We're withdrawing our dd from 6th grade today...we homeschooled until this year and dh and I have had it with the school she's at...I feel we really gave it a fair chance and tried to make it work since dd really wanted to give it a try, but we're done.
She's our oldest so I don't have a ready curriculum to use for the rest of the year, but we decided to go with the noeo science level 2 biology and the Developmental Math series for math, and dh is going to work out history/geography this weekend and handle that, and we're going to let reading take care of itself, since she loves to read I've no concerns there.
Just as an example of what was not working for us all...she has been enrolled in a (mandatory) reading class, and a language arts class. In reading, they have been studying Call of the Wild since school started in mid-August. She finished the book before Labor Day because she enjoyed it so much. She was forced to sit in class and re-read each section (5 or so pages a day) with the rest of the class, and they analyzed it page.by.page.by.page. through the whole semester thus far. I have a friend who told me she took a course where she had to do that with The Scarlet Letter, and for me...it was Moby Dick in 11th grade...I swear my eyes glaze over whenever I hear someone so much as mentiong Ahab anymore... It just seemed ridiculous for a bunch of 11 year olds to do this...way to suck the joy out of reading...
Another big issue we have is that the kids are only allowed to leave the classroom 3x during the semester for each class...they had a little book with all these pages inside for the staff to sign for certain things...how many bathroom passes were given out, how many locker trips, how many dress code violations, etc. Once the 3x per class were used up, they were not allowed to leave the class for any reason except an emergency, for which they were sent to the office. (this includes the bathroom) With only 4 minutes between classes, there is hardly time for kids to go to the bathroom...there were two girls' rooms in her wing, 3 stalls each, sometimes dd had to make a choice to be late (and get a tardy signature) or to ask to go after she'd made it to class...it was humiliating for her. Also there were a few instances where she'd forgotten some (completed!) homework in her locker and was unable to retrieve it, and so received a 0 for the day because her teachers would not accept late work.
I know there will be certain people who would defend all these policies...but they were not working for OUR family. So...we're back to homeschooling, and everyone is SO HAPPY about it. She does have one teacher she says she will really miss, she enjoyed the class so much, but overall we're all relieved to have the experiment over...Now, off to check out what's going on in our hs group for the preteen set...she's excited about getting back into the swing of things with our active group, she's missed her hs friends a lot this fall.
She's our oldest so I don't have a ready curriculum to use for the rest of the year, but we decided to go with the noeo science level 2 biology and the Developmental Math series for math, and dh is going to work out history/geography this weekend and handle that, and we're going to let reading take care of itself, since she loves to read I've no concerns there.
Just as an example of what was not working for us all...she has been enrolled in a (mandatory) reading class, and a language arts class. In reading, they have been studying Call of the Wild since school started in mid-August. She finished the book before Labor Day because she enjoyed it so much. She was forced to sit in class and re-read each section (5 or so pages a day) with the rest of the class, and they analyzed it page.by.page.by.page. through the whole semester thus far. I have a friend who told me she took a course where she had to do that with The Scarlet Letter, and for me...it was Moby Dick in 11th grade...I swear my eyes glaze over whenever I hear someone so much as mentiong Ahab anymore... It just seemed ridiculous for a bunch of 11 year olds to do this...way to suck the joy out of reading...
Another big issue we have is that the kids are only allowed to leave the classroom 3x during the semester for each class...they had a little book with all these pages inside for the staff to sign for certain things...how many bathroom passes were given out, how many locker trips, how many dress code violations, etc. Once the 3x per class were used up, they were not allowed to leave the class for any reason except an emergency, for which they were sent to the office. (this includes the bathroom) With only 4 minutes between classes, there is hardly time for kids to go to the bathroom...there were two girls' rooms in her wing, 3 stalls each, sometimes dd had to make a choice to be late (and get a tardy signature) or to ask to go after she'd made it to class...it was humiliating for her. Also there were a few instances where she'd forgotten some (completed!) homework in her locker and was unable to retrieve it, and so received a 0 for the day because her teachers would not accept late work.
I know there will be certain people who would defend all these policies...but they were not working for OUR family. So...we're back to homeschooling, and everyone is SO HAPPY about it. She does have one teacher she says she will really miss, she enjoyed the class so much, but overall we're all relieved to have the experiment over...Now, off to check out what's going on in our hs group for the preteen set...she's excited about getting back into the swing of things with our active group, she's missed her hs friends a lot this fall.
I could have bought a whole year's worth of curriculum for what I spent SO FAR.
: Dd was a witness to the fight and was one of only two girls who was willing to tell the school resource officer what had happened, and was labeled a 'tattletale' and harassed verbally for cooperating with the resource officer. 
