photo credit: makelessnoise

Somehow every school year I create personal chaos before school.

I thought this year would be different.

What do I mean by chaos?

I struggle with knowing where my kids belong in schools.

2003

It all started with Thing 1. When he was starting Kindergarten the Public Schools raised the number of kids in a K. class to 30. That seemed like SO many. So I looked at my options and found a Montessori School which I thought would be a good fit.

2004

I think in some ways it was, but the layout of the building had open ceilings and it was SO loud, so the next year we tried a different Montessori school for T1

2005

The next year the question was should Thing 2 start Kindergarten (he turned 5 Aug 31st). We kept Thing 1 at Montessori and we did start Thing 2, mostly because I was due with Thing 3 and wanted Thing 2 gone every morning. He also was ready, in that he was starting to teach himself to read, etc. We sent him to Public School (I had a bit of guilt about that)

2006

The next year we realized that Montessori wasn’t a good fit for Thing 1. He had really tuned out the year before and wasn’t reading well (Thing 2 was almost reading as well as Thing 1) So then the dilemma was, what to do with Thing 1! We ended up switching him to Public School, but had him repeat 2nd Grade. I prayed long and hard about each of these choices and all I can say, is this was the RIGHT choice for him at the time. We also started intensive cognitive therapy (Learning RX) to help him learn to read and up his processing skills along with other things.

2007

Hmm, maybe there was nothing at the start of this year. Though once school started I didn’t love Thing 2’s teacher. I didn’t love the way that the school was so standards based, worksheets and really crushed his love of learning. It was a hard year for him. Thing 1 who we always thought we would worry about was doing great.

2008

I wasn’t sure, should I home school Thing 1 and 2 or send them to public school? Two days before school started we found out there would be a split 4/5 class. Jenny and I coordinate and both call the school and say we would be happy for our sons to be in there (to try to get K. and T1 in the same class) Then I am second guessing myself, was that a good choice (the combo class) But that part worked out great. T2 just was bombarded with worksheets and they were doing this 30/20 thing and I decided to pull him out and homeschool him starting in December. That was an adventure. Some great parts and some hard parts. T3 was in a great preschool.

2009

I wasn’t sure if I was going to send T2 back to school. I had him evaluated and approved for GATE. I finally decided yes we would send him back. He finally got a great teacher and had a good year. T1 had another good year. T3 was in a home preschool, that I felt was was too academic.

2010

I was all set. T1 is doing fine, we have things in place to get a 504 set up for him, regarding accommodations for keyboarding, etc. T2 was getting his awesome teacher again, she is moving up to 5th grade. T3 was going to a new preschool that sounded just right! I even thought, finally a year with no chaos!

BUT – come back for my next post which will talk about the chaos that came into my life regarding the boys education!