Education Challenges

I have had several friends and family members ask, "How did the meeting with the school go?" so I thought I'd share. Earlier this week, Allen and I met with the triplets' teachers and principal to discuss the best ways to work with our children and their education. I was hoping to say it went really well, but it didn't really go as I wished. I may have gone in with expectations, but I tried really hard to leave them at the door.

I got the impression the newly-hired principal and the two teachers weren't on the same page. (But that's why THIS principal was hired... to do things differently.) The teachers told us where the kids were reading-wise (they still hadn't finished the math tests). Then the principal gave us the results of the reading tests they had done in library. No surprises -- they are all ahead of their "normal" age group by quite a bit. We tabled that discussion for a while.

Since the teachers had limited time for the meeting, we discussed what we needed to with them.  Basically, we want to know they (and we) can challenge our kids. Overall, we heard, "We can't meet your requests." Different spelling words? No, they don't have time to do a different test and the kids may get upset if they aren't making all As. More challenging math worksheets? No, worksheets show teachers and students what the kids know and what they've done., but the online computer math will be AT the kids' levels, so we should please be patient as that should be rolled out soon. Can my kiddo skip the worksheets/homework if he has already mastered that material. No, that's probably not a great idea because reviewing is good for kids.
 
So... the teachers made it clear they don't have time to challenge the kids, but the computers will. The principal wanted us to stick around and talk more after the teachers had to go back to class. He wants the kids to stay and us to wait it out (with 200+ on the wait-list, it isn't like they'd lose funding.) The kids ARE liking all the "extra" classes, and those are the reasons we chose this school in the first place. Each week, they have PE, library, science, social studies, and writing. They also are in art, dance, Spanish, and theater. The principal is working on bringing in some new programs, so we will wait a few more weeks before taking them out to homeschool. The end of the six week period, the kids are supposed to be bringing home their on-level reading. Soon after that, they are supposed to be getting into the new math software.

We are waiting for now, but we expect to homeschool soon. That'll give the kids a little more time with their favorite classes -- to see if any new passions develop that we can find classes for outside of school, to get all my stressful projects wrapped up so they won't be taunting me, to get one friend through a tragic death in her family, and another friend through delivering twins, and Allen (and all of us) through an otherwise potentially-stressful October with long work hours. I'm trying to just rest in our decisions, even though some are left unmade for now.