School Days

E has 26 days left of school this year. Yes, we’re counting. School has never been the highlight of E’s life. He’s not a great student, and has not (yet) developed a love of learning. Add to this that we do not live in a city with a good school system, and it just is a mess. He did ok at first, then we went through our rough patch and he was getting detentions and refusing to do work and I was getting calls from the school. Once we were past that, he seemed to be doing better. He volunteered to stay after school for some extra help, and I haven’t gotten any calls lately. However, in the last week or so, he has been having a rough time–it seems that maybe he’s getting teased. I’m hesitant to call it bullying at this point, but he dreads going to school and comes home bummed out. We’re so close to the end, and so looking forward to new adventures and possibilities, I’m trying to just get us through the next few weeks. If those possibilities don’t look like they’re panning out (that’s another post), I have decided we will move, even for the short term. Look, I get the stability thing, but these schools suck. I can’t afford to send E to private school, and he is #27 on the charter school we applied to. When you’re a kid who for the last 5+ years has not had an emphasis placed on education, being in a setting where very few of your peers care about school at all–and beyond just the normal kid stuff–doesn’t help matters. Plus now that conflicts with the message that I give him about doing his best, trying hard, learning and education being important.  Anyway, that’s where we are. He’s planning on cleaning out some of his locker today, to make him feel a little better, to remind him that it’s almost over.  I have most of the summer off, so we’ll have a good chance to bond and spend time together (ok, and maybe a little chance to do some catch-up learning as well). 26 days.