The Principal's Office

Today, T and I went to the principal's office to talk about Kt. All in all, it was a good meeting. We accomplished probably more than I'd hoped and less than what I was afraid of. In other words, we only talked about Kt and left out all the other things I was afraid might come up. I think some really positive things may come out of this meeting, but I doubt that any changes in communication or education will change because of it.

One interesting thing that the principal mentioned was about parents having to be advocates for their children. I think having been a teacher, I'm maybe not very quick to jump in a "take over" where I think a teacher or school should be trusted. Unfortunately, in this situation, things have spiraled to the point where our child is having the time of her life in school knowing that she can get away with doing minimal amounts of work very unimpressively - and that is putting it mildly! She is no dummy! I think the missing key here this year was motivation fed by interest. Nothing, other than math, has held her interest in any way this year. Possibly science, but all the other material that has been covered is either a little too easy or just boring to her. We have tried all year to suggest to her teacher that she might need something more, but it's always been met with this idea that there is more, we just are unaware of what it is. That's been clear, because she brings home so little that I've been wondering most of the year what she has been doing!!

We have hammered this out today and I have resolved to be her advocate if need be. One of our smaller battles has been getting her into this GT enrichment class she applied to be in at the beginning of the year. She had filled out her "application" to do research on her favorite animal, the dolphin, before I ever even saw it or heard about the program. I signed the paper and she returned it the following day. Many of her friends who initially were not at all interested in missing 6 recesses to do this came in the following day as well with applications their parents had made them fill out. Kt, unfortunately, was placed in a group that was to meet last on Fridays in December and January. This group never materialized, much to Kt's dismay. She shed many tears over this, and after asking her teacher, writing the G/T teacher and finally emailing the principal, I still had not one answer on this subject as of last week.

On Sunday, I was talking to another mom at church about this and she mentioned that the G/T teacher started this program the first week of May (when Kt was out sick with her fever) on Wednesdays and never notified any parents. We contacted this teacher, who said the kids had all completed their three weeks of research and were planning to put together a power point presentation of their collected data. If Kt could do this on her own (before today!) she could join them. We went to the library last night, she found three books and two videos by herself!, came home and took notes, watched one video and went off to school with it all in her head, happy as a clam to finally get to join this group!

Her report when she came home? She was the only one in the group to have completed two slides and is working on her third. The G/T teacher told her she learned things from Kt she had never heard before. She found pictures on Google Images for her presentation and is excited to show the class what she has done when it's over. I'm really proud of her, and she is more excited than ever to go to school. She has gotten herself up three days in a row, made her own lunch and breakfast and gotten herself off to school. I'd say that this provided a small amount of motivation - finally doing something she enjoys! I'm sad to report that after finishing her Judy Moody chapter book in her in class reading group, they have moved onto a Magic Schoolbus book - I'm sorry, but have we just taken a huge step backwards, or what??

Anyway, Kt will be tested for reading and I'm hopeful that next year she will be in a group more suited to her abilities. As for math, well, I have no idea who taught her that but she seems to be doing quite well. I believe we've determined that she has her father's school habits, and she probably has his math ability as well. Since T and I both did better in math than reading, do either of our kids stand a chance in Language Arts??

Hopefully, no one in our family will be making any more trips to the principal's office, but somehow I think #2 might bring us right back there - but for very different reasons!