Monday, August 23, 2010

Back to School Gives Me Grey Hair

I'm back and mostly recovered from all the craziness that has been my life.  I have packed so much stuff into the last two weeks, I seriously thought I was in peril of my head exploding.  Fortunately, it didn't.  I survived.  As did all who accompanied me.

Like the rest of the world, my life is consumed with the chaos of Back to School.  The Boy is starting a new school this year.  Not only is he going into the 6th grade, he will be attending a small charter school in a near-by town.  He's crazy excited to be taking Latin (he's a dork, I love that) and start learning about ancient civilizations.  I'm excited about uniforms and small class sizes.

The Girl is starting 5th grade, back for her last year of elementary school with all of her favorite teachers.  I'm kind of nervous for her last year of elementary, only because I don't know that she's ready for the pace of middle school.  She starts August 30 and I have already left a message for her Special Ed teacher to call me.  I really want to make sure that she, I, and The Girl's new classroom teacher are all on the same page.  The goal of this school year is to make sure she is ready for a middle school environment.  That's it.  Not making friends, not developing social skils, LEARNING TO PARTICIPATE IN AND GET THE MOST OUT OF A CLASSROOM SETTING.

Sadly, I'm not sure if the school is ready for that.  For the last few years, The Girl has been permitted to determine how much time she spends in the classroom.  As her behavior is very disruptive, the teachers have always allowed her to leave the room for non-preferred instruction.  (Don't even get me started.)  They have completely created a monster and this year, it needs to stop.  I am going to demand that instead of allowing her to feel rewarded when leaving the room, there needs to be the implication of consequence.  They need to create positve reinforcement to keep her in the room for as much of the day as they can. 

While I understand that this may impact the education of the other 23 kids in the room, I think if they tackle the problem early, The Girl will assimilate quickly AND the other students will only be affected during the review portion of the year.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope to have the support of the administration.  I will definitely keep you posted!

4 comments:

Salt said...

I'll keep my fingers crossed for her too. It's definitely better to get everything under control now before she switches school!

I'm glad you've made it through everything with your head still in tact. :)

Candice said...

I hope they both have a wonderful first day of school, and a fabulous school year.

Hang in there!

Babes Mami said...

Fingers crossed for you over here! Good luck!

Danielle said...

I hope that it works out for her and she has a great year!!!

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