Today's reason why I hate the public school system..

So I tend to keep things pretty cheerful around here, but it's my space right? I can do what I want with it. It might make me slightly less of a spaz in real life to actually use my blog to vent about the crap that pisses me off or gets my juices flowing. Eww, not those juices. Pervs. =)

Munchkin has had some behavioral issues at school this year. We're dealing with them. That said, the kid is damn smart. As such I feel like I should be doing everything I can to help him and encourage his desire to learn. He loves to read. He spends more time reading than anything else. Kinda like I did as a kid.

The school participates in the Accelerated Reader program. I have mixed feelings about it. While I'm not sure the kids aren't reading just for the points, anything that encourages them to read can't be that bad right? What is great about Munchkin is that he'll read a book because he wants to, and then ask if it's on the AR list. If it is he takes the test on it, if not he doesn't seem to mind.

My problem is this: The list of book is available online, as well as the reading level of the book and the number of points the child will get if they pass the test associated with the book. Fab right? HOWEVER, they do not give you access to be able to see what tests your child has taken or the number of points that they have. He's been in this program for three years now, and has taken a ton of tests. He likes to reread his books. It would be nice to see if he had taken a test before prior to him arriving at school sitting down to take a test and realizing he took it already.

The teachers have access to this information. So the logical solution would be to get the list of tests he's taken from his teacher and then just write down all the ones he takes from here forward. Right? Makes sense to me. And so I wrote a note.

I send him to school this morning with a note requesting a printout of his AR tests taken and current point total. (FYI, the teacher offered these at curriculum night and volunteered to send them home in the coming weeks. That was 6 weeks ago.) Wanna guess what the response I got back was? No better yet, let me show you...


Obviously I edited out things like names and phone numbers, but the whole of the note's message is there. "Sorry I don't wanna waste my computer ink on helping with your child's education." ALSO, "I just wanna point out that public schools don't get enough funding to do everything we need to do."

Strangely enough, this same district that doesn't provide enough ink cartridges for their teachers to make it past the 1st quarter is currently building two new elementary schools.

Of course if you look closely enough, you can see where she wrote "two" over top of the word "one." Apparently two seemed a more acceptable number for what amounts to nothing more than a cop-out reason for not sending home the damn list.

This teacher isn't going to print anything out the rest of the school year? She can't copy and paste the list into an email? Give me a fucking break.

Just one more reason that homeschooling looks better and better every day.