The district in which I live has been embroiled in some….controversy as of late. Last year it was a strike.  It was hard to get any reliable information, because my only source of information was this website, which seems to consist of a handful of people who have nothing better to do than cause trouble. They claimed the teachers wanted more money and a shorter working day and did not want to pay more for health care and the mentality of  “how dare they want more money when the rest of us are struggling! Don’t they care about the kids?”  Half of them claimed to be friends with teachers and were providing first hand information. Others just wanted to fuel the fire with misinformation and everybody was so hateful. For a few months, I actually considered private school, because if these were the parents of the kids she would be with every day, no way did I want her exposed to that kind of negativity!! Good grief. But I relented and sent her to school anyway. It’s been almost 2 months, and while I’m not best friends (or even friends or even acquaintances with these women – heck, they don’t even speak to you as you walk past them in the hallway), the Child is happy enough and that’s all that matters to me. I’m doing my part by participating in some activities (OMG I’ve never counted so many stinkin’ box tops in my life!), volunteering for some class things (I’ m donating supplies for a Halloween party!), and attending all the necessary events (parent/teacher conference anyone?)

I really don’t know why I keep going back to this website time and again. It only serves to agitate me, but at least I can keep up with what’s going on and finding out my own information. Want to know what’s going on now? No? Too bad, I’m going to tell ya anyway 🙂 Apparently, the district in which I live has chosen to move 5th grade out of the elementary school and into the middle school. There was a meeting last night that was supposed to explain the changes to curriculum and stuff like that. I chose not to go, because well, it doesn’t really affect me. By the time the Child is in 5th grade, whatever changes they make now will either be changed again or will be so ingrained in everyone that it won’t be such a big deal. Plus, the parents getting all up-in-arms would just agitate me more.

From the information I gathered from a separate newspaper article, 5th & 6th graders would be confined to the 1st floor of the middle school while the 7th & 8th graders would be confined to the upper floor.  If you choose to check out the article and happen to peruse the comments below, you’ll see the variety of opinions. Thank goodness we’re all allowed to have our own opinions and thank goodness decisions are not based on one person’s opinion.

What I don’t understand is why this move is such a big deal? Is 5th grade still “elementary level?” Of course it is! What about 6th grade? I would consider 6th grade still elementary, and 7th/8th grade to me is junior high. Of course, when I was a kid all those years ago – grades K-6 were elementary, 7-8 was junior high and 9-12 was high school. But you know what? Grades 7-12 were housed in the same building!! OMG!! 7th grade was in the same building with seniors?? Yes, and we were confined to the upper floor. We had our own bathrooms, our own computer lab and never left the floor except for lunch – which we had to ourselves. No one died, no 7th grader learned bad behaviors from seniors (we did that all on our own!) This is the same proposal that’s going on here; 5th & 6th grade will be confined to the lower floor and 7th & 8th will be kept to the upper floor. Each will have their own bathrooms, computer labs etc and will eat lunch with their own grade.

There’s one mom (at least, I assume it’s a mom) that comments about her 4th grader being up til 10:30pm doing homework. I’m sorry, but that’s just poor time management. There’s no reason at all for this to happen. The kids get home at 4pm (at the latest) and it takes 6 hours to do homework?? I don’t think so. The Child has homework in kindergarten (gasp!) and when she comes home from school, I  check her folder. If there’s homework in there, she does it right now, no excuses get it done thank you very much. No tv, no computer, nothing until it’s done. If I’m in a good mood, I might let her have a snack before she starts.  If there are extracurricular things involved (soccer, football, cheerleading – whatever),  then that’s your choice and your  issue. When I was in grade school/high school, I was in band, choir and drama. I had something to do every single day after school and I STILL got my homework done with enough time to chill out and watch tv before bed. Why? Because my mom told me I had to get it done and there was no arguing.

I have so many things I want to say in response to that blog, but I just can’t. I don’t know why it infuriates me so much but it does.  So I just keep my mouth shut.

 

What do ya’ll think? Would it be a big deal for your 5th grader to be in a building with 6th, 7th & 8th graders if the 5th graders were kept separate from the older kids?