I keep meaning to come back to the blog and post real stuff about our life and not just pictures. I have been blocked on what to write. I am not sure why, but I want to move forward with a little look back now and again.
One post I wanted to write will be for my girls to explain the reason we changed schools in 2013. Ella had been bullied at the old school and the former administration seemed confused about the whole situation and it got bogged down in red tape. I got frustrated and moved my girls out of after care. I had thought that would stop the bullying. But, the problem got worse in 2nd grade. This time it was the teacher. I won't say much because in reality it is Ella's story, but the teacher was not a good fit. She told me in one conference she was encouraging the kids to be perfect. I straight up told her we don't do perfect in our house, we do our best. I still don't know if it was a communication problem between us or if she really had unreal expectations of the kids. Either way, this teacher made Ella cry and I was done. I tried discussing it with her in emails but got more frustrated. In hindsight, I should have brought in the new administration and had them talk to her. Lesson learned for me. But, this teacher also mentioned in the draft of Ella's IEP that she had outbursts in class. When I asked her why she never contacted me about it, she pretty much said the person that took the notes down on the interview for the IEP must have misunderstood what she was trying to say. I pushed and got that statement taken out of Ella's IEP because it was BS. It all could have been misunderstandings or a teacher with unreal expectations. Ella tells me the teacher told the class one day that if they fail their tests they won't succeed in life. This was in 2nd grade. So, that is why we left there. I can fight many things, but we didn't need to run into another teacher like that. The reason I want to put this on the blog is I want my girls to know why we left and not the rumors. The summer after we left the school, we ran into a former classmate of Ella's Her mom said she heard we left because Ella couldn't handle it there. As I told that mom, that was so far from the truth and we left because of how Ella was treated. Her grades were top notch and she did get a good education there, just not enough care was given to the heart of my girl. Ella - I want you to know you didn't do anything wrong - it was not your fault and because it didn't get better there, we moved to a different school. I am so thankful we did!
Turns out Elizabeth didn't have a great social experience at the old school either. That's the funny thing about my kids, they express differently. Elizabeth didn't want to tell me what was going on because I confused her with my questions and wanting to barge in and fix. So she quit telling me the bad stuff. Hearing that made me realize I need to do better at stepping back and listen more and react less. Truthfully, that is still a working goal for me and I hope I continue to get better.
But this blog is for me to talk to my girls so I don't forget what we experienced. Being an older mom my memory is not the best so I need to get back in the blog game and document so I can remember it all better.
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