The Best Thank You!

Today I went to the end of the year Parent Partner's party. PP is the tutoring/reading program I have been doing at Kt's school this year. I have been working with a kindergarten student, who has made some great progress this year although I would not personally send him on to first grade, and with a third grader, who has been the absolute sweetest girl to work with!! Before I went, I stopped at Target and picked up a couple books to give them for the summer and some fun stickers. Really, not a big deal AND we'd been told we could bring something for the kids if we wanted to.

This sweet girl came in, gave me a big hug and said, "I am going to really miss you. This has been the best part of my year!" I gave her her gift, a Judy Moody book, and she said, "This is the book I've always wanted - thank you so much. I'm going to take it to Atlantic City with me this weekend and read the whole thing!" Now, mind you, she was not coached. In fact, she was shocked we were even having a party! It was adorable and it definitely made this volunteer job worth it. M is a bilingual student, her primary language being Spanish, so it helped that she really enjoyed reading, and was not challenged other than in vocabulary and English. What a pleasure!!

My other student, who is in morning K and could not make it, has been another story altogether. He has struggled tremendously this year to the point of complete frustration and refusal to cooperate. At one point this year, I expressed to the volunteer parent who coordinates this program that I was not interested in forcing a child who was not ready to read to learn things that are inappropriate for him. I did not want to participate in teaching this poor child, who really was not ready for K at all, to dislike school. Very quickly, they changed our focus from forcing him to learn his letters, of which he knew only 4 by January, to helping him complete his work. This helped, but I think it's a weakness in our school system that this child, knowing maybe 20 of his letters by this week, will be moved on to first grade, where he is being set up for complete failure. This situation is not one that I am proud to be a part of. Of course, what do I know. I'm only a former teacher, "demoted" to parent.

I did enjoy today and M made it even more exciting with her adorable response. Whether or not I am in this program next year will depend on whether we send Em to kindergarten at this school or to a private school. That is actually looking pretty grim right now. I believe we will be looking at close to 28 kids/class for full day K with a shared aide for 1/3 of the day. For a highly acclaimed county, it's a shame that small class size is only a priority in the wealthier areas of our county, where K classes never go above 17. Just no equality. But then I have my husband, who is quick to remind me that most of world lives on $1 a day and is lucky to have their children go to even a little bit of school. So, in other words, stop complaining. (Sometimes, he's just no help!)