School Woes

 

SO!  Kasin goes to Denali Elementary. It’s three blocks from our house. Most of the kids who go there, walk. Kasin is 7 1/2, and he usually walks there and sometimes walks home. If any of you tuned in for an entry a while back, I was concerned because my work/school schedule this next fall is going to screw with Kasin’s school schedule quite a bit, too. Denali starts school at 8:30, and they get out at 3:00. Most of the other schools start at 9 and get out at 3:30. I’m planning to work the opening shift at Educare (where I work and where Milo goes to daycare, and Kasin also comes when I’m working, or as needed.) 

So basically, Kasin needs to be at school at 8, 8:15am, and I need to be at work  by 7.  Ross works 8:30-4:30. So, Ross was going to have to get Kasin off to school in the morning, make sure he has all his stuff and his bag is packed (library book, lunch, permission slips, homework, gym shoes, coat, etc.) every morning. That probably would have been okay, but it would have made me really anxious, because you know.. Mom worries. Moms are the ones who remember that kind of stuff, yanno? 

THEN, I will be leaving work at 9am, and going to class. On Mon and Fri I don’t actually have class till 1030, so I’ll leave to do homework up on campus. Basically, my morning duties at work will be opening, serving breakfast, and taking all the school age kids across the street who attend Woodriver. Woodriver Elementary is LITERALLY across the road from Educare, like, literally, you could throw a rock from our driveway and it would land in the playground/field of Woodriver. They start at 9, I believe, and so one of the teachers walks them over at like 8:45, delivers the younger kids (preschool and kindergarten) to their classes, and goes back to work. Since the school age kids are all gone, that shift isn’t really necessary after that, so we’ve frequently had people just work 7-9am, and that’s my plan. 

SO, then I have classes till 11:30 every day, and I’m planning to be back at work from 12-6, and work breaks/nap and closing. (12 is nap time, so everyone takes their breaks starting right around 12:30 or 1, so I’d cover breaks, help get kids to sleep, and stay in the room with the nappers while other people are gone.) Then at 320, I’ll probably be the one walking across the street to pick up the Woodriver kids for the after school program. However, Kasin gets out of school over here at Denali at 3. So, in order to pick him up, I would have to clock out at 2:50, book it across town, grab him, and come all the way back out to Chena Pump, which is on the far west side of town, near the University. I’d probably have to be clocked out for like 30-40 minutes, depending on how quick Kasin is after classes let out. 

To avoid this, I was going to just let him walk home from school and be home alone for an hour and a half to two hours, until Ross gets here. My plan was to have him a set of chores for each day after school, then he could have a snack and do his homework until Ross got home, Ross could look over his homework and then Kasin could go outside or go downstairs to play and watch TV until I get home. Now, I was really anxious about this. We live in a good neighborhood, Kasin has stayed home by himself before for a few hours at a time, and all he does is hang out and watch TV. I would have him call me every day the minute he gets home so I know that he got there safely, and there are LOTS of other kids who walk to/from school, so he wouldn’t be all alone or anything like that, and it’s only three blocks, there’s a crossing guard at the corner, etc. However, it did still make me really nervous, and I was sort of worried about it.

Then, yesterday, I got a letter in the mail. Denali has not met their Academic Progress goals for like, the 5th year in a row. Mind you, we REALLY like Denali, and the principal is top notch, he’s even gotten awards from the US Board of Education and has traveled out of state for ceremonies and things like that. He got a great teacher last year and he flourished, he was an excellent student and citizen, he got great grades, he got all the compliments about how well behaved he was, he was a great roll model, etc etc. He got referred to ELP (The Extended Learning Program, what used to be called GT/Gifted & Talented) and he made lots of friends. That being said, he didn’t meet anybody that I especially loved, and no one that he absolutely loves, either.. he’s never had any of the kids from school over to the house, even though they all live within walking distance, pretty much. 

There are also a few things about Denali that have bothered me. I worked in the SpEd room last semester and I was really disturbed by it. The teacher, the way she kept her room (DISASTER.) and so on. There also aren’t very many classes for each grade, which sort of restricts your choice in teachers, obviously. If I don’t like the teacher Kasin gets, I won’t hesitate to demand that he be placed in a different classroom. However, at Denali, there’s usually only 2 classes for each grade. Where I went to school, there were 3 or 4 classes/teachers for each grade. I was also rather disturbed by a few Newsletters we got from the office where there were misspellings and poor grammar. These were typed by the receptionists, and clearly no one edited them before sending them home with the kids. A lot of mis-used apostrophes. Like, "We need more dad’s to volunteer for the program…" Dad’s WHAT? You mean "dads" ?? A plural word DOES NOT require an apostrophe, people. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine. SO I was pretty disappointed to see that, coming from the school that is supposed to educate my child… 

ANYWAYS, the letter I got saying that Denali didn’t meet AYP and that they will now be a Title 1 school told us that we now have the option to send our kids to alternate schools, schools that ARE NOT failing AYP. I almost paid zer0 attention to it, because like I said, we’ve been happy with Denali, over all. But then I realized that the alternate schools included Woodriver. Woodriver would be SO convenient for me, given my job. The daycare would drop him off and pick him up with the other School Age students, every day. He’ll wake up, get dressed, load up with me and Milo, get to Educare, get breakfast there, play a little, pack up for school, and walk over with the group. Then, after school, me or another teacher from Educare will go over and meet the group of SA kids in the foyer and walk them back over to Educare for snack and then afternoon crafts and free play. There used to be a homework time set aside each day, and I guess if I end up being the teacher in that room, I would like to re-instill that. Either that or send Kasin to the office to get his homework done before he can play, because I don’t have time to do homework with him every night at home when I don’t get off work till 6pm.

SO, I guess the plan is for him to go to Woodriver this upcoming school year. I am a little apprehensive. He’s going into 2nd grade, and this is only his 2nd year in public school (went to private for K) and his 2nd school. I feel like he had good relationships developed with the staff and teachers at Denali, and that he wa

s doing really well there. That being said, I feel like he will do well wherever he goes, because he’s very sweet, and very smart. I’ve already had two parents tell me they didn’t like Woodriver, and one of them was the parent of a child who just finished 2nd grade and told me to avoid the teacher her child had, because she’s the devil. HA! Those were her words!! I feel like Kasin would do well in any classroom, but that makes me SO nervous. She told me that she thinks she had so many problems with her because her child needed extra help and was struggling. The teacher she’s talking about has been working at that school for 20+ years, has tenure, and is going to retire soon, so she’s in a position to do whatever she wants, basically. The mom I was talking to said that she felt like the teacher was lazy and old and tired and didn’t want to put in the time and effort to help her daughter. Which is really disappointing, to me. I wouldn’t want Kasin to be in there, even if he doesn’t need the extra help, yanno? 

So, I talked to Kasin and asked him if he wanted to stay at Denali, walk home and be by himself for a couple of hours, or switch to Woodriver and go to Educare every morning and night. As soon as I said "Woodriver," he started jumping up and down and yelling "YES! YES! WOODRIVER WOODRIVER!!!" I talked to him about the pros and cons, that all the kids and teachers he knows at Denali will probably not be there (I doubt that many people will take advantage of the Alternate School, because its pretty far out of the way for our area, and even though they offer bussing, you have to have your kids AT Denali at a specific time to catch the bus out to Woodriver and if you miss it, too bad. Plus, like I keep saying, Denali isn’t a bad school at all.) 

Kasin going to Woodriver will be so much easier for me and eliminate a lot of worry and drama from my life. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is working opening AND closing EVERY day, but oh well. On Wed nights, I have an ASL class at the downtown campus (a few blocks from my house) so I’ll have to leave work at 5:30 and drop the kids off at home with Ross before that. Not a huge deal, except I won’t get home till about 9 on those days 🙁 Ross will do dinner and bed time those nights.

So, okay, I might be over thinking this whole thing, but I’m really apprehensive about switching him. I feel like he should stick with his school.. but this will be so much easier for me, for all of us, really. I was even just thinking a few weeks ago that it would be so much easier if he could just go to Woodriver. AND NOW HE CAN! And I looked up reviews of the school and their philosophy and everything and I really like what they have posted for their "Missing Statement" and things like that.. I know other people who send their kids to Woodriver and really like it, but having heard two bad reviews in two days sorta bothers me, especially since they are both from parents whose kids just finished 2nd grade. (Although, I think 1 of them only had their kid there for 1st grade and switched her because they didn’t like it at Woodriver.) I also don’t know any of the staff at Woodriver, which makes me anxious, also. But I didn’t know any of the Denali staff before Kasin started going there, either. So I guess that’s not a huge deal… 

I guess it’s just going off into the unknown that makes me nervous. But after Kasin said he wanted to go to Woodriver, I filled out the Alternate School paperwork. The paper made it sound like we might not actually get in, and that low-performing students and low-income students would get in, first. But like I said, I don’t think very many other families will take advantage of this switch. 

Now I’m just anxious about switching. I hope he doesn’t get the teacher I was warned about. I hope he does well. I hope Woodriver keeps him on the ELP program. I hope he meets some awesome kids to be friends with. I hope he doesn’t get sick of it half way through and want to switch back (we did make sure to tell him that it wouldn’t be an option to switch back, if he does switch.) I hope he doesn’t get burnt out on Educare, I hope the other teachers at Educare don’t keep having problems with him (he’s been a bit of a brat this summer.), and I hope we find time to get his homework done and still have him do some chores (it’s been a struggle this summer, with Soccer and stuff), and I hope he keeps doing well in school. I would hate for him to start hating school and slacking on his work, but I would especially hate it after switching him, because then I would second-guess my decision and feel like it would be because of the new school, since he did so well at Denali… even though common sense tells me that it wouldn’t necessarily be true. 

The upsides to switching are endless, but another plus is that he gets to continue going to Woodriver even if Denali catches up on AYP and gets the Title 1 brand removed. Also, if we move to a different area where Woodriver nor Denali are our "home area schools", he’ll still get to go to Woodriver. 

So, here goes! God, I had just gotten used to the last school…. oiy. Wish us luck. ONE last thing- Woodriver is in the NICE/classy/rich side of town, and so there aren’t NEARLY as many low income kids, and a LOT of the kids wear like, Jordan shoes and expensive clothes… I hope Kasin will be okay.

~Me