So X-man brought home this little student incentive chart from last week. I guess I missed it in his cubby on Friday. It lists the days of the week and some key things he's working on, including academics, specialties (music, art and spanish), manners, follows directions and uses inside voice.
Shocker of shockers, the specialty area and academic area are full of stickers. But there are no stickers in the behavioral area...
You know, for something that I've been pretty tuned into since he was 2 years old, I'm kind of done. Clearly, my repetition of expectations, modeling of good behavior, cognitive approach and incentive/rewards hasn't taken hold. So I'm not sure what will. It's been, apparently, my big parenting fail.
Right now, he's telling me all about his introduction to the Bubble Guppies from his play date at Ella's last night while I was at the kindergarten meeting.
Speaking of kindergarten meeting, I didn't really learn anything new, besides that parents are weird people and if you send your child to the Garden Hills magnet school they will have the opportunity to learn Mandarin Chinese. Some dad showed up and said his kid didn't speak any English and wanted to wave ESL because he didn't want his kid to go to the schools where that service was provided. (The answer is that he'll have to sign something that says he's refusing services.) Another parent showed up and was concerned the school might make her vaccinate her child. (Again there's a form where you have to list why you're against vaccinations, which makes me wonder if they deny waiver requests for "I think they cause autism, even though the study that said there was a link was proven to be false and the doctor was freaking disbarred in England" reasons). But then again, maybe she's a Christian Scientist?
Someone else wanted to know if she drove her kid to school if she could get some kind of increased chance of getting her school of choice because she was providing transportation that the schools wouldn't have to pay for... the answer was -- no.
Talking to the principals was interesting because there are some that, well, don't have a personality. And others who light up the room. It's very curious. There was a collective cross our fingers about meeting the increased percentages they'll have to achieve to meet No Child Left Behind this year. I guess the number is 85 percent have to pass the ISAT tests... and no one is quite sure that's going to happen.
2 comments:
For vaccinations, Illinois offers no philosophic exemptions so you are left with medical and religious. Medical is pretty obvious. Religious doesn't actually have to identify with an actual religion. You just have to write a letter saying "my personally held religious beliefs say that my child won't be vaxxed for blah blah blah" I wrote one for both kids because they are both missing some of their shots.
Our principal was, while not excited, ok with our school not making AYP this year. to make AYP, all the sub-groups in the school have to make AYP. This includes ESL, where the kids may not speak a word of English and special ed with profoundly disabled kids, some who operate on about 2-3 year old level. There is no way a kid with that operating level is going to be able to pass a 4th or 5th grade test. And each year you make AYP, the percentage you have to meet goes up for the next year, until you are at 100% of your school passing the tests. If you miss the mark, it doesn't and you get to try again next year. Of course, if consistently miss, people will get fired and changes will be implemented but a year isn't the end of the world.
And I'm right there with you with the behavior. After getting really really bad this year, it has gotten a little better for us (You know, darkest before dawn and all that) so I'm crossing my fingers that he will continue on this path. Hopefully, X-Man (haha, I just wrote xmas) will be able to hold it together until he can outgrow it!
And the vaccine thing- our school has yet to ask me why Rowan is missing some....
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