You are correct, I do think the grammar here is better than a lot of the Internet. But there are still some individuals with major grammar problems and if outsiders were to judge all of us based on those people, we would not like what they had to say. And I have seen other places online where homeschooling is bashed based on the way people write on homeschooling message boards.

My issue is that so many people are quick to judge the person who wrote this communication from the school, whereas I see so much poor grammar right here on these boards. Why is proper grammar expected of public school educators but poor grammar is excused among our own? I realize a lot of people come here as a place of community and do let their hair down. But I also see this as probably one of a few places where we, as educators, can express our thoughts to other educators. We do not get the opportunity to send mass emails out to groups of parents in a professional capacity (or at least I don't), but we have these boards. Why write poorly when you are capable of doing better? It just seems like a double standard. FWIW, I am a bit of a grammar snob but I never bring up grammar on message boards and I don't go out of my way to correct people's grammar. I may choose not to read your posts if they are poorly written, but I would never say "wow, I wanted to read your post but I just could not tolerate all the grammar problems." And I certainly think messages sent out by public schools should be more professional than the one quoted in the OP. But I disagree with some of the generalizations being made about it. It is easy for us to say "I do not always write well on here because I am nursing a kid" or whatever, but the person who sent that message on behalf of the school may be dealing with his/her own circumstances, to which we are not privy.

Well, I think it's great that they are taking the time to emphasize academic success!

It was an individual who wrote that, not the school. And not to fall back on stereotypes, but it came from the athletic office, not the English department. I fully agree with the gist of your post. But I take issue with your statement It was not the SCHOOL that sent this email, and it was not an English teacher. It could have been an administrative assistant with possibly a year of post-high school training who wrote that message, or maybe a coach. Are you expecting the coach to teach kids proper grammar? I believe that if you have a college degree then you should know how to write grammatically, and I assume high school coaches have college degrees. But unfortunately, college education does not guarantee that someone will write well. This is true in public school, business, politics, everywhere. As you pointed out, we all have bad days and screw up now and then, and we are educators. But I happen to see some appalling grammar here sometimes. I worry more about the education of the children whose parents ARE teaching grammar and every other subject under the sun but cannot post a complete sentence here (and I'm not talking about the occasional screw-up, I'm talking about some people I've seen post over and over again). And yes, even in a casual place such as this, I believe grammar does matter. I view these boards as a public form of communication. The way a person writes here may not accurately reflect how they communicate professionally, but that's all we have to go on. Personally, I feel like if I let my writing skills go even in a casual message board setting, then eventually I'll stop seeing the importance of proper grammar in all settings.

That is an AMAZING accomplishment!

I'm confused by the assumption that a sprain would not yield bruising or swelling. I've only ever sprained my ankles but the swelling and bruising were brutal! And I have heard of breaks without swelling or bruising.

I think when a homeschooling parent is bad, the harm she can do can be so much worse than the damage a school can do. And no, I do not believe bad homeschoolers are the norm. BUT a bad one who is doing it for all the wrong reasons has absolutely no accountability to anyone. A student in a bad public school is likely to come across at least one teacher who really cares on occasion. The school is placed under scrutiny when it is not meeting academic standards and is pushed to become better. Kids can be transferred to other schools if necessary. But what hope does a kid have when mom is teacher and mom doesn't actually care one bit about educating her child?

I hadn't heard that it's illegal but I was in a situation like the OP's once and found out the hard way that the date on the check means nothing to the bank. My bank at the time specifically told me there was nothing they could do. In my situation, I was in college and was paying my January rent early before going home for Christmas break. I post-dated the check and told the people in the apartment complex's management office that it was not to be cashed until January. They supposedly had a separate file for this purpose as I was not the only student paying rent early. So when they ignored my request and cashed the check early and it bounced, I raised hell. I deducted the amount of the bounced check fee from my February rent and explained why. To this day that is the only check I've ever bounced.

First, do you know what was wrong with you? Have you been seen by a doctor? A fever that long sounds serious! I ask because I had pneumonia about a year ago. I was being treated for a sinus infection but the antibiotics did no good. My fever kept spiking and I ended up in the ER when I started getting pain along my ribcage. I was shocked when they said I had pneumonia because I hadn't even been coughing. For the 6 days I had my fever my skin was constantly wet. I felt so gross. I could barely eat anything and I was pretty dehydrated but I was weighing myself on occasion out of habit and my weight actually went up a little. I don't remember explicitly sweating after my fever broke, but my weight dropped pretty quickly a week later. I am pretty sure I was just retaining a bunch of fluid while I was sick, and I imagine I sweated/peed a lot of it out once I started feeling better.

Me too! This may only be tangentially related but something that drives me nuts: It seems like I hear a lot of HSers say (not necessarily here, just in general) that they are so glad they homeschool because their kids love the library! Their kids love to read! Well I have seen many PSed kids who love the library and love reading too. It's one thing to say you homeschool and your kids love to read, but it's another to claim your kids ONLY love to read BECAUSE you homeschool. IMO it shows a real ignorance for how things are actually done by public school families. And it takes away some of the credibility of HSers because you think it makes you so special that your kids like to read? Oh and it drives me nuts when HSers talk about how they get to do civics lessons because they take their kids to Tea Party rallies (really, any rally but that just came to mind)...if the rally is after school hours and there are kids there, why do you assume they are all homeschooled? (Tea Party rallies around here were around 5pm but I did hear homeschoolers talk about how THEY were able to provide this unique civics lesson. Not all the kids at the rally were homeschooled). And I'm starting to think I needed to make another thread! :lol: But one more thing is the whole home ec/consumer ec angle some parents take. Seriously, you don't think public school parents take their kids to the store with them and show them how to spend money wisely? You don't think they have their kids do chores around the house on weekends or after school? It's fine for homeschoolers to do all these things but please do not consider these things to be unique opportunities only you can present BECAUSE you homeschool. These are things that can enhance education but should not replace it entirely.

A lot of people have jumped in and agreed with this, and I just wonder why. What is the basis for such an overgeneralized statement and ease of agreement so many have had?

It would be tacky if YOU asked your cousin to throw a baby shower, but that's not what happened. I know the thinking on showers for babies after #1 but I think it's stupid and many people are coming around to the idea of celebrating all babies, not just someone's first. And of course presents are not expected following the birth of any baby but I've had gifts arrive in the mail after all my babies, from distant relatives even! So it sounds like your MIL just has some issues. Unless she's especially strapped for cash, I can't imagine a grandmother not doting over her grandbaby, especially for some aged principle.

Me too. I also realized I'm sometimes feeling to need to get out to avoid something I don't want to do, like deep cleaning the house. So I've been learning to just bite the bullet, get the cleaning done, then relax. I end up finding a lot of satisfying things to do at home when I do that.

Jean, I almost commented in that thread because I am just awestruck by the perception of those who do not believe this board is predominantly Christian. But my comments did not belong in that thread. But they do belong here: I really and truly believe you are displaying a common perception bias. People have a tendency to more easily recall things that are NOT consistent with their attitudes and beliefs. Therefore, as you go through the threads on a typical day you may read many many MANY Christian-supportive threads and you may be nodding along with everything you read. Nothing you read is that surprising to you, it just goes along with what you already believe. In other words, it is reassuring but there is nothing extremely remarkable about those threads. On the other hand, you might read a few threads where opinions are expressed that are not consistent with your own. These cause you some level of distress. You do not agree, how can they think these things? You think about it, fuss over it, and yeah, those threads have made their way into your memory. Why would the poll you cited be off? Why wouldn't you believe that 77% of the people here are Christian? Isn't that number pretty consistent with the percentage of Americans who are Christian? Even if you do not believe that the number is so high, certainly you must believe that Christians are the majority religious group in America, correct? Why would the boards be any different? For what it's worth, I selected 51% because I believe the majority should suffice. If even just 51% of the board members here are Christian, they are providing the majority of the opinions on this board. Especially if you take Christians as one group, then you have Muslims, Jewish people, and Atheists/Agnostics etc. comprising the other 49%, meaning that Muslims might be 15%, Jews 15%, Atheists 15%, etc. So each individual religious group is still a much smaller percentage than the majority group.

:iagree:

I don't think I would. If I were on the receiving end of that note I would think you didn't trust me to do a good job unless I knew how important it is to do a good job. Aren't I supposed to do the best I can no matter who I'm helping?

We started at 3, the dentist recommended starting no earlier than that (they don't take patients under 3). The kids seem to enjoy going so far. They also seemed to have more than the average number of teeth for their age.

I had a lisp when I was younger. I did a lot of speech therapy in school but what really seemed to help was getting braces to correct my overbite. Does your son have an overbite?

I think I've only been invited to weddings where kids are invited as well. Maybe it's a regional thing. But years ago, I think I was still in college, my parents were invited to a wedding. It explicitly asked for no children to be in attendance. Yet, the theme was...Mickey and Minnie Mouse! I know adults can get into Disney and all, and that's cool, but COME ON! No kids invited to your Mickey and Minnie wedding? There just seems to be something so wrong about that.

I had a job where you could donate sick leave to a pool to be offered when someone needed it, like a long-term illness so they would not have to take leave without pay. You could only donate if you had a minimum amount of sick leave, and I think it was handled differently if you were clerical versus higher up in the pay scale (so a secretary's pay would not magically cover an executive's pay). If you left the job, you would be paid for any remaining vacation leave, but never sick leave (basically, the employer owned the sick leave, which an employee could accrue to infinity, and the employee owned the vacation leave, which had a limit). That's a great way to handle it, but it was a very large organization. I never had enough sick leave to donate because I wasn't there long enough, but if I had the amount that some people had I would have.

I'm glad you got an answer! Just wanted to add that DS got a sudden fever on Friday, no other symptoms. Over the weekend he had aches and pains but still nothing specific, and the fever kept going up (over 105 at one point) and down. After several doctor's visits he was finally tested yesterday and has the flu--Influenza B. AND he had the flu shot this year. :( There's nothing they can really do for him but it's good to know what he has. And we've been finding that ibuprofin works way better than Tylenol for the fever and general mood.

Due to NCLB reporting and so on, school funding is tied to the performance of students enrolled at a school, and the school is accountable for every student enrolled to be tested (or excused). Decisions like whether homeschooled students can test at a local school without being enrolled are usually made at the state level, not the district level. This is true for private schools as well as public. So maybe contact your state department of education and see what they have to recommend.

Libraries are no longer a storehouse of books, they are a storehouse of INFORMATION. I would be really sad to visit a library that did not have free and open computer access available for the public.

A repeated line of questioning is pretty common in questionnaires and interviews to make sure answers are consistent. I have yet to meet any doctor that is pushing meds. I would not be suspicious, and I would be honest, or at least NOT be DISHONEST. I'd rather refuse to answer a question than just lie, because that can lead to real problems. I'm not saying to blindly trust the doctor as an authority figure. I think it is appropriate to inquire about why any question is being asked. But I also think it doesn't make sense to assume a doctor is out to get you or has a secret agenda.

In the weekly they hand out at meetings they had some examples of how activity points have changed. Many activities now yield more points, some the same, and some less (like swimming laps).