mugglechump | Entries tagged with school

Sorry for bombarding the flist today. I have a question, and I'm curious what other people think of this situation and what they would do.

Manassas, where Mer and I are living these days, is not a well-to-do area. We have a lot of immigrants, many illegal, and a lot of low income housing where the inhabitants are predominantly African American, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern. Generally speaking, this has little effect on our day to day lives and neither Mer nor I have ever had any encounters that would make us especially fearful or angry with the other townsfolk. In fact, Meredith is enjoying her new school far more than she did her last, which was about as lily white as place as you'll find.

All that being said, the other day one of Meredith's teachers - a white woman - referred to her in class as 'Little White Girl'. This led to the rest of the class laughing and jeering in the way that teenagers do. Meredith held her tongue, but she was pretty freakin' ticked off. I was pretty irritated when I heard about it. Imagine the outcry if a teacher had used that sort of terminology to refer to a child of another race. Do you think that would have slipped by without a shitstorm? No, it wouldn't. But since Meredith is white, it's okay.

Mer and I talked about it, and she wanted me to talk to the school and make sure the teacher was told that this sort of comment was not appropriate. And I'm fine with that, but I wanted to make sure Meredith understood that her schedule would probably have to be switched around because this would likely make her relationship with this teacher openly adversarial. She wasn't really thrilled with that idea, so ultimately we decided she should go and talk to her guidance counselor about it and if she was not happy with the result of that conversation, I'd step in and take things to a higher level - schedule be damned.

Am I being too wimpy on this? Am I making too big a deal out of it? I'm really curious what other people's opinions are.

Current Mood: annoyed

Tags:

mer,
school

Sometimes if I get up earlier than I usually do, I go through a period of being ridiculously, painfully hungry. If I don't eat anything it will go away after a little while, but it's uncomfortable. I don't know why getting up early would affect my body's need for food, though. I don't usually eat until around 10:00, when I generally have a yogurt at work.

Poor Mer. Today was Twisted Tuesday at school, one of those school spirit days when you're supposed to dress funny. At Mer's old school these sorts of things were very popular. School spirit was a big deal and a large portion of the student body participated. Not so at the new school. We pulled up and Mer's eyes got wide. "Why isn't anyone else dressed wacky?" After seeing one other girl (out of, say, 40 students walking by) and being assured that there was not time to go home and change, she finally got out of the car.

Can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but the issue with my car is not the battery. It's the starter, apparently. I need to call my BIL's friend from church and see if he can fix it for me, along with the turn signal on Mer's car, which is (pardon the pun) on the blink. Blink blink bbbbbbbllllllliiiiiinnnnnnkkkkkk nothing nothing nothing blink nothing nothing bbblliinnnkk.

Also, Mer had a good time at the team camp out. Apparently it was cold, though. Who would've guessed? *snicker* The back window of her car now says '88 Red', which is her team's official league name. Some of the girls decided to paint other girl's car windows while they were sleeping. The paint is yellow, which amuses me a little since we are a 'red' team. We used to be the Phoenix, but then LYSA named all the teams by year and 'red' or 'white'. I'm not sure why we're '88. Our division is U18, which means the girls can't have been born prior to a certain day in 1989. Who am I to argue with the geniuses at LYSA, though?

Why no, I'm not procrastinating. Why do you ask? *cough*

Dawn, a girl with whom I work, brought in her baby yesterday. Jack is five weeks younger than Gracie, but since she was early and is just tiny in general, he's bigger than she is by a couple pounds and inches. He's the cutest little guy. He's just started giggling and he has this cute little one-sided smile that makes me want to call him Draco.

I get to see Gracie this weekend! Becky and Manny are bringing her out so we can call celebrate my BIL's birthday. James will be out, too. Mer has homecoming, so she won't be around. That means I just have to wrestle the baby from my niece so I can get some Aunt Kate/Grayson time in.

I got mail from

rainpuddle13! But, Cyn, my computer won't recognize anything on the DVD. :( It thinks it's blank - won't even give me an option other than writing to it. :( :(

There is a new, really cool expansion pack out for Sims 2, but it has a lot of bugs and I had to uninstall it. There's a patch, but it didn't fix the issues I'm having and the issues are pretty major. I'm bummed and I think I'll send a little note to EA Games asking about when they plan to fix this and how it got released with these kinds of problems. Visitors not being able to leave the lot is a big deal. Not only does it get crowded, but I seriously had about 20 newspapers on my Sims' lawn because the paper boy kept laying them down. Another family got stuck on vacation and couldn't check in or go home. When you're shelling out $30 for an expansion pack, it ought to freaking work.

Oh!

caliga_rpg is approaching D/Gness! *SQUEE* What will happen at Draco's first appointment for his scar? Will sparks fly from somewhere other than Ginny's wand? Watch the community and see. God, I'm so corny!

*sigh* Well, I'd better get in the shower and go to work. In sequence, not concurrently. Hope you all have a great day!

Current Mood: silly

Tags:

This morning I pulled into the parking lot and promptly realized that I'd left my laptop at home. *headdesk*

After driving home to get it and driving back to work, I realized I left my cell phone and my yogurt (breakfast) in the car.

Screw it. I'm not going to go get them.

I had an email from my mom waiting for me when I got in the office. My grandmother is still in the rehab facility/nursing home. At this point they are telling my mom that she probably shouldn't live alone - at least for the time being. They think she needs either an aide or to live in a nursing home full time. We'll see.

My brother Chris, who lives in FL, apparently has the flu. Hopefully he'll be recovered by the time I head down there because I like hanging out with him, but I'd rather not get sick.

It seems that my uncle is in Florida right now, too, staying at my late grandmother's place. So, maybe I can finagle a night or two over there if Grandma Brown's apartment gets too cramped. (Ok, so maybe I'd rather stay at the large waterfront house than in a retirement community one bedroom apartment with three other people. Sue me. I'm selfish.)

I need to email my friend Cynthia and let her know I'll be in town. Hmm. I ought to bring her some kind of gift, too. I never sent her a present when she got married last year.

I've found someone to take care of my mom's cat while I'm gone, so WOO for that! It's $18/day for the lady to come out and feed her (also get the mail, play with her, clean the litter box, etc...), but her vet wanted $38/day to board her in a little cage, so I figure I'm still getting a decent deal. For my entrepreneurial friends - dog walking and pet sitting is big business. A lady Becky knows from the Chamber of Commerce just bought out 5 dog walking businesses, and employs something like 50 people to handle all the work. People love their pets, and will spend boatloads of money to care for them - especially if you live in or near an area with a lot of white collar professional types. Personal concierge businesses are good, too.

It appears that Meredith is just getting the entire month of February off. No school today due to the snow. Never mind that the roads have been cleared and it's supposed to hit 45 today. Oh well, she'd probably be out sick anyway, at least this way she's not missing class.

James is sick, too. He just has a bad cold, though. Thank God I've got a good immune system. For realz.

I talked to my dad briefly today for the first time in several months. I didn't ask him for money. Yay me. You'd think he could call me once in awhile. I'm not that hard to track down, you know?

I need to pay my car note and the water bill. *nods* I'll do that today.

I suppose I should do some actual work now. Meh.

(In less than 72 hours I will be on my way to

mynuet's. :D)

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Chantilly, VA
Current Music: None - I should remedy that.

Tags:

Thank God it's Friday. This week has dragged on and on, and I've accomplished virtually nothing. *sigh* At least I remembered to pay my rent on time, though. Yay me.

Responses to my question yesterday were interesting. I got six yeses, four nos, and one combination of the two. I suppose it's a definitive maybe.

Meredith came home early yesterday because she was feeling poorly. She's had a cold and cough for a couple weeks. The school nurse said that there have been a couple cases of Whooping Cough at the school, and that we should probably take Mer to the doctor to see if she's got it. So, this morning I took her to the doctor. He said he doesn't think she had Whooping Cough, just a sinus infection, but he put her on an antibiotic that would take care of either issue just in case. I dropped her off at school, ran some errands, and came to work. As I walked into my office my cell phone rang, it was the school nurse. Apparently Virginia school regulations state that any child suspected of having Whooping Cough must stay out of school for five days, so that they don't infect other kids. I explained that Mer isn't suspected of having it, the doc just prescribed an medicine that would treat it as a precautionary measure. It's much more likely that she has a sinus infection. In any case, the nurse said (apologetically), with any infection she needs to stay home for 24 hours after starting antibiotics. In order for them to allow her back without the five day banishment, I have to get the doctor to fax them a letter stating that he doesn't not suspect she has Whooping Cough.

*grumbles*

1) According to the doctor, Whooping Cough can be dangerous for babies and other such small people, but for adult-sized folks it isn't really that big a deal. This regulation may make sense for elementary school children, but for high schoolers it's kind of stupid.
2) Sinus infections are pretty low on the contagious scale.
3) Meredith does not need to miss more school. Seriously folks, she does not need your help to get crummy grades.

At least I talked them into letting her walk home. I'd just gotten to work when they called. I was not about to turn right around and drive 40 minutes back to P'Ville. Now if the doctor would just call me back.

And Lys leaves for Italy in six days. *sniffle*

Current Mood: aggravated

Tags:

I'm very, very close to going up to Meredith's school and sticking my foot up someone's butt. It's no secret that my kid is not a scholar. Mer has many other things she'd rather be doing than going to school. Her lack of scholastic success does not please me, but it's a fact. Consequently, she is behind in credits. She should be a junior, but she's got one credit too few to be one 'officially'. The plan was to catch her up this year by having her take both English 10 and English 11. We signed her up for that, and she was in those classes for the first week of school. Then the school realized, "Oh gee, students can't double up English like that unless they are seniors who need the classes to graduate." You know, God forbid she get back on track before her senior year. So, without consulting me, they switched her into Marketing co-op, which is a two credit course. One credit for classroom work, and one for work experience. Rather than having a study hall, Mer would get out of school early on B days, and go to work. She had until the end of the fourth week of school to find a job.

Now, first off, Meredith doesn't have a driver's license. So, without my permission, the school pulled her out of an academic class and put her into a vocational elective class. Without my permission, they released her from school early to WALK to a job she had one week less than every other student to find (since she spent week 1 in English). Not to mention that Mer has soccer two afternoons per week, plus weekend games and an occasional Saturday practice. The Co-op class requires that students work 396 hours before the end of the school year in order to get the second 'work experience' credit. The teacher helped Meredith find a job about two miles from school, at a business that closed at 5:30 p.m. every day. Considering she'd only be getting there at around 2:30 on B days, and 4:00 on A days, we're not talking about a lot of hours - especially since she'd only be there three afternoons a week. Not enough hours that she'd be able to get to 396 during the school year, for sure.

So, after the first week, the business decided that Mer can't work enough so they called the school to tell them they were letting her go. This violates the 'you must have a job' rule of Marketing Co-op, so now she's been pulled out of that class, too. The school is 'trying' to put her in Sports Marketing (How many freaking marketing classes do these people offer?), based on Mer's statement that she wants to be a sports trainer when she grows up. Not exactly the same thing, but, you know, it has the word 'sports' in the name, so it must be ok. Again, no one bothered to call to talk to me about this. The problem is that the deadline for switching classes was really at the end of September, so the school isn't sure if they can get Meredith into another class at this point. They might just stick her in TWO STUDY HALLS instead. Even if she gets into a class, she has to make up a month's worth of work now in order to catch up with the class.

To recap, I tried to get Meredith caught up to the level she was supposed to be scholasticly. The school has now worked it so that there is a very real possibility that she will not only NOT be caught up, but she may be an additional credit behind. God bless public education. These bureaucratic fucks sure Know what's best for my child. They're making sure she's getting exactly what she needs to succeed. Yes indeed, thank God the government is here to tell me how my child should be educated. I'd just screw it up with all my talk of academics. But hey - at least the illegal alien's kids are getting taught for free, right?

Current Mood: irate
Current Music: My heart palpitations

Tags:

Had a meeting at Mer's school today. It was good news, she's really improved her performance since the meeting we had last month. Hopefully this will continue, it's very frustrating to watch her do poorly just because she doesn't feel like doing homework. She'll get yanked off the cheerleading squad if she doesn't get high enough marks at the end of the semester and she won't be able to do track in the spring. We've decided to take the spring off from her travel soccer team. A lot of girls are playing on their school teams and the coach is due to give birth in April. Seems like a good season to sit out.

Wow, that paragraph just rambled all over the place. I must be tired. I stayed at work until almost 8:00 tonight because I had to pack up my old office. Tomorrow I'll move my two boxes of crap to my new office. Only two more weeks of sharing work between the two jobs and then I'll be done! Woo-hoo! It's been exhausting and I'm heartily looking forward to it being over.

Current Mood: tired

Tags:

Kate

Question

Good morning!

An auspicious beginning to the week. Or not.

Why do short weeks seem so long?

Public education is a cesspool of ignorant fuckwaddity

Ma-na Ma-na

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