He wouldn't do anything. We've been down this road. Our only consolation is that we get a new principal next year. Regardless, I have seen enough in this district that my decision stands. My children will go through these school doors over my dead body.

I am the teacher - not this particular child's teacher, but a teacher in the same school.

One would think. It would in the other schools in this district as well.

It would do absolutely no good whatsoever. Trust me. She would just say, "that's just what he does." It's not the first time, but it was the first time to be hit by a student that's not my own. I told my husband so who knows what kind of stink he's going to raise. Just 28 more days of this principal. Just praying we can get through it.

The longer I am in this school, the more I refuse to let them educate my child. I am so tired of students acting like crazed banshees, hitting teachers, hurting kids, all while administration does nothing. I was just attacked from behind by one of these students because he didn't like me reprimanding one of his friends. I did NOTHING to provoke this - just the wrong place at the wrong time. This is elementary school! It's ridiculous that any of us have to deal with this at the level we do. My kid is not coming here. No sir. :cursing:

This blog post states almost perfectly why I think handwriting is a necessity. http://www.intoxicatedonlife.com/2014/01/23/national-handwriting-day/

Every sane person agrees with you!

He's a rather odd bird, so I'm not surprised he did that. Still, it's so weird. His wife gave him 3 hours to dig the hole thinking there's no way he could get one that deep and wide in that short a time. However, he did it, so buried it went. (Can you imagine the confusion of future archaeologists when that is discovered? haha) The city would have picked it up. The wife needed only to call which she was about to do. He just didn't want it sitting on the curb during the time it would take for them to pick it up.

My friend and her husband had this disagreement. She was going to put their oven on the curb and call the city to pick it up. Her husband said that he didn't want to look like a bunch of rednecks. So, what did he do? He dug a freaking big hole in the backyard and buried the oven. Pretty sure he didn't avoid the "redneck" category by doing that. haha Back to the topic: We put things out the night before trash pickup. It's usually gone by the next morning. If it's not something that the trash collectors will take, we either donate it or pay the city to collect it later.

My town (9,000 pop.) is 85.4% The nearest big city (164,000 pop.) has 5 high schools. Their 4 year graduation rates are 84.2%, 90.4%, 85.9%, 95.3%, and 89.5%. **I figured we'd have lower, honestly.

Thank you for the link! I'm watching it now and find it fascinating.

My first car was Tanner. It was a tan '87 Honda Civic. Then, I had a green '96 Pontiac Grand Am. I named it Pickle. It was more of a lemon. The first brand new car I bought was called Baby because I was ridiculously careful with that thing and I was so proud of it. My current car, a white Santa Fe, has no name - unless you consider "my car/your car" it's name since that's the only way DH and I refer to it.

Betrothal - definitely the parents are choosing the spouse. Most will basically be told they are going to enter into a relationship with the other person. They may or may not have chaperoned time together - never unchaperoned. I had a friend that was married through betrothal. She hadn't even hugged him or held his hand before the wedding. Instead of a kiss, they hugged. It worked for them, but I'd have run away! Chaperoned courtship - very heavy on parental input (ie: parents set it up, but upon much consideration, the courting parties can break it off or decline to start); all activities are parent sanctioned. NO time alone. Intentional dating - not just dating to be in a relationship, but only entering a relationship when you feel it's time for you to be married and that person could be the one. So, most would probably start an intentional dating relationship after high school or during if they are in the "get married very young" camp. Parents may still have to approve, but the children typically get to choose. You'd definitely have time alone. No idea what "fully committed" is??

I'm tier 4, maybe?

I attend a large church. Average attendance between the two locations is 9,000. So, we definitely have security. Every Sunday, we have the county sheriffs in attendance to 1) direct traffic and 2) provide security. We also have off-duty police officers who attend our church and they have been known to carry. There is also additional (unarmed) security in the children's area.

I am in this group. If we had a decent, private Christian school in our area, I would be open to my child(ren) going there. I would also be open to discussing public school if I felt it was academically decent. But, I teach in that district and I know how much is lacking in that system. So, due to the poor academics in our district, I will be homeschooling unless we move closer to the larger city in our area as there will be more options.

I didn't find it controversial at all. Just a statement of the things you see changing or predict to be changing. Since I'm not in the homeschooling trenches yet and haven't paid much attention to it until recently, I love insight/opinions like this. Gets me thinking. Thanks!

What about Rudy? It's more sports related, but definitely an underdog movie.

It was a unique situation and I believe they did what they knew best to do at the time and with what they were provided. The teachers used what they had and what they were told to use. This was mainly controlled by a micromanaging principal. So in this case, it wasn't the teachers but rather the principal that should be blamed. Once he was removed (far too many years later), they were able to expand their curricula and the results have been really great from what my mom (the new principal) says.

If it helps, my young college self sounds a lot like your daughter. I really wanted to just be a SAHM, but started with elementary ed as a "backup". Then, a rude old man at my church said "Who knows when YOU will get married, so are you sure teaching will provide a decent income for you?" So, after that, I switched my major a multitude of times - from education to Psych to Speech Path to Music Ed then back to elementary ed. I also toyed with wedding planning, architecture (until I discovered how much math was needed), was enrolled in culinary school in San Francisco and dabbled in a plethora of interests in between. I dropped out and worked for several years. Eventually, at 26, I made my way back to college and graduated with a BS in El Ed. So, even if she drops out, she may find her way back. :) Side note: I wish I had taken a gap year, honestly. Figured out what my passions were and followed them, because I fell back on the "safe" option of teaching. I am decent at it, I enjoy the kids, but I don't eat/sleep/breathe teaching like so many of my coworkers.

I grew up in a school that did only A Beka. The grammar wasn't too bad and I learned a lot. However, when it came to literature, history, and science, I was sorely lacking in critical thinking skills. It's very "drill and kill" like someone mentioned and that leaves little to no room for critical thinking skills. Also, an issue I have with the whole curriculum is that it has not been updated in several years (history/science) and they have no plans to update. With continual changes and discoveries in both, I find not updating to be a disturbing practice. ETA: Once I went to college, I found that I had not had exposure to a number of wonderful works of literature thanks to A Beka high school lit. If, by chance, we had read something that should be the norm for high schoolers (Canterbury Tales, for example), it was so edited to fit their belief system, that I was beyond shocked when I read the real work. I was also completely lost on in depth discussions and comparisons of other works. I loved my high school, but this curriculum in many ways left me at a disadvantage as I got older. (The school has since gone with a different curriculum due to the issues that most of the pps have addressed - especially critical thinking skills and lack of updates.)

I would LOVE to hear more of your thoughts on this - actually, on all of your thoughts concerning a change in homeschooling. Care to start a new thread with more a more in depth view point? Pretty please!

Interesting - where did you find yours? Wish I had popsicles, sorbet, mint tea, or anything really. lol Sprite Zero and Gatorade are my options today. But, I have finally been able to keep a decent amount of fluids down, so the headache is going away, slowly.

I came down with a pretty violent stomach virus yesterday and have a severe dehydration headache now. I don't trust my body to handle Tylenol or ibuprofen right now, so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to get this ungodly pounding to stop. I can't even sleep because my head hurts so much. :( (I'm taking in small amounts of fluids, but not a lot right now.)

I guess more what I was trying (poorly) to say was that since I have never had negative issues pertaining to race, my mind does not immediately go there. I just immediately wondered what all the other factors were. That is where my comment pertaining to experience came into play. It's not that I don't believe him. And like you said, it's probably happened a lot to him and he's just now started taking pictures. But, maybe there are some other factors we don't know about. I don't doubt it happens. I just hate jumping to that conclusion immediately. I hope that makes sense.