So I don't know if this is a question or a rant (maybe both?) but I am quite disenchanted with our DS3's (almost four) current school. He has been there since 2.5. Last year we really liked it - the teacher was seemingly willing to just follow him, give him fairly appropriate work, etc. He liked said teacher and the kids and the individualized play, so we were happy. The administrative/communicative end was never great, but we figured it wasn't a big deal since DS seemed like he was thriving.
This year however, it has not been so great. As I said, there has never been great communication between the parents and the school - pretty much no communication, really: no reports sent home ever, one parent-teacher conference at the end of the year, no assessments, no letters, nothing. So, essentially, with the exception of some of the completed work they send home with DS, I have NO idea what my son is DOING all day, how he is acting, how he is adjusting socially, etc etc. So on top of that, when I pick DS up, every once and awhile I'll say, 'how's he doing/how's it going?" and teacher usually says something like '"eh" to which I will pry for more info until she proceeds to tell me how DS has been 'unwilling to do something for the last few days' or something like that. And I am left wondering why I haven't been told about it before.
Also, I had thought the 'curriculum' stuff was going ok....DS was able to focus on what he wanted, and, like I said before, teacher seemed to follow - this isn't the strictest montessori so I didn't think there was a lot of the 'finish everything before starting the next thing' going on. BUT this morning, when I dropped DS off at school, I found out that DS has been working on the same Phonics level 1 workbook for a year. And has still not finished it (in fact, teacher was like, 'please finish it today!" kind of half to me, as if she was implying I should ask him to, because she couldn't get him to.) The thing is, I don't understand why he is even doing a level 1 phonics workbook - he has been able to read since 2.5 and his decoding is something like 3th - 4th grade. He can pretty much read whatever. So why is he doing beginning phonics? I'm sure he doesn't want to do it because it's incredibly boring - I wouldn't want to do it either. If it was a comprehension book, THAT would be different, because he is definitely a considerable way below his decoding level in comprehension. But phonics??
So I'm sitting here, wondering why we are paying a ton of money for my son to learn hat, sat, bat or whatever, when he is clearly beyond it, and also so clearly unwilling to play along with their repetition/finish this book so we can move on to the next one mentality. Why would they WANT him to finish it? What's the point?
We are already pretty sure he will not be returning to this school next year, and have found some good potential options to replace it, but we don't want to pull him out now, when there are only a few more months left. That being said, if he is staying till the end of the year, we have the next few months to deal with, and I'm not just sure how to go about it. Am I being overly sensitive, or is this really is ridiculous? All I know is, between the lack of communication and the below-level work for SUCH an expensive school, I am really not a happy camper.
Thoughts on how to approach? Opinions on whether this is normal montessori practice? Am I being crazy, or is my dissatisfaction warranted?
Thanks, and sorry for the lengthy post.
