The New School – Part 2

This post is a continuation from yesterday’s post.

Friday comes and I am at Munch’s school volunteering all day because it is picture day. I find out by speaking with other parents who attended the meeting that their child’s teacher was also out and that there are 3 out of 4 first grade teachers on administrative leave and one third grade teacher….Munch’s teacher.

I was troubled by this because my son is at a new school and although they can’t do anything, nothing was sent home to parents. They stated that they sent letters home and the woman that I met with is the program coordinator for the school. She stated that they have a substitute teacher in his classroom now and she speaks fluent French and she believes the children will be fine.

She told me that letters were sent home. I asked her to explain how not one parent got the letter if it was sent home. She couldn’t. She informed me that she would resend the letter to me today and asked could I forward it to the parents in the classroom. I agreed to do this.

When the letter came it was dated October 11th. The day after I sent the email about the change and not receiving notification. Umm, strike one. Why didn’t you just admit that you dropped the ball and you would send something home immediately? They were playing games.

But, not trying to sound off and be aggressive and such, I politely thanked them and agreed to send. That same day Munch came home with another note detailing who the sub was and that they will test all the children to make sure that they are where they are supposed to be.

Now, I am not a patient person, but I’m trying to be because I understand that they are literally scrambling but dang it…can I get some sympathy? All of this is new to Munch and I and they are literally being inconsistent as hell with all these changes and he is just supposed to be cool with it? The only thing Munch said he liked at the school besides the principal and the music teacher was his main teacher.

I decided to relax and just keep encouraging Munch and inquiring about grades. Grades aren’t being inputted and the program coordinator has to input grades for 75 children because substitutes aren’t allowed to enter grades. This is in addition to her other duties. I get it. She’s swamped.

Does it change my opinion that they need to do what they need to do about my baby’s grades? Nope, but I’m trying to work on my patience. Literally, I am. That being said, while I’m praying to sweet baby Jesus for strength, patience and understanding with his school, I’m watching the on-line portal like a hawk to see when and if grades are updated.

My stalking the portal showed that Munch had earned a 50 on a math quiz. What the what? Really? Can you please send it home? How can I help him when I don’t know what the issue was? Well, the paper came home and it was in fact a zero. Yep a big fat 0.

Why did they give him a 50 instead of a 0 you may be asking? Because the County says that you can’t give children in grades kindergarten through third grade a 0. You have to give them partial credit. Yep, that’s bull, but I accepted it. What I didn’t accept was that it was a 4 question quiz and that boy got not one question right. Are you serious?

I had him redo the quiz and printed off some math homework for extra work. As I explained to him… your failure to apply any effort means no extras for you with electronics. It means that you will have extra math homework. It means that your free time will be spent studying and focusing on the areas where you seem to be struggling.

He’s mad, but he’ll live.