Mermaid wrote:

Yes, that is ridiculous. And I am a teacher type (well, child of
teachers-turned-administrators, very pro-public education, all my
mom's
siblings are teachers, my brother's a teacher, etc, etc).

Relatives of mine pulled their son out of grade 2 three weeks
before
x-mas, because they felt the school system had failed him/them.
Apparently, his kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 teachers, and
principal, all had insurmountable shortcomings (no two the same,
though) - IIRC, the grade 1 teacher "did not command his respect."
Clearly it was the school's fault that he was frequently in trouble
and
getting unsatisfactory reports. So now they're homeschooling.
Scarily,
this kid was socially a nightmare before starting public school,
and
just at the end of grade 1 and beginning of grade 2, I had started
thinking, "wow, the boy's really made progress. He's actually
pretty
functional these days."

I'm not against homeschooling, at all, just against this couple in
particular doing it. Especially since the only normalizing social
arena
he's encountered appears to be public school. I shudder to think
what's
going to happen to him over the next few years, if they keep him at
home. OTOH, I bet there are a bunch of teachers and a principal who
are
only too happy to see his parents' out the door. . .

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)

That I think is all too true. I'm fed up with my dd's school. I do
like
the principal and the teachers she has had so far are good people. I
just
really have an issue with the lameness of their attitudes towards
parents.
And over all these folks lack insight big time. I don't want to be
too
critical because I am not a teacher nor a principal type and wouldn't
want
their job persay along with all the antics they have to put up with.
My BIL
is a school principal and he is an excellent teacher and principal
but he is
really struggling with alot of the parental issues that have come up.
I
don't know the answers. (Interesting that my BIL's wife homeschools
their
kids??!!!!!)

I think you're right - the school sounds dreadful ITO this whole parent
issue.


We don't have a large posse of homeschooling parents here but we do
have
some and we do have parents who have taken their kids out of the
school here
and placed them farther away in a school that is actually worse
because of
issues with teachers and the poor handling of students with
disabilities.
So they are opting for an inferior (I'm not talking about the
homeschoolers
btw) education just to have them in a school that will give them more
attention and better visibility as a student with special needs.

That is terrible. It's unconscionable (sp?) that a child's quality of
education should suffer like this. Incidentally, that business with the
student teacher was ludicrous.

The school
I'm talking about has lost funding and is at risk of being shut down
yearly
for problems therein. We live rural and I know we will not be here
in 5
years and mostly because of the issues with these schools. We have
only
three schools within 2 hours of us and the best one is the one my dd
is in.

I grew up in a small town, in a farming area. There are primary schools
in most of the towns, at least the ones with more than a couple hundred
residents, and I think two or three high schools. I was lucky to live
in one of the towns with a high school. Most students were bussed to
school. There were no options beyond either going to *the* local
school, or homeschooling. Unfortunately, in that area the people who
homeschooled were extremely religious, and were homeschooling for that
reason rather than out of concern for the quality of their childrens'
secular education. When they did send their kids to school at the
junior high level, they often couldn't read, couldn't do basic math,
didn't know what a map was, had never heard of the capital of Canada .
.. .

My parents homeschooled us for one year, while they were on a deferred
salary leave and we were travelling. My youngest brother had been
having loads of trouble with math and science, and my mom made it her
priority to bring him up to speed. His grades when he entered the next
year were much better.

Melania
Mom to Joffre (Jan 11, 2003)
and #2 (edd May 21, 2005)