Trish’s Blog

Just a little update for those of you who have been wondering… Today was the first day of public school in our neighborhood. We all got up early and went to the schools to turn in letters of withdrawal for each of the children. I felt it was too late for me to mail them, so we braved the crowds.

Turning in letters to the principal’s box was a piece of cake at the elementary school. The hardest part was parking. We left that traffic jam as quickly as we could and headed to the middle school.

Teachers in the hallways were power tripping hard at the middle school and yet, not one of them knew exactly what to do with me and my request to withdraw my child, but keep her in band. I was told to wait an hour for when the counselors would be back at their desks.

I chose to run a few errands involving Shipley’s Do-nuts instead. We each got our favorite doughnut to celebrate it not being our first day of school. We are starting homeschool on September 1— just like Hogwarts. I’m spending this week preparing and then buying curriculum. We are particularly attracted to the Charlotte Mason approach, but will probably have a mix of teaching styles, and before the year is out, we’ll know what works best for us.

When we got back to the school, we had a bit of waiting time until the counselors got the right counselor for us because those present were clueless on how to process us. When the right counselor came, she gave me one form to fill out, took my enrollment forms and letter of withdrawal, and then let me hold my completed form in the hallway for several more minutes. One of the teachers in the hallway kept trying to explain to me how the first day of school is really crazy and how I really should have made an appointment. I just kept telling her that I understood. She clearly felt a need to explain, and I was not upset so I let her fulfill her desire. I did not tell her that no one on the phone ever actually just told me that. I had to go down there to learn that much.

Finally, I went into the sacred space that is the counselors’ office, and asked if I should make an appointment and come back. The secretary got up and said she would find out. Another counselor came by and asked if she could help me, and then took my clipboard and completed form. The “right” counselor came back in and walked another counselor through dropping Sarah’s classes except for one. They printed out another schedule on the special green paper that everyone else had, but this time it just had Symphonic Band. After finding out the starting and ending time of band, we left again.

It was just enough time to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls and type in a few things for work with Zoe climbing all over me. We went back to the school, dropped off Sarah, reconfirmed a pick up time (basically an hour later) and left the school again…

…and went to Target. We did some shopping for dinner, looked for a Cross Pen refill (ended up hitting Office Depot next door for that), and got back to the middle school one minute before designated pick up time. Then waited 25 minutes. I was thinking Sarah was chatting it up with the band peeps, but when I went in and asked about it, I was told that fourth period was two hours long.

Sheesh, people, I’ve got groceries in the car. We left the school. Again.

I had not planned on getting that free cheeseburger that I won off a cup from Burger King, but Zoe was asleep in the car, so we dropped off the groceries and headed back out. Got the cheeseburger plus a few more and some fries, and went back to the school to find Sarah waiting. I was thinking, “At last, we can go home and stay home!”

The kids have since done some chores, watched more Gilmore Girls (OK, I watched GG with Sarah, the boys played in their rooms), played DS, and are now playing Wii. They only have one more week of video games and then I’m locking it up for the school year. (Except for when Beatles Rock Band comes out in two and a half weeks. And Mario Bros. Wii in November.) This is their last week of summer.

In the meantime, they had a blast not being in school on the first day. Happy Not First Day of School, everybody!

Posted on August 24th, 2009 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool