Yes, you heard it right. We are homeschooling. Long story short (believe it or not), we had never planned to do this, but we were taken by surprise with this school year. Ashley (now in 5th grade) had a brand new teacher, 34 kids in her class, and getting the work differentiated to her level was not happening. After expressing our dismay, she was given the 6th grade math book, and she and two other boys were sent to a table and told to teach themselves, assign themselves homework, and grade their own papers. The teacher would come by when she had a minute (from teaching the other 31 kids) and answer questions. I started going in to teach the three math, which helped. Then we discovered she was having to do reading out of the 5th grade reading book (she reads around 10th grade level), and there weren't going to be reading groups at her level as there had been in the past. Our relationship with the principal was starting to break down as well.
OK, we thought, school is about a lot more than just schoolwork. If she is happy being there, we will work through this. However, for only the second time in her entire school career she uttered the words, "I'm bored." The straw that broke the camel's back was the day we were running late, and I was trying to hurry along so they wouldn't miss any more time that we already were. Ashley looked at me, dawdling along, and said, "Why? It's not like I am going to miss anything!"
Suddenly, my whole life turned upside down. It's been such a topsy-turvy year for us, what's one more major life decision?!!
We had been researching school options, including homeschool and charter schools. We found an excellent charter school, but we would have to leave the house at 7:15 am and we wouldn't get home until 4 pm. That wouldn't work well with Ashley's personality, even though it was only 4 days a week. That left homeschool.
And off we went....
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