Beware! You are going to read the long ramblings of an inexperienced, overly concerned parent!
So if you know anything about me, you might have figured out that I am a bit passionate when it comes to Education. I am a true teacher at heart and loved being an Elementary school teacher. I guess it was a good thing I choose Education over Beauty School. I came very close to going to Beauty School and I don't think I would have had the same passion or talent for it. Funny enough I actually didn't go to College to become a teacher originally but in the end found a niche for myself. But this year, I have gotten to experience the other side of education. The Parental Side! And it has been less than easy. I knew it would be tough to send my baby to Kindergarten.
I even knew my list of challenges
- This is our first child and also happens to be our only. We are new at this and I was going to become an empty nester a lot sooner than planned. New and Only meant a lot of heartburn and I tried to be prepared for that.
- We moved to Texas! When Brydon and I first got engaged, he had informed me that he liked to move around and that he didn't know where life would take him. I told him I would follow him anywhere but that I would never teach in Texas! When we received orders to move to Texas, Brydon looked at me and said, "You don't have to teach, so please just come with me?". So here we are in Texas and I don't have to teach but my son has to go to school in a school system that I have had many years of bias towards. Obviously not something I was going to get over easily.
- I am a teacher! And a teacher that has never been satisfied with the status quo, a teacher that likes new ways of teaching and trying new things. Brydon calls me a "Pot Stirrer". And I have done plenty of that. Just any old teacher, teaching any old way was going to be pretty tough for me.
But despite these challenges, I really wanted to go into this situation with an open mind. We had heard good things about the school in our neighborhood. No major complaints, people were happy and so I didn't look into. I didn't want to over examine the school, I just wanted to accept what we got and be happy no matter what. I was actually really scared to go visit the school because I was so biased against Texas and I just wanted to wait to experience it when we took Caleb there.
Well things were pretty rough from the get go. The "Meet the Teacher Night" did not go very smoothly. They decided not to assign Kindergartners a teacher and have the students rotate around for 2 weeks. This was a tough move from a parent stand point, but because I like new things I tried to understand why they may do it. I just wasn't sure it was a great plan for my son. The teachers were very cold and wouldn't talk to anyone. The rooms were locked for most of the night and it was just not what we had expected. A very cold experience. But we went into the first week of school with as much excitement as we could muster! Caleb struggled the first little while. He got sick at school and was given medicine without me being informed about the situation ever. He was very emotional and complained about coloring all day. All day Kindergarten can be exhausting and he has always hated coloring so we tried to just make the best of things. But I did begin looking at other schools. We found an amazing school that was warm and welcoming and everything I had hoped for. The principal was astounding and was born to be a principal. We were told we could transfer there and so we began to make plans. Unfortunately we learned that our district does not have an open enrollment policy and that we could not transfer him easily. After visiting with the district, I was informed of a path we could take to transfer him but it would take time and require a little more from us. So we held off and tried to be patient.
Unfortunately things just were not improving. Some of my troubles were Texas things. We have to check a box so they DO NOT use corporal punishment on my child. The Lunch Room often has to be completely silent and the lunch lady spent a lot of time yelling to get it silent (which is apparently a Texas thing). But most of my troubles were entire school things. Anytime I went to visit the school, you would hear students being cornered in the hall and being yelled at. No one seemed happy and it often felt like a military school. We even had friends whose child was given a bad report for Being Too Loud at Recess. The Academic standard was surprisingly low in Kindergarten. Especially since we were at the only Excellent Rated School in the District. At the first 6 weeks, parent/teacher meeting, there was not a bit of Academic information the teacher could share with us about Caleb. She didn't know he was beginning to read or knew all his letters or sounds and really didn't seem to care. She was going to teach everything like she had for the past 20 years. It really surprised us that there was no information on our son, but a ton of coloring sheets that he had completed. And since he hates coloring, they were not done very well!
The hard part is what to do about it! What do you do for your child's education?
- We could look into a Private Schools, but that felt very expensive. And it was not a path were were ready to try out.
- We could stick out things in this school. Caleb seemed to get along fine. The teacher liked him, he behaved well, didn't cry when we took him to school, and seemed to find a way to just cope with everything. The academics were improving some. He didn't love school but he went.
- We could stay and I could try to change things. Get involved, see if I could influence things for the better. Be a "Pot Stirrer". But that felt risky. If things didn't go well, it could effect my son. I was just a mom now and not a teacher. And this was an entire school culture I wanted to fight. It felt like a really hard road to try.
- Or we could begin the long process and see if we could transfer him.
I began the process to transfer and this week we were given permission to transfer him. It was really had to know if we should follow through with it though. Caleb cried when we first told him about the move. He had friends at this school now and loved his teacher. So did the benefits of the transfer, out weigh the cons? Would the Kindergarten experience he had shape his entire future? Would it effect the college he got to go to? Probably not. But could a change help plant the seed for a more deep love of learning? I don't know. Unfortunately we don't have a crystal ball to tell us what the best choice is. However, the night before a decision needed to be made, Caleb came to us and asked us to move him. We never bashed his school or teacher in front of him and made sure he only heard positive things, so this surprised us. But he told us it was time for him to move. He wrote a note to his teacher and was excited to hug his friends good-bye.
This past Friday, we withdrew him from our neighborhood school and enrolled him in the school I found earlier. I don't know for sure if it is the best decision. Are we just overreacting? Will nothing be good enough for the only son of teacher who has to live in Texas? Well as we drove away from registering at the new school, I watched Caleb laugh and smile and show excitement for school that he had never shown before. They greeted him by name when we walked in the door, showed him a fun, vibrant classroom, and you could just feel a difference there. This decision probably didn't ensure that he will go to Princeton in the future, but hopefully we made the right decision to fight for our child's education and help him have a better educational experience. He starts his first day tomorrow, and only time will tell if we did the right thing.
Caleb at Princeton University in New Jersey last year. It is a beautiful campus!! Who knows, maybe it will be in his future, but more than anything I just hope he loves education as much as we do.
