Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Back to School Blues

Since late July I had been counting down the days until school began in eager anticipation of some time to myself, but I have not been able to catch my breath just yet. Roxie started 3rd grade in a SAC room at her new school, Merry Oaks Elementary. McRae started 1st grade at Myers Park Traditional. And Markos FINALLY started last Thursday and is in the 4's and 5's room at Covenant Presbyterian. 3 kids at 3 schools = Lots of time spent in the car and lots of PTAs.

The past weeks can be summed up with the following: Parents = stressed, Kids = Doing fine.

McRae has a substitute teacher until November because her teacher had a baby boy in mid August.

Roxie's teacher is having a baby in the next few days and will be gone until mid December so she will also have a substitute teacher for a good long while.

I hate to be a complaining parent, but I would like to climb up on my pitty-potty for just a moment. Seriously, this just isn't fair. Roxie already had a substitute last year for the first month of school because her teacher at that school was on maternity leave and now both of my girls have teachers on maternity leave. Maybe there is a note in my children's file at CMS that requests that they be given teachers on maternity leave. But because of some challenges that each of our girls are facing, both would do better with continuity and that just won't be able to happen this year.

And to make things worse, there was a sense of disorganization and a lack of communication between the administration and teaching staff at both schools at the beginning of the school year. This may be partly because of the sudden changes the school system made to the budget over the summer along with the fact that the superintendent resigned. I think that the administrations at both schools were scrambling to get things done in time for school to begin and it showed. The teaching staff at both schools didn't have seemingly important information that should have been relayed to them from the administration. (Ex: Roxie's teacher, who is new to Merry Oaks, didn't even know that Merry Oaks is a uniform school so Roxie showed up on day one in a hot pink tank top. And when we went to the open house at McRae's school a few days before school began there was no teacher because of a supposed "HR glitch" and then there was no official substitute hired for McRae's class until a few days in to the year.)

These situations did not make us feel great about the start to the school year. But both girls seem to like their classes and don't seem phased one bit by the situations at hand. This is often the case with kids though. The parents worry and stress about the children's education or life situation and the kids just want more snacks or more play time. And McRae got her wish...she is excited that she gets two recess periods every day this year and Roxie is glad that there is not a child in her class this year that makes sounds that bring her to tears on a daily basis.

As Markos likes to say, "Take a deep breath, Mom."

1 comment:

Connie said...

Your household has been on my heart the last few weeks wondering about your decision for Roxie and how the whole back to school time was going. Go Marcos...breathe mama! :)