Homeschooling: Why do I do it? Part 2

As I said in the last post those few months of school were horrible for me. I had at anytime 4 or 5 other children at home so I could not be at the school all the time. I went in the first day of school and told Karly's teacher that I knew that Karly was not a perfect little angel and that I wanted to help the teacher however I could. I asked her to let me know if there were any problems so that we could work on them at home. I asked Kelsie's teacher if there was anything I could do to help her from my home since I had about 4 small children at home. She assured me she would let me know.

A few months after school started Karly's teacher called me in to tell me she could not read. I knew this was not true because we read the Bible (KJV) at home together at night. We had family read alouds with other books. She was always talking about a book she was reading. I told the teacher that and she said for whatever reason Karly was acting like she could not read. I later found out that the teacher was putting a lot of pressure on the kids to read fast. When Karly gets overwhelmed she has two settings. Shutdown and overreact. She was doing both in the classroom.

She was stealing from other children, lying, being disruptive. I knew none of this because surprise, surprise, the teacher was not telling me and Karly was not bringing home notes from the teacher. The teacher was sending them, but I was not getting them. Huh! I talked to the teacher every day in the carpool lane and she said nothing. After, she'd let the behavior problems escalate for MONTHS! she called to tell me about all the problems she was having. Not only that, but I found out her extreme dislike for Karly. I understand the frustration. BELIEVE ME, I understand the frustration, but it could have been helped a lot had I known she was not behaving at school. I told the teacher that and she told me I needed to take responsibility for my child. Hmm... I thought I was doing that by talking to her everyday. By sending notes to school inquiring about certain things Karly was telling me, and by telling her to PLEASE let me know about any behavior problems. I was counting the days until I could bring my daughter home where she belonged. This teacher was causing more harm than good!

Kelsie had a young beautiful teacher. She and I met and I thought things would be great. Kelsie and I worked on her Kindergarten homework every night. We read together and played games where we added, subtracted, learned sounds... everything.

When the first report card came out Kelsie got a U in reading (unsatisfactory), the teacher also wrote that she was being sneaky and rude to the other kids. I set up a conference. The teacher and I talked. It was not that Kelsie was not doing great at the first 9 weeks of reading, but she had to be past a first grade level to pass Kindergarten and she was not on track for that at the end of the first 9 weeks. The teacher also told me that Kelsie had befriended two girls in the class who were destined to grow up as the "mean girls" of middle school and highschool. She said she did not think that Kelsie was acting on her own just doing what the other two girls were doing.

I told the teacher everything we were doing at home to help Kelsie and she said it was more than enough. She said they hold back quiet a few Kindergartners because of the reading thing. Why should she be reading on a 2nd grade level at the end of kindergarten? Because of something here in FL called the FCAT. Its a standardized test. I think it starts in the third grade, I homeschool so I don't know. :) Anyways, they try not to advance any struggling student into an FCAT grade because if the child fails the FCAT it makes the school look bad. Cute, huh?

Then, then, THEN, there was the soul incident. Kelsie (age 5) came home from school in tears. Some girl on the playground had stolen her soul and now she could not go to heaven. I went to the teacher to ask and was told it was a childish game. Of course I then asked if Kelsie told the kids they were going to hell because they did not know Jesus, would that be ok? Well, of course not. Hmmm... yeah.

We waited and waited for the adoption. Finally almost one month before school got out our adoption was finalized. We went straight from the courthouse to the school board. My children became homeschoolers that day! They have not stepped foot back into the classroom.

The journey officially begins....

Be Blessed!