Do you even bother, Bro?

I sometimes wonder to myself how it is that the people I have entrusted my son to- his body, and his education- do not seem to care about what they're doing?

Okay,

1.) First off, all teachers- all school staff- are human. They make mistakes, they f-ck up. This, I get. They might really care about Jack, and they STILL mess up. (Not much different from being a parent. Heck, I probably screw up in some way on a daily basis. Does not mean that I don't love that kid).

2.) They have a LOT of students to manage. (Which means almost twice as many guardians). The local high school has almost 3,000 kids. I do not have the stats for how many are "special needs"- on an IEP, a 504, requiring constant supervision, etc.. NO idea. I do know there are well over a dozen Intervention Specialists at this particular school, and they each have any number of kids to attend to in some way, 5 days a week.

So, again.. I get that. BUT! what I do not get is the lack of communication with parents. It could be about when an IEP is supposed to take place. It could be about a schedule change, or (as I've mentioned previously) the inability to leave school early after taking the PSAT test. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST TELL ME THIS STUFF AHEAD OF TIME?!

So, as I've said- I am not perfect, either. I am sure there are things I could have mentioned to staff at one time or another, that I completely forgot about. (My son's asthma isn't that bad, so I don't have his inhaler in the clinic. So to them, this somehow means he doesn't have Asthma). Not giving me the date you want to have an IEP meeting, after you explicitly told me that you had SO many to do that we needed to figure out NOW, is ridiculous.

Going back to that same IEP meeting, it was the I.S.'s idea to scrap gym and health class for the 10th grade, in order to put Jack into Computer Art 1, and 2. These classes would be pre-reqs for an animation class that may be coming up the following year. Okay. Jack wasn't really interested in this change, but given his college and career interests, we convinced him that maybe this was a good idea. He decided to deal with it, and that was that. Until Monday, when Savahnnah registered for her senior year. The schedule that she and her guidance counselor had agreed to over a long email exchange, was not what was printed out when we attended registration. At this time, I learned that Jack's schedule did not change, either. He would still be having gym and Health.

Now, that's fine. As I said, Jack wasn't interested in a schedule change in the first place. I did still email his I.S., though, to inquire about it. She (of course) had no real recollection of the changes we'd discussed back in April. (Okay, so we're now in August, and God knows what kind of summer she's had. God knows mine wasn't fabulous). I refreshed her memory, and she said that the teacher who would be teaching the future animation class moved to a different district, thus that class probably wouldn't be offered. Great. Whatever. So I just told her it was fine, and told her we'd just leave the schedule as-is.

Yesterday was Jack's registration. We arrived first thing in the morning, grabbed the schedule (with gym and Health), and did a walk-thru. He knows where all of his classes are, and he's comfortable with it. Then, late last night, the I.S. emailed me to say "Oh, no! I just saw this! I went over to the school early and changed his schedule! So we'll just give him the art class, ......"

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful. Really. BUT CHECK YOUR DAMN EMAIL, LADY. I appreciate that she made some effort to change the schedule, but why not email me back to tell me what you're doing? Like, the day before? But, no. She's emailing me back a day after I email her. So either she isn't checking email that often, or my kid's schedule isn't a priority, or she waited til after 10pm because she knew she f-cked up, and took the chicken's way out by not emailing me 'til she thought I would be asleep.



So, last night I saw this email of hers, and pretty much lost it. I mean, it took a while to calm myself down from the sheer assness of this. I said WAIT. STOP. DO NOT GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200! First, I emailed her and said do not do anything else until I talk to Jack. This morning, as soon as Jack woke up, I told him the situation. *Keep in mind that changing even one class means a complete change of the entire schedule. Doing another walk-thru. For no real reason* He was okay with it until I explained that last part, and was like "Nope. I already did my walk-thru. I'm not doing that again". You know what? The kid is almost 16. If he doesn't want to change up his schedule, that's fine by me!

I emailed the I.S. again to explain that we're not interested in taking Computer Art this year, but thanks anyway. (Actually, I was so irritated that I didn't even bother thanking her for changing things up without consulting us). I also asked for her to verify that she changed the schedule back to the original one, so that we know this is the one Jack will be sticking to on the first day of school. I got more radio silence. So, I emailed her again to verify that she saw my email. (WHY THE HELL IS THIS NECESSARY?? JUST EMAIL ME BACK! IT'S NOT THAT HARD. YOU HAVE A CELL PHONE WITH EMAIL ON IT). Can you tell I'm peeeeeeved?? She then wrote back to say that she'd contacted the guidance counselor and requested the schedule change. Being the person that I am, I simply cannot trust that this took place. SO, I emailed the counselor- the same one my daughter had- myself. Just to make sure. I even sent her a photo of the original, in case somehow she couldn't find it. SMDH.

Seriously, do not mess with me right now.