Today's meeting with the new principal couldn't have gone better. He was open to all sorts of ideas; subject acceleration, grade acceleration, morning kindergarten and afternoon first grade, etc. He is excited to meet Carver and gets that educating a child like this has to be a partnership. I feel confident that if we stay here, Seasons Elementary should work just fine for Carver. Regardless of how he tests next week, Carver will need some sort of alternative education just to make sure he isn't bored. Perhaps more importantly, I learned that everything taught in kindergarden, aside from fine motor skill practice, Carver has learned.

It's funny, I think that every mother wants their child to be the best and brightest that they can be, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by the possibility that he might need to skip a grade.

picking a kindergarten

It's hard to believe that Kindergarten is only 9 months away. I know, that seems like a lifetime to a 4.5 year old boy, but apparently the school system here seems to think it is just the right amount of time to prepare for a new year. So all of the schools around here require that kids register in mid to late January. Being the planner that I was, I started this process back in October. Wisconsin has an open enrollment policy that says parents can essentially enroll their kids in any school in the state that has space as long as the parents transport them. When you add in all of the private school options, we had literally hundreds of choices.

While Carver's Montessori preschool is going fine, I can't honestly justify spending another $4,000 for him to attend a second year. Besides that, we are considering putting Syarra there and I don't want them in the same classroom. The public montessori here starts in first grade and the gifted school doesn't start until 3rd grade. There are a variety of other public charter schools like the classical school, but they didn't seem to be the right fit. So in November, I check online to determine which school was our local school and called the principal.

When I talk to other people about Carver's abilities, I tend to downplay them so that I don't feel like I'm bragging. Especially with new parents, it is so easy to fall into the trap of comparing children. With Principal Smith, I worked hard to be really honest about Carver's strengths and weaknesses. I wanted his honesty and I wanted to have an advocate in the school. I got both. Mr. Smith was great, and quite a few meetings that included the gifted teacher and the phychologist later, I was feeling very confident that Oakland school was willing and able to accomodate Carver's abilities.

Then last week I got the bad news. Due to an error on the school district website, I had been talking to the wrong school. Even though Oakland is twice as close, our neighborhood is slated to go to Seasons. Each principal is pretty autonomous so all of the planning we had done was down the drain and with only days until kindergarten registration, I was starting over.

Seasons Elementary is sympathetic to my situation at least and is fast tracking everything for me. Yesterday, I had a long talk with the school psychologist and she is going to conduct testing for Carver next week. The testing will be a combination of IQ and abilities and while it won't decide anything, it will give us information that we don't have currently. I have also learned that Seasons policy is in favor of grade acceleration where Oakland was not.

Tomorrow, I am heading over to see the school and meet with the principal. While private school or even homeschool is back on the table, I hope that I can figure out a way for public school to really accommodate Carver's needs.

Best friends and Arch-enemies

Okay, so we put Carver into a preschool program, not to work on academics so much, though it is nice to have them fill in some gaps, but to help him socialize. Carver is just not socially motivated. As a parent, I know how important friends are, but he doesn't seem to. I guess that generally he hasn't found anyone that is worth the effort. Until now. In school this year, he met a girl named Juli who is about 6 months younger than him. The important thing is that she apparently thinks Carver is very funny. Many of the kids get confused when Carver starts talking about his numbers or whatever, but Juli "laughs and laughs." Carver is very excited about this. He refers to Juli as his best friend.

He has also developed an arch-enemy: George. George is not always very nice to Carver and sometimes hits him when the teachers aren't looking. Then Carver gets in trouble for not playing nicely. I have explained to Carver that, while I expect him to be friendly with all the kids, he does not need to be friends with all of them. Here is the problem though. On our way home from school yesterday, he explained to me in a sad voice that he is no longer friends with Juli. Apparently, George has decided to be friends with her and Carver refuses to "put in the effort" to be her friend if she will be friends with George. He sounded so broken-hearted.

I had no idea that this started so early and I'm not prepared. How do I make it easy for him? How do I guide him when making friends didn't come easy to me as a child and I still have to put a lot of effort into it even as an adult? I'm glad that school was canceled today so that we can have a weekend to rethink things.

Layed off

Well, we moved to Iowa for my career and it only seemed fair, when my job was eliminated, to move to Wisconsin for my husband's career. Fast forward 8 months and the museum cut his position today. Nothing personal, he was told. Apparently the museum is bleeding red ink. Still, as far as I'm concerned, it is very personal. Here I am in the middle of nowhere with no money coming in except for unemployment insurance. It's funny, I was laid off once before and didn't apply because it felt like welfare. Of course, back then, I got a new job two weeks later. Hardly enough time to even take a breather. I imagine that this time will be different. And while I know that I am not, at heart, a stay-at-home-mom, job hunting sucks. I know that it will mean moving again.