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The choice to homeschool...a vent. and long

Judith,
Is there a chance of going to another school or a private school? There is alot of home schooling in this area, and I'm sorry to say there social skills are not the best.... I too deal with a troublesome school, nothing compared to you.... But sometimes you simply have to do whats best for your child.... Make a choice and go with it... Parents have to go that extra mile for their child's education....
 
Just to be a devil's advocate here but what if the parent home schooling is the predator-there's been a few cases in our town where teachers have alerted people to abusive home situations-there are lots of homeschooled kids up here-I've coached lots of them-my kids are friends with others-they are just like any other kids-some are smart some aren't-some got into drugs-most didn't-some are well adjusted socially others not so well. Homeschooling is everyones personal choice but it is not a utopia where all the real or perceived ills of the public school system will be cured.
 
Hi Katrina and Northern,
The two of you also bring up great points. Braxton has been in two different schools in the past couple years. He was moved out of the first school (Which I loved!!!!) when it was discovered that he was getting a $hit kicking every day at lunch. The principle said it was "normal" and did not do anything about it, then he came home with a glass cut on his face (from a broken off glass bottle) and a broken wrist from covering himself from being kicked. Now he is a montessori school. He is not being tormented at his new school that I know of but now we have to worry about the possibility of a child "snapping". I'm just kind of done I guess, Our schools are so large here that I have even had phone calls asking if I had brought Braxton to school or not! You want to have your heart race have someone call and ask if your child is home sick, when you just drove him to the door! Well sure is alot to think about. Kids today are just not the same as when we went to school. I think in rural areas, there is an advantage most of the parents know the kids by first name and there is a huge advantage to this. Braxtons school is a small one at just under 800 kids to grade 7. The high school has 1500 :) My whole school had 300 and the was k to 12 :shock: I know rambling again but.....
 
If anything, keeping him in school will keep his wits sharp about who he can trust and what kind of behaviour to watch out for and avoid. From what I have seen in people (including some friends) that have been homeschooled, they are very nice polite people, but niave and unsure of themselves through and through. :?
 
Judith,
I'm quite sure you will do the right thing. My mom always said an education was something no one could take away from you... And we are learning everyday.
I think the final straw for us to take our son into Valentine was when we went to Kyle for football.. And after that I knew what ever it took, we were going to do that... And it has been a wonderful exsperiance...
I was reading in the paper were the kids were #1 was to go to school was at the school board meeting pleading for the board to do something about all the bomb threats that have happen. I think they have had six or eight bomb threats.... Lots of gangs and not a very safe place.......
 
We are having Parent /Teacher conference next week so I am sure there will be some news then. Asked Braxton about his feeling about being in the class with this other boy. He said he really likes him and that the teacher had provoked him. Not sure what that meant but he says it was not Nicks fault?????
 
Judith--I'm 63,parents were older when I came along,and were both raised by older parents,so all told,I was/am 'bout 40/50 years behind times...Don't like whats going on in schools..4 kids were arrested in Hays county yesterday for bringing bomb makeing materals and napam to school!! One was the son of a Hays county Deputy Sherrif!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Two sets of parents are sueing a school because their 5 year old girls were molested by another 5 year old girl !!!!!!!

So glad I don't have to decide----You and hubby need to get on the same page on this..Maby see why he's so dedset aganst homeschooling..
 
Peg that is so sad. Just breaks your heart. If a 5 year old is molesting another 5 year old, I guarantee you that someone at home was educating her :( What the hell is wrong with people:(
 
This thread is very upsetting to me.

For one thing, we have thrown all this money at the school systems
and look what you all are saying!!!!! Seems to me the school sytem
is VERY BROKE and needs fixing. I wonder if these kind of things
go on in schools in other countries?

We have become so apathetic it's pathetic. We are wayyyy too tolerant
about important things, and it is evident in our school systems.

Things I hear that go on on sports buses, makes me angry. We
are paying for kids to have that kind of behavior.

My grandson has been bullied in school and on the school bus.
They were thinking of changing schools with him.
Now this year, at age 12, he's pretty big and now has gotten into some fist fights. So what do you do about that? I think he was goaded
into it, but what do I know. I'm just a grandma.

We didn't have problems like this when I went to (rural) school
in the 50's and 60's. But we couldn't go to school dressed like
they do now either. The whole attitude was different.

I remember my father didn't get to finish school. When he was
young going to school was a PRIVILEGE, not a right.

Like Doc Harris says, "don't get me started."
 
Faster,
I can only speak for schools in the area I live in currently. It says something when you have to drive your kid 30 minutes to and from everyday:) We did not take knives to school in grade 4 however they are regularly taken from the kids in Brax's school. We did not get 5 kids together knock a kid on the ground and start jumping on their heads! (called stompin or too stomp) or worse drown them. This happens fairly regularly. We did not take a hatchet to a party and smash a kids neck and cause others to become quads! This is happening every day!!! The poor kid that got axed not to long ago was a good kid, he hung out with the "right" crowd but is no longer able to do anything. This happened 10 blocks from my home!!!!!! The world is a very differnt place than you and I remember it to be. I got into my fair share of fist fights at school. No one ever got seriously hurt. I know kids (especially girls) can be horribly cruel but as a parent I have to take back some control to keep my child safe. But where do you draw the line at being overprotective and being a good mom?
 
Judith said:
Faster,
I can only speak for schools in the area I live in currently. It says something when you have to drive your kid 30 minutes to and from everyday:) We did not take knives to school in grade 4 however they are regularly taken from the kids in Brax's school. We did not get 5 kids together knock a kid on the ground and start jumping on their heads! (called stompin or too stomp) or worse drown them. This happens fairly regularly. We did not take a hatchet to a party and smash a kids neck and cause others to become quads! This is happening every day!!! The poor kid that got axed not to long ago was a good kid, he hung out with the "right" crowd but is no longer able to do anything. This happened 10 blocks from my home!!!!!! The world is a very differnt place than you and I remember it to be. I got into my fair share of fist fights at school. No one ever got seriously hurt. I know kids (especially girls) can be horribly cruel but as a parent I have to take back some control to keep my child safe. But where do you draw the line at being overprotective and being a good mom?
Click to expand...
As our family doc says, the goal is to keep them alive til they're about 25. Then things start falling into place :roll: He has a couple ADD kids so that is his goal. From what you're describing, I'd vote for survival and a son who is happy being home-schooled. I can't imagine how kids deal with the daily stress of not feeling safe at school. That is really sad. Nobody should have to endure that at any age.
 
They are redistricting out here probably by the time my kids are going to be ready for school. The place where they are talking about sending this school district to is 45 minutes away from here.. You gotta be kidding.. On a bus it would take them 2 hours+ ever day to get there and another 2 to get back probably. Tell me how that is worth it? The distict next door has a school that is all of 10 minutes away from us, we actually pay taxes into that district on some of the ground but since our house isn't on that ground they would send the kds to the other district. Doesn't make sense to me at all.

If they do this redistrcitng and we end up in the one we are in right now that will probably make the decision to home school very easy.. Either that or it will make the decision to build a new house a no brainer.
 
Holy IL,
Can you imagine sitting at home waiting for your little ones? All these slushy.slick roads would make 2 hours seem like an eternity!
 
Are we whipping the wrong horse here instead of bleating on and on about the schools and teachers maybe the deadbeat parents or the ones that sue if a kid gets strapped are ones to blame. Life happens sooner or later whether at home or in school. Somebody is raising the little bad actors take them to task not the bus driver or school teacher who is forced to deal with them.
 
Northern, I think you are right but it goes past even the parents of kids in schools it goes to society as a whole. The whole country is sue happy and never willing to take responsibility for their kids or their own actions. Of course, one could say home schooling is the ultimate in taking responsibility for your kids education. I will always have mixed feelings about it but that is to be expected.. I have a lot of sympathy for the teachers at public schools. Have a very good friend who is a social worker in Elgin Illinos elementary schools. the stories she tells me are jsut horrendous, I don't know how she can go to work everyday.

Judith, Yeah.. I don't get it. They are taking three small school districts and combining them into one. But instad of taking the centrel district as the site of the everything they are going to take the one furthest South. There are kids that will be 1 hour away on a stright drive on a sunny day from the school. I don't think the plan is getting lots of positive feedback. The thing that makes the most sense is probably taking the three districts and parcelling them up and have them go to the closest distict available. But than you have to look at room for the kids and faciities and all of that good stuff. Our local HS has about 20-25 people per class I think as does are Junior high and so on, k-12 is all on the same campus. The publc highschool in the district I was in growing up at 2000 kids per fresham class and that was one of 3 highschools in the distict :shock while the school I went to had 28 kids graduate from it in my senior year... There is probably a happy mediam but who knows.
 
I agree with you Northern. Im not upset with the schools or the teachers. They have a heck of a time. (my older brother Greg is a school teacher) BUT there are quite a few little turds out there period. Me sqwaking at the Principal or the teacher really isnt going to do anything at all. We have a huge immigrant population here. They do things very differently than a traditional Canadian home would. The male children recieve no discipline, while the daughters get whaled on in public.

Anyhow that was totally off topic. I'm not opposed to public schools,lots of kids grow up just fine! I'm just wondering how wise it is for my particular kid.


Aaron,
Do you really think anyone growing up with me as a mom could grow up naive???? :shock: 8) LOL!!! He wouldnt be isolated either, still would have scouts, cadets,4-H, and swimming lessons.
 
Judith, We have 6 children (1 in state university, 1 in private Christian college, 2 in public high school, and 2 at homeshool) They were all homeshcooled until 7th grade and never missed a beat socially. It is the best way to teach your kids your values and protect them when they are small. Dont let anyone tell you that your kids won't have any social skills or can't relate to the "real" world. There are great curriculum out there and our kids were at the top of their classes when they went to public school. Pray about it and do what is best for you and your child and don't let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn't do.
 
Ok, I'm gonna jump in with both feet here............this is my kinda topic!!!!!!

I read a couple of the responses you've gotten so far, but nowhere near all of them, so what anyone else has said won't have a bearing on what I'm about to spew forth......

We took Al out of public school about 2 months before he got out of 3rd grade. The teacher he had then was nowhere near the high standards of the teachers he'd had up to that point, and we figured that we could do as good of job teaching Al as she was. Many was the time I'd go over there, to visit his classroom, and she'd have the kids doing one of the many, many pages of "busy" work, while she sat with her feet up on her desk, drinking a soda, and reading a trashy novel. The next year, he was to go into the class of a really radical enviro, and we didn't want that garbage force-fed to our son. I really thought (and still think) that Al deserved better than that.

He was also one of those kids that just isn't comfortable around a lot of people (he probably inherited that from his parents, bless their hearts :lol: ).

Al has thrived on homeschool, and one of the best parts of it, is you no longer have to schedule your life around a school calendar. There's so much freedom for everyone, it's not even funny.

I tell ya, this has worked miracles for Al (who was always a good student, but he's just blossomed in home school) and I wouldn't change a thing at all.

And if you seriously think your son would be better off (physically, emotionally, mentally) then you should yank him out right now, (depending, of course, on the laws where you are) and get started. I can nearly guarantee that you'll never regret it as long as you live.

If you have any ??? just holler, I'll be glad to help in any way I can. Good luck to you and your son! :D
 

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