The White House

The White House

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Every Day Seems The Same

Here is where I drop Olivia off between 10:30-10:45 AM each day.  Emily is already in there behind the tree in the middle learning away.  This is my 13th year as a parent at University Park Elementary.  If life continues like it is I will put in 20 years there before I am done.  If I win the lottery I'll be teaching my kids from my RV or condo on the beach.  If we actually had a lottery I could play I might win.
That is the fancy (really expensive) museum that is supposed to resemble a whale's tail at the University of Alaska. I still haven't been in it, but Emily has taken a field trip there.  I don't think I'm a museum kind of gal.
I rarely get a latte.  Not that I don't want one, but I cannot justify the expense when I can just make coffee at home.  Yesterday I decided to treat myself and Lucas had a flavored ice cream cone. My coffee was like drinking silk and was so worth it!
There is a lot going on the in the grow room.  I love seeing the new starts each day.  My Wave Petunia's flopped.  Not sure why as I haven't had a problem the last two years.  Not even half grew and that was $100 worth of seeds.  I am so disappointed.  Now I have to scramble to figure out what to plant in the 100 foot bed in the ditch.  Last year I put 98 Tidal Wave Cherry Petunias there.  This year it was to be purple, but it looks like I'll only have about 40-50. 
I wasn't home long before I had to go back to get Elijah.  He was serving a half day of In School Intervention for NOT fighting.  Yep, you read that right.  Another student heard him talking with his friend, thought they were going to get into a fight and it "scared" her so bad she ran to the office to report it.  That, my friends, is a girl who needs to get a grip on reality because she is never going to survive out in the real world.  Really? Now my son can't even talk to his friend (and yes, this kid is a friend who has been to my house several times and they were just talking) without getting into trouble.  So since the girl was "scared" by their words they both got half a day in detention.  (I could go on for pages on the stupidity of it all...there is a little group of girls at this school who spend their hall time fabricating crap like this to get attention from the staff for being "good" citizens....I've heard about them from many students).  So anyhow, in detention the staff is all in his face for not having homework. Elijah spent enough of his childhood with people "in his face" that it usually doesn't end well.  So, of course, he assumes Elijah must be lying so he rings all the teachers.  Nope.  He doesn't have any work to do and is telling the truth.  So the guy isn't going to let it go and shoves a newspaper in his face and tells him to he has to read it.  Mind you, two students next to him are sleeping so he's just picking on him to get a reaction.  Elijah said he didn't like to read the paper and had to go to the bathroom.  The guy refused to let him go.  At his point any human would be irritated so Elijah told him to either call someone to walk him to the bathroom or he was going on his own, but he had to pee.  The VP came and walked him to the bathroom, but as a result he got a day of out-of-school suspension for being disrespectful to the detention monitor. The lady I deal with is super cool and doesn't have any options when it comes to "enforcing" what another staff member writes up.  She doesn't write the policies, she just has to enforce them so I took her a plate of brownies fresh out of the oven when I picked him up.  She said it was the first time she even got a treat for suspending a student. :) The best part? A very public statement was made by you-know-who that my son has problems at school because "something" bad must being going on in my home.  That is one heck of a leap from joking with a buddy to bad parenting.  This is the crap I have to deal with.  He's a good kid.  We have a good home. I am very involved and good parent. The only problems are with ridiculous policies and some staff that need to put on their big boy pants and act like adults.

So home we came. My two beautiful boys went out into the sunshine and raced the snow machines back and forth in the yard.  He's a good son and a good brother, and I really wish the assumptions that he isn't would stop.
Husband: "How many nest boxes do you need"?  Wife: "Six".

I got 18.  Do you have any idea how long it takes to paint when you have five kids?  And a ringing phone? And barking dogs? This took over an hour with all the interruptions.  Maybe I should paint in the middle of the night if I ever want to get it done. :)
I finished another hat for Elijah while we watched Tangled with the kids.  The horse in that movie is hilarious.  I haven't laughed out loud at a movie in a long time. (He looks so good in bright colors.  They go with his personality).
And first thing this morning he was back on that snow machine. What will he do when the snow is gone?
I should paint or plant or clean, but maybe I'll just bake something else for my friends in the office at school.  I mean, if she is smart enough to see he really doesn't deserve to be punished and likes him and knows we are doing a good job at home then she deserves cookies for having such a stinky job.

I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people focus on tearing lives apart rather than spending that energy more positively. It makes my head hurt if I think about it too long. (If you'd like to share some of your stupid school stories from raising kids that would be great!  I'm sure I'm not the only one who deals with foolishness and it would help illustrate that there's nothing "going on in my home" to cause it). :)

4 comments:

Little Black Scrap Cat said...

Okay, I'll share. Since you asked! My daughter is in ALP (Advanced Learning Classes) so she is doing math and writing a year ahead of her grade. She has straight A's, including in the ALP classes. These are weighted grades so a B in ALP is actually an A. This teacher writes a comment in her report card last quarter asking "how can we get more out of ***'s writing?" How much more do you want??? She already has an A!!! Same teacher (woman) loves to make her feel uncomfortable in other ways as well. (ex. gave her a zinger cake at school for a "success party" in class, but then guilted my kid into giving it to someone else. My kid was so confused. She just wanted to eat the cake herself but felt she HAD to to what her teacher wanted her to do.) There's more that goes on, too. My kid has had this teacher for two years now and will have her again next year too. Our school has a zero tolerance for bullying. What do you do when the teacher is the bully??

Kim@Snug Harbor said...

I am APPALLED at what is going on at that school! That is disgraceful. Have you gone in and talked to the principal? I know you are extremely busy but you need to be documenting ALL of this - dates, who you talked to, what was said. Once you have 5 things on your list, and heaven knows, I'm sure you are WAY past 5, go see the principal. Tell him if they don't stop harassing your kid, you are going to the school board AND the newspaper. When my daughter was in 8th grade, there was a bunch of crap going on. I wrote it all down. Finally my husband went in to the school and told the principal that if one more thing happened, we were going to the board and the newspaper, and the principal could expect to see my husband sitting at a desk at the back of my daughters class EVERY DAY for the rest of the school year and then things WOULD get straightened out. Man, was my husband HOT! Believe me when I tell you, there was not one more incident for the last 4 months of school. Idiots. They are a school and they are suposed to be helping and teaching kids, not harassing and belittleing them. I will say this for Elijah tho - he hangs in there, he keeps going back and he keeps trying. Don't let them break his spirit or turn into an angry adult. You give that boy a huge pat on the shoulder for that! He needs everyones support!

gpc said...

Okay, Devil's Advocate here.

First, I believe EVERY bad story about all your schools. Did I tell you about the time that my daughter was suspended for swearing at the school Athlete after he body-slammed her against a locker and tore her homework because (the principal told me with a straight face) the had a zero-tolerance policy against swearing? The boy was NOT suspended.

Or the time her school counselor said that my daughter had "asked for it" (by wearing black lipstick) after a gang of boys knocked her down and kicked her repeatedly (that was the school's position even though the boys were convicted as adults of felonies!) My sister has a long similar list involving one of her children.

But here's the other side of the story in our lives. There really were problems with my daughter and my nephew. And we think now that we were so busy being justifiably angry and spitting nails at the school system, that we missed whatever chances we might have had to help our kids address the very real problems that were triggering that pack mentality on the part of the (disgusting, horrible) school.

Frankly, it sounds like you are doing a much better job than we did of trying to be objective, and I know how hard that is when the school is clearly, inexcusably wrong so much of the time. I wish you well and think you're doing a heck of a job.

gpc said...

(Oh, and GOOD GRIEF, LBSC, does your daughter go to a religious school? That sounds like the pseudo-christian game playing I grew up with! My son went to a church school and I could see that the teachers ran the range was fantastic to just freaky, LOL!))