Phoebe and Boys' School Updates

Sorry it's taken me so long to update.  I really need to stop saying that, but then craziness in life needs to stop happening too!

The first update I'll give is on Phoebe's school.  Phoebe is an awesome student in an awesome school.  She's in 8th grade this year and is taking Honors Geometry, which a sophomore year of high school class.  She will go to High School next year with the GPA for this class.  She's an A/B student and is the goalie for her field hockey team.  The high school field hockey coach has already talked to her about playing next year and told her she should have no issue making the team, as she's a really good goalie.

Well, this girl got an in-school suspension for something she did not do in October.  Both my husband and I fought it as it was a first offense, but the assistant principal is a bit of a jerk.  What happened is she came back to the girls' locker room after gym with 5 classes of girls all waiting in the hall for the room to be unlocked so they can go to next period's class.  The bell rang that they needed to be leaving for their next class, and the room was still locked.  It is a gym teacher's responsibility to unlock it.  Her friend was coming out of the boys' locker room and asked her why she wasn't ready and she said "The fudging locker room is still locked."  (she really did say fudging and not something else).  The gym teacher (who was late) came to unlock the door and overheard her and thought she said the F-word and gave her a detention.  Phoebe tried to tell her that was not what she said, but she didn't want to hear it and told her to leave.  The next morning, the assistant principal called her to his office and told her she had an in-school suspension which also meant she couldn't go on the field trip that was on November 12th to Philly.  We were livid.  I called the assistant principal and explained that it was a first offense and according to the handbook it should be a detention (if she said it, which I believe she didn't).  My husband then got involved and escalated to the principal, who is new this year.  We could have escalated higher, but decided to drop it.  We told Phoebe in the future not to even use replacement words for bad words to ensure there is no mix up at school.  I'm a bit irritated at the way the school even handled this as we're aware of other kids actually cursing in front of teachers and not even getting a detention.  Unfortunately, it's difficult being 5'8" and outspoken for what's right.  Our understanding is the high school will be a much easier place to be.  The funny thing is through all this, I had to tell Phoebe I think she's a good girl, even if I get on her case a lot.  I'm usually the one correcting language, manners, attitude, making sure homework is done and grades stay good.  Let's not go into the nagging I do on the state of her room.  I feel very frustrated, as I feel the administrator (just one in particular) is treating all kids as if they have uninvolved parents, of which we are not.  We are not helicopter parents either though.  We usually tell Phoebe to take care of things herself when it comes to teachers and stuff.  That's part of growing up.  Well, if you're still with me after that rant, everything has settled down and there has been no more incidents at the school of her being singled out.  We're keeping an eye out for that.

The next big issue was the school the boys were at.  We decided to send them to the Catholic school in our area that has all day Kindergarten, but the boys weren't doing well there.  Liam in particular.  He was having issues kicking tables and chairs in the late morning/early afternoon timeframe and he did hit two kids one day at recess (one was his brother).  The school suggested we put Liam in a 1/2 day program, which either meant their pre-K program or the public school Kindergarten, but then I'd need to find afternoon care for them, as they had been in a full-day preschool program and I work out of the house.  So we decided to move both boys to the public school at the are bused to the YMCA for their Kindergarten-enrichment program for the rest of the day.  It's where Phoebe went for Kindergarten and after-care, so we are happy with the program.  I just wasn't thinking I would be spending time trying to figure out where the boys would be for school at this time of the year.  But they are extremely happy, both Liam and even Tommy I'm seeing happier than before (and he's aways happy!)

Right now, things are relatively calm.  Everything is over at Phoebe's school.  She stayed home this week when they had their field trip that she wasn't allowed to go on.  She could have gone to school, but they would have her sitting in a room with other kids that weren't allowed to go and that sounded like too much punishment to us.  The boys are finishing up their second week with the new school environment and things are great.  When they hit the pillow at the end of the day (8PM) they are asleep in a few minutes with no fussing.