st grade on the last day of school, I received my daughter’s report card. I asked why my daughters words read per minute only had a 1 point increase. She went from 102 WPM to 103 WPM. I was told not to worry about it because she only needed to read 64 or 68 WPM I don’t remember exactly how many it was. Well I am worried. I feel like we wasted an entire year of school. She did not have any growth. Why didn’t we have the growth? Why didn’t the school care?

In March I was so disgusted with all that had taken place during the school year so I felt I needed to look at my options. I researched homeschooling and came across a site called K12. It said it was a free public school but I was weary of it. I figured that if it was public why had I never heard of it before. I called my local board office and explained to them what had happened throughout the year. He said that there was an online public school but he would have to find the name and give it to me. I told him K12 and he said yes that was it. That I wouldn’t have to summit time or anything that the normal homeschooler turns in. So I felt like this was what we were looking for. Now my daughter won’t have to be picked on by an adult or student. Now she won’t have to be accused of doing things she hasn’t done. Now we can work on her lessons at her pace and her ability level. This seems to be the answer to my prayer. I promise I was not a parent that wanted to keep my children home. I was the parent that couldn’t wait for school to start because of how bad my children fight. I looked forward to my break but I stayed so upset and frustrated with the school this past year that I am willing to deal with my children and work through these types of issues instead of dealing with the school. GCA look out because here we come!! LOL