Dude,
I can completely commiserate with you. I'm going through similar frustrations. That which doesn't kill you will make you stronger, right?
I'll follow your format and outline DS11's first experience of public middle school:
Bad: The first week was an utter, inept, disaster, which left most of the children without schedules or if they had them, they were slap-dash with no prior thought given to who the children were as individuals. DS was supposed to enter middle school as a 7th grader and the computer had him as a 6th grader. So that first day, I had to go in an make sure he started out in the right grade. That was sorted out, but whoever found him a place in 7th grade didn't take into consideration the fact that he was grade-skipped, that he was supposed to be in compact math, and that we'd asked him to be paired with another grade-skipped kid (years earlier) who is an academic peer and also a friend. They (the inept counselor) stuck him in remedial classes that happened to also have a lot of behavior issues. So I had to go in two days in a row and ask that the counselor remedy this and I was told over and over that they couldn't do anything about it at that time. Also, that whole first week DS was stuck in band, even though everyone KNEW he wasn't supposed to be in band, including the band teacher. When he came home with a band instrument, I went back to the school and I was told he had to just go to band until it got sorted out. So, I asked, if he's to go to band, and it's wrong, why can't he simply show up in another wrong class, until you are capable of correcting things? I was told it would be too confusing for the adults (not the kids) and that it was easier on them to keep the status quo.
The school took so long to try to get the boys together that my son decided he didn't want to switch one of his teachers to do so. I predicted that would happen.
20 minute lunches: yup. Ridiculous. As well as the fact that he doesn't eat until almost 1:00 p.m.
The county has made some strides in gifted education, but for some reason we are the only middle school in the county that doesn't have an AIG teacher hired yet. Another school close by has two.
Thus, my son has no real advocate at that school.
The principal is new and has different ideas about gifted education and clustering than I. Nothing new there. Same old love for heterogeneous classrooms, which would be fine if some of the kids would stop misbehaving long enough for the teacher to teach something. DS is clustered with a whopping 2 other possible AIG kids in each class. Not sure how much differentiation will be happening in some of these classes.
He has a killjoy for a language arts teacher who gives punitive homework, punishes the class for what two or three are doing, passive-aggressively keeps them in the classroom too long so they are late to their lockers or to the bus/car lines. And when I met her, I noted that she prefers a talk-down-to-the-kids manner of communication. This is all new to DS, who is a rule follower, sensitive, and made the astute observation on day two that this teacher didn't seem as though she liked her job or the kids. Oh joy. I may need some advice on this soon...
Good:
He has an AMAZING social studies teacher who is engaging, smart, and digs deep.
He has a amazing math teacher who may inspire him to love math again.
He has a quite competent, lovely science teacher. (down side: most of the curriculum is matter he's seen before)
He goes to tech/science club after school
He has tech class and the school has a STEM team for enrichment.
He's out of band and into chorus where he can use his nice voice.
He's managed through all of the school's nonsense, he was able to suffer the fools, and he's stronger for it, I'm sure.
Phew. I've been holding all of this in for over a week. Feels good to vent.
Last edited by KADmom; 08/30/13 10:40 AM.
