Sep 14, 2011

Issues at School

I am seriously ready to explode. I have
been frustrated with our school for three years now. But this morning has me seeign starts I am so upset. This is the email I sent this morning to our principal and then forwarded to the entire school board and Superintendent.

I swear if I had a magic genie with just one wish I would wish for him to fix our countries education system! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Principal,
I will apologize from the start for what I am sure will be the tone of this email but I am seriously stressed at this point and I do not feel that taking my kids to school should inflict this sort of stress. I am very seriously one issue away from pulling them out of the school and homeschooling.

As you are well aware, I do not believe that XYZ Elementary is really doing any favors for my children academically. I know that because of state funding, programs that existed when I went to school for the higher achieving students have disappeared and the focus of the school has greatly shifted to passing state testing. This has been a hard enough pill to swallow, but now I am dealing with daily stress on top of that.
For the last two weeks (or however long they've been back at school) my boys have come home crabby and STARVING. They insist they are not being given enough time to eat at lunch time. I have talked to them at length about getting in quickly and not wasting time talking but they swear that they are not wasting time but are being pushed out of the lunchroom before they have had time to make even a dent in their meals. In the past years I could ask them what they'd eaten at lunch and they would rattle off a decent sounding amount of food. This year they are telling me they are getting literally a few bites. So last night I contacted another parent of a child in the same grade to see if they were having the same issue thinking I would try to make sure the problem wasn't just my children before bringing it to the school. (I have not yet heard back from that parent.) But then this morning one of the boys breaks down into tears while we are getting ready for the morning. He was physically upset because if I dropped them off at the time I have been he would not get anytime to eat breakfast (the only thing close to an actual meal he is getting during his 7 hour day) because he would have to go to the office to call a parent to tell them that they aren't allowed to be at school early. So for today, I sat in my car and waited with the boys until EXACTLY 8am so that they would not have to worry about not getting to eat breakfast. But now I need to express my EXTREME frustration with this. I can literally not understand the handling of this. Yes, I understand that the "rules" are that they are supposed to be there at 8am. But I am also supposed to be at work at 8am. In our situation our choices are drop them a few minutes early on the school property, where I always wait until there are other kids (leaving a good 5 or 6 kids total before I leave) OR I can have my kids walk to school alone. I realize that plenty of second and third graders walk to school every day and our walk is only about 8 blocks or so however those 8 blocks are literally filled with crack houses and gang bangers. The amount of gang colors I seeing on our streets is increasing literally BY THE DAY. So as a parent I have chosen what I feel is the best solution I can for our family. On days where the weather is unsuitable, I wait and am late to work but on perfectly beautiful days, I let my kids out 10 minutes early where they hang out with their friends and wait for breakfast. My kids have never once reported a problem occurring before school. If this is to be the hard and fast rule and my choice will be taken out on my children, I suppose I will have to suck it up, deal with my boss and be late to work every single day. But please know that if our children's safety is HONESTLY the number one priority, I think the school is making a horrible choice.

If you have feedback on either the breakfast or lunch issue, feel free to email me however any phone call should be directed to my husband as I simply can not handle it this week!

6 comments:

  1. I can't read all of your post because some of it is chopped off but from what I can read, it looks like you and I are in the same boat. They just don't give the kids long enough to eat at lunch. I believe they have 15-20 minutes at our school. I do give them credit for having free breakfast (at least that's what they call granola bars or pop tarts and juice or milk) in every class after the bell rings plus after lunch they get to have a light snack in class.

    Sometimes you have to wonder how they come up with these class schedules. I think when I was in school we got 1/2 hour lunch break.

    All I can say is keep on them until you get the results you want.

    Melissa

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  2. I believe you hit the nail on the head when you brought up state testing. Schools are forced to "teach for the test." If the school scores poorly on the "test," funding is cut and more mandates required. In our school, they have cut out art, music, and recess in order to have more time to "teach for the test." The only thing left to cut is lunch time. Is it right? Of course not. No wonder our education system is broken.

    Thank goodness for people like you who are making your voice heard! I'm sure the teachers feel the same way as you do, but they are not allowed to voice their opinion on the matter.

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  3. Lisa, your margins are off and i can't read this post very well :(

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  4. and what the heck, now they are good ??

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  5. My son has complained sometimes about this in his school. Usually he does manage to get his lunch eaten but not always. I think some of it is him but I also do think that unless he hurries there just isn't enough time.

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  6. I applaud you for emailing this to the school. Doubtfully, but hopefully, it gets a positive response.

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