I am really annoyed and I have to vent.
For a number of years, we have gone through cycles - as all parents do - with my daughter's grades not being what we feel they should be. It isn't that she is not intelligent; she is simply lazy and can get bored or distracted very easily if a teacher cannot find it in their daily routine to give her a little something extra regarding any subject being studied. Every school year, it starts out the same: one or two classes are ok while the important ones get pretty dismal grades. She works a bit harder, brings the grades up, but this can go back and forth throughout the year. It is pretty much the catalyst of many of my arguments with her.
I think we started in elementary school, definitely in middle school, taking advantage of electronic correspondence with her teachers and faculty. Our problem on our end is this: We simply do not have the time to afford to her, to make sure she is getting her assignments completed, that she is studying the way and the amount of time she should be. We are a two-income family, meaning that the traditional - and perhaps desired - format of one parent working while the other stays at home with the kids, is simply not an option for us at this stage. We are trying to edge that way to some degree, but for all the time we lived in the South Bay, that is just not a possibility. It is simply too expensive to live there and two incomes is needed to just break even. Now, with our move to Tracy, the cost of things has gone down considerably, but we both currently still commute to The Bay Area. By the time we get home each evening, we are exhausted and it is fairly late (anywhere between 5:30 and 7pm), leaving us very small windows to address dinner for all and time necessary to pay to not just a teenager but also an 18-month old toddler.
I am not whining about that, really. It simply is what it is and we do what we have to do. However, can you see how her teachers end up spending more time each day with her than WE do. Is it really too much to ask them to take some time out and touch base with her more often? When we ask, when we detail our concerns and our situation, it inevitably gets bounce back to us or we are told to have her research what is available on her own when she comes back to school. hey, if I could feel confident that she would do that, no problem. But in addition to these detailed difficulties, she has taken to lying to cover her ass or to simply get around having to do anything. And, fortunately or unfortunately, she is just not very good at it and constantly gets caught at it.
The school system really seems to be a bureaucracy. We try to come up with solutions, we detail the situations, we try to be open to other options. But it always gets turned around on us and we are sent back to square one. We get sent to one person, then another, then back to the original...its like a government agency unto itself with no one seemingly willing to take responsibility.
That's all I have. I am not looking for advice, really. I am just frustrated that - especially in a smaller town - the general consensus seems to be that someone is or should always be available at home. In this day and age, that simply is not a reasonable or logical approach. But we may have to cave in and accept that, allowing our finances to suffer as a result. We may have no choice but to go to homeschooling...even though she only has three to four years to go before high school graduation.
I don't know. I just wish schools didn't make it so difficult and took on more responsibility. But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised when we live in basically a bankrupt state and year after year our state government keeps taking money away from the schools, creating apathy and ill-will within the ranks of the teachers as much as they try to do their jobs to the best of their ability to effectively teach with limited resources.
Ugh.
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