This post is part of a narrative history of our homeschool. It is about why we chose to homeschool, what we did and how we did it. It is about our failures and frustrations as well as our successes. The plan is to make an honest accounting of it all for the benefit of ourselves and others. This is a work in progress which was started in late October 2014 after the kids had already skipped most or all of high school, Christian had earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (Summa Cum Laude), Kelly had earned a Bachelors degree in Statistics (Magna Cum Laude) and they were ensconced in funded PhD programs on the West Coast. I add to the narrative as I have time.
We are actually pretty thankful for the time the kids spent in the Sherwood, Oregon public school system. The principal was very good. The teachers were engaged. The parents were active in the classroom and the school. Even though the kids enjoyed the school, made friends and participated in everything available to them, we still believe we would eventually have returned to homeschool because the academics were weak at best and the socialization was not nearly as healthy what was available for homeschoolers–I have written about that elsewhere. Still, the kids got to see what government school was like at its best and that was a good thing.
Toward the end of our time in Sherwood some other things happened that gave us pause about government schools in general and Sherwood in particular. The high school principal who we knew because he lived right across the street from us in our quiet little cul-de-sac got caught in a hotel with a teen boy he met on line. He was eventually arrested, convicted and went to jail for this. In addition, a fellow who lived a few houses down from us worked as a teacher at a middle school in Beaverton and was accused and eventually arrested, convicted and served time for abuse of a female student at his school. Based on this article, it does not appear much has changed over the years in Sherwood.
I got a new job in Corvallis, Oregon at the end of Kelly’s third grade year and Christian’s first grade year. That summer, we moved to Albany, a town that is about 15 miles from where I worked in Corvallis. Even though we had thought about homeschooling again, we went ahead and enrolled our kids into the local government school. The idea was that, because I needed to get myself established at my new job and so the kids could start to make friends in our new town, it would not hurt to put them in school. Sherwood had been OK. What could go wrong in Albany.
The first thing that happened when we applied was that the kids were asked to take a test for English as a Second Language to determine whether or not to put them in a remedial class. Maybe there is additional money available for ESL kids. The schools had the kid’s records from Sherwood and could easily see they were high performers, higher it turns out than most, if not all, of their same age peers in the Albany system. Of course Lorena immediately signed up to volunteer in the classroom like she did in Sherwood. She was told that it was fine if she came to the class, but she could not do it too often and she had to give a lot of advance notice. Further, she was told there were paid aides to do the work that parent volunteers normally do. We had never heard of such a thing. Every school we had ever visited and/or heard of begged parents to volunteer.
After two years of a truly enjoyable experience for the kids at a much more highly rated public school in Sherwood, our kids became problem kids at low performing schools in Albany. They still performed at a high academic level, but Kelly’s spirit was getting hard. We demanded she be respectful to those in authority even though the respect was not reciprocated by her teacher nor the principal.
Christian was just lost. He read at a high level at home at the same time he was required to read at a much lower level at school. They made him work at learning stuff he already knew in math because that was the highest level available.The generally surly aides in his classroom had little training and appeared to be there solely for a paycheck. Christian’s teacher was disengaged at best. Christian’s spirit was not getting hard so much as he was getting sad and confused by the fact he was required to either sit quietly and do busy-work or work at a level that must have been excruciatingly boring under the tutelage of a disinterested teacher and callous aides.
This was all bad enough that I started a documentation trail. I made notes of what the kids told me and of what the teachers and administration told me when I met with them. The main feature of my meetings with both Kelly’s teacher and the principal is that they told me how it was going to be while I listened. Even worse, they were categorically dismissive of Lorena. Christian’s teacher had no sense at all for Christian’s capabilities, but at least she was more benign than her aides. I still have many, many pages of handwritten notes that describe our horrible experience at the hands of those schools and their teachers and administrators.
I am glad to say we did find one person there who really tried to do her job as professionally as possible with a spirit of public service. Sadly, she was the secretary at one of the schools who had control over nothing and must have been frustrated with what she saw. She was kind to us and acted apologetic when I waited to meet with the principal. I am really glad I wrote it all down because any time I start thinking it was not so bad, all I have to do is reread my notes.
There were academic reasons to get the kids out of those schools, but the main reason we knew we had to change is that Kelly’s spirit was getting hard and Christian was a little lost soul with no one to advocate for him in the school. He did not feel safe and his spirit was dying. The straw that broke the camel’s back was what we learned about the sex education that Kelly would be taught if she went on to Middle School the next year. At that point, with about two months left, we just decided to get them out at the end of the school year. There were no good private school options, so we knew we needed to start homeschooling again.
We loved our time in Albany in spite of our experience at the hands of the government school system. It is a beautiful town with lots of things going for it. In one sense, we are even grateful to the Albany public schools because they were so bad for our children we finally and emphatically made the choice to return to homeschooling for good. Albany turned out to be a great place to homeschool. There were lots of other people who had bailed out of the government schools for the same reasons as us. The homeschool friendly public library was a huge plus. There were lots clubs, activities, sports teams, music opportunities and on and on and on.
Betty Blonde #225 – 05/27/2009
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