Thursday, July 17, 2008

Final Report

As promised:
You know what they say about hindsight being 20/20, and always listen to your instinct?
When it was middle one's turn for high school we decided being that he was intelligent and a student that we would let him suffer umm I mean be educated at the local overcrowded high school.
It was our one and only choice on the application form of the 12 High Schools you could choose.
He did not want to attend the school but being that we were just bankrupted by our oldest child high school experience we had no choice. Well we did, but we ignored that alarm in our heads. Plus Cardozo is one of those top high schools ON PAPER at least.
For those of you who has had a wonderful experience with your child there well bully for you. I am not bitter, much.
I will admit I was not an overly involved parent at the school. I am an overly involved parent in other ways that is for sure. In fact in some circles I have been called pit bull, pain in the ass, and bitch. Sticks and stones.
Okay so on to the final report.
Every school has great teachers and teachers that should go. It seems my child had a lot of those that should have gone. He did have some great teachers who inspired him. At graduation his global teacher told him he was going to be missed by many.
Okay so here we go.
I did a post about how last year the guidance counselor called me with a month left to school to tell me my child was absent 58 days. That was going to be my final report.
About how a school is so damn overcrowded that a child can go missing for 58 days and no one would notice, or seem to give a flying bleep. It turns out he was not absent 58 days it was a clerical error. More like a royal DOE f up.
If a school has close to 4,000 students why is only one filthy bathroom allowed to be utilized? So if your child has a bad case of whatever they have, Cramps, the shits etc should they soil their pants? Sure they should who cares anyway. I had to get the kid a note about his problem. Kind of embarrassing for him, but then again teenagers are disposable and what the hell if you take your child out of the school it is just one less on the roll call.
Now I understand as a teacher at the grand old DOE institutions you are saddled with loads of kids and you probably are overwhelmed with you student load. I am not asking for letters telling me about my child's progress etc. That is what report cards and a big stick waving in your child's face are all about. Okay I kid with the stick I never use force on the child. For goodness sakes he is a good foot taller than me. I could never reach his head. But you need to know your child and what they are capable of.
Unfortunately mistakes happen. BUT please do not give me a phone call 3 days before graduation to tell me that my son has failed Astronomy and won't be graduating. Luckily for the guidance counselor who called my house at 8p.m. on the Wednesday before graduation reached my husband and not me.
Guess what it was another bleeping error. It was not my child according to the phone call we got the next day.
There were many more of these glaring errors.
Like my child trying to see the guidance counselor time and time again to work out a problem he was having that he needed Saturday tutoring. Unfortunately for him the only free period he had did not coordinate with the guidance's counselors time and they never had a chance to meet. Him being himself tried to work it out by himself and did not tell me until two weeks after the deadline and they refused to take him into the Saturday tutoring for regent tutoring. What the hell we don't want the kids to pass them anyway. We all know that Joel will fudge the numbers anyway.

So it is over. We are already saving money so wee one can bypass Cardozo. Middle one will remind me forever how we as parents failed him.

By the way a conversation I had with another parent, her child was graduating also. Her: I am so glad to be out of Cardozo.
me: us too.
my husband: I will give you 50,000 reasons why we are happy.
her: The Principal
my husband: no, that is how much it cost us to send our oldest to private school.
bystander: holy cow
my husband:pitiful isn't it?

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Things

My computer crapped out again. So we are building a new one.

Wee One's camp closed before it even opened so he is at the mercy of his brothers. You know you really can't tell parents a week before school closes that you need to find a new camp. He is on a wait list for a camp that won't bankrupt us. In the meantime he is happy to be like his brothers and not have to do anything. His words not mine.

Wee one got a report card that I feel is undeserved. His former teacher has a problem. It is called burn out. Retire already dammit, and do the kids a bleeping favor, or get some better medication. To the people in that school who know who I am, don't leave any hate on this blog. I am not going to back down, this time.

Middle one is out of Cardozo. I had to go pick up his diploma and report card on Friday, since we buried my grandfather on Thursday.
Excuse me for not knowing how to find his guidance counselor. I walked in asked for the guidance office and the guards just pointed which way to go. If I was a bloodhound it would have been easy for me to find it, but since I am a grieving parent I did not know.
Yeah, okay so it is the first office but I did not know, being that I had never had to see a guidance counselor in all the years he was there.
And to the teacher, aide, person who I approached in the hall to ask a question. Good ignoring technique, I bet you were surprised as hell when I got loud with you.

I will be back with a post about wee one's teacher and why I feel his report card was graded unfairly. And no, I am not a typical parent thinking my child is brilliant when he is not.

A quick observation and you tell me.
A conversation we had in mid May.
Mom why is it bad luck if a mirror breaks, or is that superstition?
It is superstition, but tell me why you think it is superstition?
Him: I bet it was because mirrors were expensive.
Me: good thought
Did you know when mommy was little your uncle and I had a black cat. You know what they say about people who have black cats.
Him: oh that makes a lot of sense because middle one says you are a real witch.

smart and quick