I had a meeting with the school, specifically with the Head and with the main classroom teacher. (It’s a complicated set up.) I feel that those two women both listened and advocated really well for their agenda. They want my kids in school. They were fairly eloquent and patient as they explained their reasoning.

They asked a lot of questions about how I homeschool and what my philosophy is for education. They asked about methodology and why I have the preferences I have. They explained their methods and what they are held to when it comes to transferring children on to secondary school in this country. It was an incredibly productive conversation. The Head was stunned when we said that the kids are almost never on video games unless they are programming them to create their own. That was not a concept she had ever really considered as an option before.

The next couple of weeks are mainly prepping for the winter concert, parties, movies, and fun stuff. We are going to ride out the end of this month in school. The Head is emailing the Council (like the district) about setting up the paperwork for part time schooling; there are already several other kids in the school doing part time so they are both familiar and comfortable with this process. I appreciated how much the Head stressed that I have the legal right to require part time schooling or home education any time I see fit. That was really awesome. I felt quite supported in that way. In the states a principal would have danced around that conversation and not explained my rights in such a straightforward manner. That was really nice. That builds trust.

We are going to have another meeting in January to decide for sure if we are going forward with part time schooling. Frankly I would prefer to have my kid in school. I am so utterly exhausted. I was shown writing samples for the entire last two months and kiddo is making big strides of progress. I’m not sure she would make much faster progress at home.

We had words about the aid who is using inappropriate words and both the Head and the classroom teacher apologized and said they would handle it. They have already spoken with her about never using that word about a child again. There is another aid who works in that classroom and she will be the one who handles my kid going forward. That’s a really good sign.

I actually really like most of the staff as professionals, I would be quite happy to work with them if I were still teaching. I like their attitudes, I like their methods, and I like the way they listen. I really hope we can figure out the growing pains and just keep kiddo in school. To be completely selfish: it would be better for me right now. I don’t know about what is best for my kid. I suspect that she fondly remembers the pair of them wearing me down and getting out of a lot of work and getting a lot of free time. If we part time schooled we would have to spend the mornings sitting at the table doing school work before she went off to school for more work. I could not use any of that time for work around the house and the baby would pretty much get left with the iPad, which I strongly dislike as a coping method. To be fair literally the only thing available to watch is Signing Time and she has picked up a huge ASL vocabulary from the iPad so it’s not all bad. It’s not like she is just watching generic shows that will make me crazy.

We will have another meeting in January and see how things go. I am starting kiddo up on Khan Academy for math in after school time (the teacher said she would stop sending homework home) because she doesn’t feel she is making the kind of progress she wants to make right now and it’s a really great extra curriculum; in my experience it is a poor primary curriculum. I always use it as a supplement anyway. I am going to start making her write every morning while she’s sitting around waiting on breakfast. I really hope this much supplementation is sufficient for her to feel like she is getting the support she needs from home on these subjects. She wants to be in the advanced groups across the board. Her teacher said that intellectually she is clearly at the top level… but her writing is so many grades below that she can’t be put in any of those tracked groups and I get it. I have said approximately 5,203, 839 times to my children “If I can’t read it I can’t grade it” and now they are hearing it at school and acting like it is news. Insert eye roll. I know that middle child is still really struggling with letter and number orientation. It’s a process. We are playing with Play Doh and we are talking about it a lot. We need to make up stories about why the letters face the ways they do to create mnemonics. That is the worst god dang word to spell.

I do want the kids to transition to needing less from me. It’s complicated. I think we are getting close to the time when I am going to request that they try ADHD medications because I am struggling with how much they want me to be their entire executive functioning process for them. I am pretty sure that EC is doing fine with the transition to school expectations. MC is… still in the gray area where it’s a struggle. I know we are more dependent on one another than average. The Head commented that she is really surprised my children like being home with me so much given the way we live (no tv, minimal screen time, lots of enforced exercise and healthy eating habits) because she doesn’t think most kids would be open to how we live. It was a somewhat funny thing to say. We really like each other. We really like all the time we get to be together.

We pay attention to our kids and talk to them for hours and hours every day. Our children feel heard, seen, and respected and they believe we make the choices we make because we are trying to shoot for longevity so we can have as much time together as we can possibly have. It’s a bit sad that the Head thinks most children would hate this.