Day off of school.

Melinda took one more day off of school today with some cold type symptoms. Alex brought school work home, and though this is a great idea to help keep Melinda caught up we could not ascertain what exactly was to be done with the school work. So, She will have to make up her work next week when she can get some direction.

Flu

When calling the school attendance line, the voice mail system still wants to know about any kind of flue type symptoms. Do they use this as some kind of statistical numbers about kids missing school because of the flue. Seems some what on scientific but what ever works for them.  NO she does not have the Flu.

She does not hate school but has been enjoying staying home and playing computer games. I insist that she does some studying on the computer as long as she’s their anyway.  It is amazing how much time the kids spend on the computer. We even have started watching some shows on the computer.

Tags: Melinda, Public education RANT // Add Comment »

She did not even notice my hair cut

School had a fund raiser – of sorts – last week. One of the restaurants nearby gives the school a percentage of the proceeds during a particular night. So all the parents took the kids out for a night (including us), while their we ran into the family that we car pool with. As parents we find a certain amount of pleasure in teasing Melinda and one of the boys about how they argue like an old married couple. They of course adamantly deny it.  But about this time Alex commented about the other boys new hair cut.  He thanked Alex for noticing and added that Melinda did not notice. NO!! that’s not acting like an old married couple at all.

Earrings?

So this past weekend Melinda wanted to try having her ears pierced again. Last year it just did not work, as they became infected and she had to let the holes close up. Now it is one year later and she is trying it again. Having never had my ears pierced I am not sure why it is so important, but it is! If you look close you can see how pretty her little earrings are.

She went to school with her new earrings in, and at the end of the day she asked her friend (the boy that is not her boy friend) if he noticed her new earrings. His comment: yes I noticed but I was pretending not to notice because you (Melinda) did not notice my hair cut!

I thought the girls were suppose to be sensitive about this sort of thing. And are you sure your not an old married couple? At any rate Melinda is very happy to have earrings again and said she is sorry she didn’t notice his very important hair cut.

Tags: Kid's and animals, Melinda, other kids, parenting // Add Comment »

School Rules

More time spent at the school. Time that is precious – Pattie used annual leave and I stopped working at my small business to chat with teachers. Teachers that have adopted a high school Language Art teacher who was tired of students handing in papers with “obvious flaws”. In an attempt to appear as a “high standard” school they adopted the “grave yard list”. The school staff told us that we just interpreted the list wrong. No student had to sign the list. It is a standard for the high school and the 7th grade teachers are working with their students to help them. How is it that being condescending is acceptable as a method to teach? How is it that as a parent, co-workers and highly educated individuals that we misinterpret written word? The document consists of “10 graveyard” points that result in a zero on any assignment. We asked the school staff if they could abide by all rules in a document without any errors – the principal did agree that he could not but the school had high standards. The list allowed all of the CSAP scores in the past few years to excel. How about the fact that several of the points are subjective? Subjective points are legible writing, acceptable paper, acceptable corrections, correct punctuation of titles, mechanical errors. I really enjoy the statement “failure to follow any other direction given.” This is not really what they are doing we were told. Than why is it in writing that that is what you are doing? Randy told them if he could do all the tasks without making any mistakes why does he need to be in school? The English instructor did not like that attitude. Instead, they told us again that we were interpreting the “Graveyard List” wrong. Our biggest concern was the statement that our child was to agree to “I am aware that I will receive a zero on any assignment on which I violate any of these graveyard error. I will have to re-edit and revise my essay for a grade.“ We have friends that went to boot camp that didn’t have to worry about this. It is the 7th grade. Actually, we believe that the children need to be able to learn not to be in a dictatorship/student relationship. We did all of this during our precious time when we should have been at work. If anyone out there cares to comment please do – especially anyone who support the school.

The challenge for us has not rely changed. We need to get Alex up to speed and While at the rink (for Melinda’s birthday party) we were able to talk to one of the parents about school. She is not a teacher yet, but works at the school helping out and she has been helping Alex. Surprise of all surprises, she seems to be making progress with him. NOT A TEACHER YET!!! Is that the key! – at any rate it is back to work with Alex and hopefully we can keep Melinda going strong.

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Thanks for not yelling

Evidently I yell when I find out he hasn’t been doing his school work. Though I do not want to get mad and/or yell, I get very frustrated when I find out he has not been doing his work. So last night after I asked him about his work and he said he did not have any school work and he went to bed, Pattie went on line and found out he was missing more work. She found on page of math in his back pack. Pattie had helped him last night on an extra credit assignment for science and I had him do some other math work but some how he forgot to mention that he was behind with his math. So this morning I got him up early enough to work on the one assignment Pattie had found. Though I wasn’t happy, I evidently did not yell, because after doing his work (before breakfast) he thanked me for not yelling. Do I yell that much? Evidently he thinks so!! The question still remains!!! Will he get his other work completed at school (as he says he will)? or will I still need to bite my tongue while trying not to yell tonight? Will he remember to actually do his work during recess, while his friends are telling him to come out and play? After all they might be aloud to go outside now that it has warmed up to almost freezing. This global warming is a killer. At any rate, first thing when he gets home this afternoon I will be asking him if he actually did his assignment during recess. I will try not to yell.

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Trying to see how much time I have to spend helping Alex with his school work as well as going down to the school for meeting with the TEAM. They say that we are a team – Yea – most of the time it seems like they are the team and I am just trying to not get run over.  Them against me. The goal is to get the kids to make progress in their reading and writing, and arithmetic. At least that is what I believe and I foolishly think that the main responsibility should be the teacher – the professional teacher. And yet, it seems that every time I go into these meetings I get the: “What are you doing to help him at home question from the teachers. What am I doing? What are you doing?” Well we are trying to help you help him. Nice! But what are you the professional teaching team doing to teach. Sorry I digress.

At any rate while trying to help Alex stay caught up we get a “Grave Yard” list of things that if he does he will receive a zero. Evidently, the kids have a chance to re-edit and revise, however aside from the fact that Alex is pressed to get the assignments done once – trying to get him to re-do it will not be easy. Also one of the things on the Graveyard list is handing in an assignment late – will he be given extra time to re-edit or will he be given a zero anyway.  I will be headed to the grave yard trying to keep up with this crap!!

So Pattie e-mailed the principal and he actually called back (twice). I do appreciate his effort to keep up with us. However,

 I am not looking forward to another meeting with another teacher.

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