Raise the Hammer

Sorry Ted, but to have input you must at least be listened to. We were not listened to on things from food allergies, to asthma. You document these things several times each year for school events & camping trips, & No Notice what so ever is taken of them. (Can you imagine not allowing an asthmatic child to take their puffer with them during a cross country run in hay fever season? Can you imagine presenting a child with only foods that they are documented as allergic to for dinner on a 3 day camping trip?)

Can also you imagine both parents taking time off work to attend a 'meet the teacher' event, & having the teacher keep forgetting who your child is? (to the extent of referring to them by the wrong name several times, & showing you another child's marks by mistake -twice?) To be fair, the school decided to do a mentoring program. The teacher we spoke to was a teacher our child had for only once a week. Parents did not get to speak to the home room teacher, or a teacher that could provide much input, just the appointed mentor teacher. To speak to the homeroom teacher, or other relevant teacher, you had to take more time off work & make a 2nd. appointment.) That was the last & final meet the teacher event we ever attended in a public school.

Private school teachers actually know who you child is, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, & their health issues. They have a good understanding of who your child is as a student & a human being. They also do not waste your time & dodge meet the teacher interviews. They answer questions honestly because there is no need to do otherwise.

How exactly would you suggest we could have handled this better? I can't even imagine how to handle it at all? In my opinion, because of budget shortages, public schools have become what we may have thought private school were. A certain group of parents decide what will happen in the school, & no other input from other parents is deemed necessary.

(Ie:A couple of Alpha Parents decide that Harry Potter is inappropriate & Harry vanishes from the library until the Board makes a decision. Or some Alpha Parents decide that they want free babysitting in the form of hours & hours of busywork homework per night & as a result all students Must do it. Homework/busywork is a very controversial subject at present, & rightly so. Children have a right to research their own interest areas, & read things that may not be on the year's curriculum. This is learning too!

Sorry again Ted, the public school system works for the few & ignores the people they feel they are not compelled to listen to.

"If democracy isn't happening at school, it isn't happening anywhere." ... W.O. Mitchell