School, Schmool

That is a terrible title, but it kind of fits right now. So I last posted about troubles we were having in Alex's school. Well they actually got a bit worse after that and we had some pretty big decisions to make.

It was really hard watching Alex go from loving school and loving seeing his friends every day to a kid that despised going, didn't have any good friends and wasn't learning anything. And I almost hated asking him on the way home how school was, because he'd tell me a story about a kid that did a terrible thing to him or something he saw kids doing to other kids. It just broke my heart. But one day home I asked him how school was and he turned to me and said, "Mom, something really bad happened at school today." Not knowing what to expect he continued, "The boys were all playing rough at recess. We were just taking each other down to the ground. So I'd take a kid down then I would let another boy come up and take me down. Well, I took this kid down and he just kinda laid there. I was worried that I hurt him, so I asked him if he was okay. He didn't say anything, just stared up at me. Then he got this look on his face, jumped up and started chasing me. I ran as fast as I could and got away from him. I didn't think it was a big deal. But then a girl from my class came up to me and asked me if I knew that the kid was chasing me with a knife." He stopped his story there which left me with about a million questions. Did his teacher know? Did the kid get in trouble? Why wasn't I notified? He said the teacher did know and he thought the kid was in trouble because he went home early. But he didn't know why no one told me. Probably because he didn't get hurt was what he was thinking. People who know my personality know how conflicted I was at that point. I don't like confrontation and always worry about what other people are thinking of me. I had already sent an email to the school about another situation that had occurred. I was worried about becoming "that mom" if I drove back right then not knowing if the situation had already been taken care of. Of course looking back now, I would have done just that. So we went home and I took a good couple hours writing an email to the principal and his teacher. (Worded perfectly so I didn't come off too harsh. I really get annoyed with myself sometimes looking back on these types of situations. Annoyed that I don't feel comfortable getting in peoples faces sometimes, especially when it's totally warranted.) I sent the email and waited for a reply. The next day I got a call from Alex's teacher kind of explaining the situation. She said that there were a couple of witnesses on the playground. And each of the stories were a little different, so they didn't really know what to believe. And because Alex was running away, he didn't really see anything. They did know positively that the kid did have a pocket knife and it was at very least in his pocket. The conflict in stories was whether he actually had the knife out of his pocket and if the blade was out. The teacher would not tell me what the punishment was for this child. She asked me if I felt comfortable with everything. I told her I wasn't okay with what happened and since I didn't know what the punishment was, I couldn't really say. She also confirmed that this was a semi-common occurrence for kids to bring toy or real weapons to school. So I was not feeling comfortable and okay, especially not knowing what happened with the kid. I picked Alex up from school that day and asked him if the boy was back at school (fully expecting that he wouldn't be back yet) and Alex said that he had been there that whole day. That's the point where I started fuming! So at very LEAST, this kid came to school with a weapon. Let's say that's all that happened. Even having a weapon in his possession to me warrants a couple days suspension. But let's say more did happen... Really? The kid goes home an hour early and that takes care of it??? I was shocked and furious!

Ryan and I had several long conversations after that happened about what we should do. Listed out pros and cons. Alex was doing work that was so much lower than what he had been doing at Adelaide, didn't like his teacher and was in a potentially dangerous environment in a school that didn't give severe enough punishment for kids to understand the severity of what they did. Why were we sending him to this school? I started calling around to schools around the area, explaining what had happened and asking if they would accept a variance in the middle of the school year. I called 6 schools, all of which said they were at full capacity and couldn't do anything until the beginning of the next school year. So that was not an option. We started discussing homeschooling. This is something I've thought about, but never really considered doing because I feel like public education is so important. Learning to work with other children and having those friendships is something I want my children to have. But knowing this would be a temporary situation and that we didn't have many other options, we started considering it.

I went to the district offices to get information. I was met with a lot of coldness and found that they don't really give you much information other than how to take your child out of school. They let me know I would be on my own if I decided to pursue this, which was fine with me. They did tell me about a place I could look at called Davis Connect and see if they could help me. I went across the street to their building and met some really nice women over there. I found out that they are connected through the school district, but instead of being in a classroom setting, they do online home school. I was quite excited about this program. One of Ryan's hesitations was how we would show that Alex was still being taught. He didn't want us to get in trouble when trying to get Alex back in school and maybe have him held back for any reason. I explained our situation to them and they were very empathetic, but said they were a new program and had only a few people working there. They could only allow 40 kids right now and were totally full. I took their card, very sad that it wasn't going to work out.

I started gathering information about doing home school myself, started bugging my sisters (who are teachers) for anything they could give me that would help and getting our upstairs set up. And then out of no where, I got an email from Davis Connect saying that they had gotten approval to take Alex on and asked if I was still interested! YES YES YES!!! They would be taking care of Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. Any other subjects we wanted to do would need to be done by us at home, but wouldn't really be graded by them.

Anyway, we ended up starting home school on March 19th. We are now in our 3rd week and are really loving it. The 3rd grade math was really easy for Alex, so we had them put him in 4th grade math. But we wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything in the other subjects that he would need, so he remained in 3rd grade for those. We have a great schedule going and Darek even seems to be enjoying it. I'm glad I'm in a position to be able to do this with Alex. We will probably continue doing this until we move again (and hopefully for the final time) and put him back in public school. It has made for a crazy couple of months, but I'm really happy with the outcome!