I am Karan from Olympia, WA.
Almost every other name used here is a pseodonym pseudonim pseudonymn alias.
The rest of it is true - mostly - and all of it is my own.
Don't even think about taking any of it, unless of course, you want to pay me.
Random Wisdom: Do, or do not. There is no 'try'. - Yoda
The counter says that 2846360 have been flummelized, but I personally think it's all a big lie.
When last we met to discuss the Rejjie that fills my life, my thoughts, my heart, we were into deep into recovery. Dancing quietly around the damage done to our relationships and working hard to get public school out of our systems. I was sure of one thing...I would not return her to the hell that was her high school.
In WAshington, there are only three requirements to home school your child.
1. I have completed at least 45 college credits
2. I have filed an “Declaration of Intent for Home-Based Instruction” by the deadline
3. I test Rejjie once a year using a formal academic test
Not too hard is it? In this state, our home school lobby is very strong....none of that very specific academic requirement stuff....the lack of which appeals to me in a big way because I want to keep this as loose and goosey as possible otherwise, well, we all know how Rejjie (and her mom) is with rules.
Although...and I don’t think I’ve revealed this before....although my training includes a teaching credential, I was much frightened at the prospect of teaching my own child. Even though I am certain that she is very very smart, I have very little idea of where she stands academically - what bits and pieces were absorbed, what bits skipped over and exactly where we will go with this.
When I was in my teacher ed program, I was very attracted to child-led discovery programs...those sorts of educational programs that let the teacher design curriculum around the subject at hand...based on what not only the child feels is interesting, but also the teacher. This philosophy eschewed those programs in a box and canned studies that grew increasingly popular as classrooms grew to 30+ in size. I know, it sounds like hippy education but please remember, I was a child of that era so it was easy to believe.
It was at this point, as I wondered how we were going to develop her love of learning that a friend passed a book to me called The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn. Yeah, I know....who wants a liberated teenager running amok? Certainly not us...we’d had it and it was horrid. Despite that, I read the book anyway and it completely put my mind at ease. Grace Llewellyn was actually reminding me of the kind of teacher I wanted to be way back then and the basic concept..."unschooling" was something that I believed would work with Rejjie.
Unschooling is a totally child-driven way of learning. It promotes the idea that learning is a natural state and that even children who have been injured by a traditional American education can recover and become fine and capable lovers of learning. That’s my own paraphrase. The hardcore unschoolers are probably cringing...as if any of them actually show up here. The truth for us is that the book reminded me of a way of learning that I find attractive but gave me permission to allow Rejjie to recover and the incentive to study whatever the hell we wanted to study.
I couldn’t quite give up some sort of adult guidance. Rejjie only had one goal (or at least one she shared)...she wants to go to college so to me, that meant that I needed to get her college ready...complete with interest, testing, study and eagerness skills that would promote success in college. I wasn’t so interested in particular courses of study to prepare for because both Leonard and I learned that stuff in college as we went along and we figured that Rejjie would do that too. It seemed that with Rejjie already 16 and half years old, our time to get her college ready was limited.
And it was with that mindset that we started home schooling with the intent to follow my version of unschooling. I liken my plan to the way that some parents sneak veggies into their children...grate them and hide them in foods they do like. Like them, I was going to sneak in educational moments with much more deliberateness than I always did before and hide it in every day moments.
Using the impending trip to Portugal we talked a lot about Portugal and prepared for the trip and all that such an adventure entails. As far as Rejjie was concerned, it was all table talk and casual conversations but I was very careful about introducing educational elements into her “every day doing nothing much”. We practiced simple Portuguese phrases and looked at maps and talked about how to navigate airports and customs and all sorts of travel tip sorts of details.
It was fun...but the truth is that we didn’t do very much before or after the trip. Rejjie was not interested in any obvious learning and when we weren’t preparing for the trip, she played an online game called “Maple Story” or read novels. I tried hard to keep my big mouth shut and reminded myself many times to embrace the recovery part of Unschooling.
She read a lot of books, mostly teen novels. I was pleased with that but every once in a while I freaked out that she wasn’t do anything “educational” and then felt molto guilty that I was imposing old expectations on her. I had to force myself to wait it out.
Then...some time in early September, Rejjie started telling me she wanted to go to the local community college. I tried to dissuade her thinking that she needed to develop those missing skills and that I’d help her do that with the goal of attending maybe next January. She kept after me and on September 20th she had a fit and insisted that she wanted to go NOW. So...I embraced my inner unschooler and took her in the next day to take the admission placement tests, which she passed (!) and then drove all over town getting the proper paperwork signed and submitted and then on the following Monday, September 24th, enrolled her at South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC).
Yeah...I’ve got no backbone, but the college said she was ready so who am I to disagree?
Anyway....Rejjie is enrolled via a program called Running Start which is a state funded program for high school aged students. It is not a dumbed down program for high schoolers, the students attend real college classes and learn right along with the adult learners in any classes offered at the college. Except for the Running Start office at the college, there are no identifiers that set these students apart from the adult learners....unless of course the students reveal themselves. With the exception of intercollegiate sports, they can do everything offered by the college, attend full or part-time and must meet all academic requirements. Some students actually graduate from their high school program (public or home school) and from the college with an AA at the same time.
In my mind, it’s like one ginormous two year scholarship! In Rejjie’s mind, she’s at school with people who are respectful and are glad to be there. That’s a bonus to me too.
So far, she’s very very happy. I hope it continues.
My daughter is 16 and has been hugely unsuccessful in public schools. I am both amazed at what she doesn’t know and what she has managed to figure out on her own and I have great hopes that this new effort will guide her toward happiness in learning. Happiness in learning is my number one goal for her. Number One!
July 20, 2007
Rejjie is the name I’ll call my daughter. She has an older brother, El Jay.
Rejjie is my last born, a longed for second child born four years after her brother. From the very beginning she was much more than he. While he was a quiet mellow, thoughtful child, she was loud and demanding and never took no for an answer.
At 10 months she gave up her morning nap and then at two, stopped with any sort of rest in the afternoon. By three years old, she rarely fell asleep before 11pm. We were tired all the time. She was just fine.
At twelve months she would willingly sit for 20 minute stretches and scribble happily making “pichurs” but only if we provided a full range of colors to select from. At eighteen months, she was done with that baby business and was determined to climb and ride and play with the big kids. She moved with great vigor from one activity to another, just as happy to sit and listen to stories or to engage in some sort of dress up activity.
Because my husband and I both worked, our kids were in daycare and preschool, then public school. El Jay graduated from high school and last year, after two years of terrible times in high school brought about by both the school and Rejjie herself, I yanked her out 6 weeks before summer break was to start.
Once she entered public school, it was clearly apparent that her teachers hated her. The parent teacher conferences were filled with comments like won’t stay in her seat, interrupts, won’t read the readers, doesn’t follow the rules and she did things her own way. They used words like testing for ADD and ritalin and freaked out that she “couldn’t” read.
Every time I balked at their assessments and tried hard to make nice with people who were so willing to blame my daughter’s behaviors on a “disorder”, low intelligence or parental failure. In my mind, it seemed clear to me that the fault lay with the teachers and classroom environment and the fact that there were 35 kids per classroom. Every time they expressed deep concern over her disinterest in reading, I argued that it was developmental stage and to just wait it out. She was placed in the low reading group where she was quickly bored to death and caused disruptions over and over again.
They really hated her and this was a teacher-Rejjie pattern that continued up until that last day. It’s OK. She hated them and eventually, so did I.
Homeschooling wasn’t an option that Rejjie would even give a single ounce of consideration and I had to wait until the scales were tipped heavily toward it as being the only option. Now she is a believer and considers this her choice and the only way she wants to go.
I was worried about taking on this task because my relationship with her was terrible. She was disrepectful, she argued about everything and she would have none of that doing what I said business. I was advised over and over again against taking it on by her high school counselors and told to keep a firm hand on her.
Once Rejjie agreed to do this, I prepared a bit by reading up on what’s gone before in this arena and fully disregarded the school’s suggestions and decided to go my version of unschooling.
Right now Rejjie is spending a lot of time getting public school out of her bones. She is reading a lot, playing games, watching movies and hanging out with me. Our relationship is 2000 times better than it was and we are having fun together. That alone is worth any future effort we put into her learning at home.
When Rejjie is ready, she’ll get going. The one thing she’s already mentioned is that she wants to learn about raising rabbits and I plan to have her write up a paper or two about what she learns. She wants to build a hutch, so I’ve asked for a project plan that includes a cad design, a cost analysis, a shopping list, a lesson in tool safety with her dad and then she has to build the thing.
Rejjie wants to go to college and so I’ve told her to figure out what she needs to know/what skills she thinks she needs to have to do well in college and then we’ll figure out ways for her to get to that point. When she feels capable, we’ll enroll in her a class or two and see how she does.
Her dad and I were students who banged around taking tons of classes that had nothing to do with majors and much more to do with what interested us so we feel that this is a good model to emulate while she’s with us at home. We have original source literature, many many contacts with friends who have already volunteered to guide her if she shows interest and a plethora of resources and smarts available to her if she wants it.
I was actually surprised how much I am looking forward to this and invigorated by the anticipation of what we’ll be doing together.
Mostly, I’m so very happy to have my daughter back. Really.
July 20, 2007
As I said good night at 10:30 Monday night, I asked Rejjie to awaken me quietly at 2 am. Our goal was to witness the lunar eclipse that was promised early the next morning and unlike any full eclipse before, at least since I’ve lived in the PNW, this one was to happen in a crystal clear night sky.
At 2 am, on the dot, Rejjie tapped me gently awake and we bundled up, grabbed Riso and climbed into the CR-V and drove the 100 or so yards out to the middle of our back lawn so we could watch the big event. Why the car? Well, we have many wild critters that visit us during the night and aside from the worry that one of the visitors might be a coyote or even the rumored cougar, I had no interest in trying to keep the dog quiet while we sat there. There was the added advantage that we would be in complete comfort during our viewing and we were.
As Earth’s shadow slowly drifted across the moon, Rejjie and I talked about the celestial process in play, the theories of how the moon came to be and tried to decide what would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared from our sky. We talked about the legends surrounding a lunar eclipse and we made up a few of our own.
When we were done with the edjamacational stuff, we talked about my childhood and shared funny stories and pretty much had a nice quiet early early morning.
Finally about 3:30am, the shadow was complete. Mayans and Ancient Egyptians, Neanderthals and Goths all shivered in fear or made sacrifices to the moon gods to make it stop. Rejjie and I, we tried to stay awake. We watched a bit more as the moon started to reappear but gave up the rest of the wait and drove back home and went to bed.
All in all, it was a fantabulous time.
Let’s see how has this story gone so far:
Monday and Tuesday: Rejjie returns from longest run away ever and goes directly to jail. The next day she is arraigned in juvenile court, is released from jail and the goes KAPOW.
Wednesday: Rejjie is arraigned in criminal court and leaves happy.
Thursday: She returns to school and goes KAPOW, again.
The next Tuesday: Rejjie and I meet with the AP
We left our last meeting with Rejjie remaining on indefinite suspension until her high school could figure out if she can earn any sort of grade higher than F. Our full expectation was that the Assistant Principal would report that Rejjie was stuck with straight F’s and not welcome back at her high school.
Leonard, Rejjie and I went out to dinner that evening and spent time “designing” what we thought might work for both Rejjie and I as a home schooling family. I made notes and we talked about my concerns regarding her commitment and participation. Rejjie seemed excited about this prospect and actively made suggestions about what she wanted to study.
Home schooling might seem like an obvious choice, I mean, obvious over the whole jail-ish Day School thing, but I was quite frightened at the prospect of home schooling. Not that I don’t know how to do it or that I think I’m inept...it’s just that I am afraid of adding that new dynamic to our relationship. Very afraid. I told her about this giant worry that colored everything to do with this decision and she told me she was a little worried about that part too. We laid out all the cards and we waited for the call.
It turns out that the wait was short because by 10 am the next morning the call came in and the high school reported that Rejjie has no chance of getting better than an F in every single class. (remember this wee detail)
We were to be a home school family and it made me quake in my boots.
Because Rejjie was a student under the truancy law called BECCA, she faced obstacles that included that the courts dismiss her first from those concerns. The Youth at Risk case work, who for some reason I was lucky enough to include in the Wednesday meeting with the Assistant Principal was going to shepherd this transition for Rejjie, making it work for her.
The biggest hurdle we now faced in this transition was that we had to collect the proper forms, collect signatures at the high school, make copies and then submit the original completed versions to the local district office and then the copies to the BECCA law folks, all before Monday. If we missed that deadline, then Rejjie was obligated to report to Day School.
But first.
After the call and for most of the rest of Thursday we spent hanging out waiting for Rejjie’s previously scheduled court hearing, the one in juvenile court, the one to determine her consequence for running away.
The way juvenile court works in our county is that the cases are all on Thursday and run all day long until everyone scheduled has been judged. We are all ordered to show up at 1:30 pm and then we all sit outside the courtroom and wait and wait and wait. At 4pm, Rejjie was called in and finally we sat before the judge, Rejjie with her assigned lawyer and me on the other side with the Youth at Risk case worker. The judge was friendly and seemed to care about our situation. He talked to her, then he talked to me and then he told her that she must perform 16 hours of community service within the next 30 days.
I was cool with that and so was Rejjie.
When we left at 4:45pm, there was no time to collect the forms we needed to set Rejjie up for the next chapter in her educational experience so first thing the next morning (that would be about 10am in Flummelville), we beat feet to the school district office. We were required to collect several school signatures on the Withdrawal From School form and then submit an official Intent to Home School form.
But first, we had to go to a previously scheduled meeting with a newly assigned social worker who conducted an intake interview and assessment of both of us so that we could be funneled even more deeply into the system. This was to allow us to participate in a program called Family Reconciliation Services which hooks us up with a family counselor. It was mandated through the Youth at Risk program and included access to an anger management program called ART (Anger Regression Therapy).
This all took about 2 hours so by the time we were actually able to go to the high school to start the withdrawal process, it was about 3pm...actually I was ready to get there by 2 but we forgot that we would have to turn in each class’ books as part of the process so we drove home and retrieved them.
3 pm on a Friday is not a really good time to try to catch teachers and administrators for signatures and I was filling quickly with panic.
Panic to the left, panic to the right. Stand up. Sit down. Panic Panic Panic.
OK. I’m better now.
Rejjie took her books, the form and diligently collected all the required signatures and carefully avoided any sort of confrontation. On the drive to drop the forms off hither and thither, she shared with me comments from two of her three teachers....they were dismayed that she was quitting because she could have “significantly” improved her grades with a little bit of effort.
Now isn’t that interesting?
I didn’t have time to complete the full paper chase that day, so I delivered the copies to the courts first and Rejjie was given an official bye (as in bye-bye) for Day School. On Monday, I drove the paperwork to the school district office where I was submitted to the inquisition efforts of the district secretary who apparently didn’t think I looked like someone who met the minimum educational requirement for home schooling my child...that minimum requirement being that I had completed at least 45 college credits.
Instead of pointing out that I had actually finished almost 8x that many credits, I just told her over and over that yes, I met the minimums. Then she heard that Rejjie had been a BECCA student. That halted the entire process right there....not for me, I stood up and departed when they no longer continued to involve me in the discussion. The process stopped when they didn’t know what to do.
As it turned out, the high school, in either their everlasting ineptitude or perhaps because of the vindictive nature of their mid-level administrator, continued to notify me each day via automated phone that Rejjie wasn’t attending her classes which finally led the district to issue a summons for contempt of court through the BECCA law Never mind that Rejjie no longer attended and was dismissed from that consequence. The Youth at Risk case worker pulled the summons and saved us a great deal more hassle.
She was watching Rejjie’s back and we love her.
So...now we are home schooling. Rejjie is studying algebra, things Portuguese and swimming. She is learning about vegetarian nutrition and cooking a meal a week for us plus taking field trips each week to some thing we find of mutual interest....like the Museum of Glass. My kid might be one of the very few teens who know all about Dale Chihuly and has tagged the location of many of his works on Google Earth.
Yes, we are home schooling. It’s a slow start, she and I are doing this in baby steps, but it feels prety good so far. Emotionally, Rejjie is a changed girl. She is relaxed. She is happy and she is finally behaving normally. On her own volition, she’s dumped her troublesome friends and, for now, seems content to be just with Leonard and I. She and we are recovering from the ordeal that this year has been.
I’m not daft enough to thing we’ve won this long battle with Rejjie’s teenhood. I am comfortable enough though to think that we survived something very major and that has allowed me to breathe again. I don’t know if we’ll continue with home schooling until she’s ready for college or not but I do know that I am never going to return her to her old high school. Asofuckinglutely sure.
Oh...I just added spelling to the list of studies. My kid...she is one rotten speller - takes after her mum she does.
If you want the whole story including rounds 1, 2 and 3 then follow the poorly highlighted links. If you just want to jump right in, then start reading below.
At this point in the story, Rejjie is now on indefinite suspension...a status that she does not particularly consider the end of all life as she knows it. Although it would be a stretch to claim that she was delighted to stay out of school, it is accurate to write that she was physically and emotionally relieved.
We spent the next few days talking about what had happened, how she felt, what we can do to improve it for her and what we could have done to change the outcome at the time it was all happening. We talked about the difference between respect deserved by virtue of a person’s position in life and respect earned by virtue of respectable behavior. We talked about examples of both behaviors. We also spent much more of that time taking baby steps toward trust and not talking about anything to do with school, court or any of the events of the last week and a half. We goofed off. We watched TV. We did nothing of consequence what-so-ever. It was a cooling off period for all of us.
Most importantly during this period, Rejjie rebalanced. She carefully took her meds on time and ate properly and slept much and some time on Sunday, Rejjie reported that she was feeling “normal” again and there was a marked difference in her demeanor. She was no longer edgy and she was relaxed and she was, once again, funny. Cool Rejjie was back. Evil Rejjie was gone. All three of us were pleased.
This of course meant that she had to start making plans to return to school. The idea mortified me and at the very least worried her...but we did not have a clear option of not returning and I would not willingly allow her to return to jail. So finally on Monday afternoon, I called the school and asked for the meeting required to return Rejjie to high school.
Because my trust in the Assistant Principal (again referred to here as the AP) was low and I felt the need for witnesses, I was very specific in my expectations for this meeting. I asked that Rejjie, the AP and I be in attendance but also that her high school advisor be there too and finally, I wanted her case worker from the Youth at Risk program (YaR case worker) to attend. I wanted not only the expertise that these other two women would bring to the table but I wanted them to serve as witnesses/observers. The high school advisor was to represent Rejjie’s academic status and to help keep the AP in check.
The YaR case worker was there to represent Rejjie’s truancy concerns because I was very concerned about the additional unexcused absences brought about with this most recent detention because she was held to the conditions of the BECCA law which promised to send her to Juvenile Detention if she was not in class. The AP knew it too because she was the person who insisted on filing the paperwork to place Rejjie in that status and I worried that just maybe she considered this her power play to teach my girl a lesson.
These people were there too because I trust them both...they seem to care about my daughter.
The meeting was set for Wednesday with all the requested players in attendance.
It was my intent to attend with an open-mind to work toward Rejjie’s re-entry and with a goal of finishing up the year at that high school. When we arrived, that hopeful resolve vanished. We exchanged pleasantries and the AP asked Rejjie how she felt. Rejjie replied, very politely that she was feeling much better and much more in control. The AP then said, “You know what I’m waiting to hear from you.”
And Rejjie, without a prompt from me, said “I’m sorry that I was so mean and was so out of control to you and the school secretary.”
The AP told Rejjie that it was very inappropriate and never in her entire career had she ever heard such comments from any other student. She didn’t acknowledge the apology in any other way...but the good news is that this apology came to her and was apparently what she valued highest above all else.
It was also immediately clear that the AP had no interest in Rejjie’s continued attendance because right away she indicated she had grave concerns that this particular high school might not be the place for Rejjie. I replied that I too thought it wasn’t the right place for her. The difference in our apparent agreement was that the AP meant that she didn’t want Rejjie around any more while I meant it as a direct insult...but I kept that quiet intent to myself.
The AP skillfully built her case. She brought visual aids and showed that Rejjie had straight F’s on her mid-term grade report and had earned only so many credits toward graduation in the two years she had been in attendance. The AP shared the number of missed days and the various evidences of poor behavior. Then she delivered her professional opinion....if Rejjie isn’t earning grades, she won’t be allowed in the classroom because she’ll serve only as a distraction to the “real learners” there and that if she permitted Rejjie to return, she will have to spend the remaining six weeks of the school year in detention. If she didn’t allow Rejjie to return, the AP would place her on suspension until the end of the year.
I asked the YaR case worker about the consequences of each option...continued suspension or in-house detention and learned that both placed Rejjie in violation of the BECCA law...the student must demonstrate educational progress toward graduation. None of the AP’s suggestions offered progress and Rejjie’s non-compliance, no matter who instituted the conditions, meant that she was going to end up in jail again.
Well, fish piss.
Then the AP swooped in with her most favored options. Rejjie can choose to transfer to another high school, attend Day School at Juvenile Detention or withdraw and get home schooled.
The reality of each option is not something I considered something I wanted either Rejjie or her parents to willingly face.
Transferring was not a real option because not only were there only six weeks of school left, but every high school in this county is full to the brim which gives each school the option of setting conditions fo admission: no students with disciplinary problems or poor academic performance or poor attendance records. Rejjie hit the trifecta there. The AP knew all of this because we had discussed this before. She knew I knew it and I knew she knew it so it was an empty gesture and the effort to put it forth as a real option pissed me off some more.
Day School is jail school and really just babysitting for the Future Felons of America and I frankly didn’t want Rejjie introduced to some even badder asses then she had already dug up through her own contacts. This option required that I drive her to the facility every day, have her admitted and then pick her up after she was released again at the end of classes. It is like taking her to jail every single day, five days a week. I’m sure that this would have had a great impact on her well-being.
Finally the home schooling option is one that I have considered on and off for a few years…but it seems like an insane choice. What parent would willingly introduce a new point of friction in an already contentious relationship and realistically expect a positive outcome?
Like I said, fish piss.
Clearly the AP wanted Rejjie out of her life. I was angry that I was forced to make such choices just because the AP didn’t want to be bothered with her any more and I failed to understand just how she could refuse to educate my daughter, yet here I was having to decide between sending my kid to jail or home schooling her.
I told the AP that I did not want Rejjie to come to school to be babysat and that I found it hard to believe that she would not be able to improve her grades in the time remaining. I asked the advisor to speak to her teachers to determine if Rejjie might indeed improve her grades and then based on that we will decide which option to pursue.
Will young Rejjie finish school at the same school? Will she become a jailbird? Will her mother bite the bullet and home school her?
Stay tuned and it will all become clear.
Can you believe that we haven’t yet even finished covering the events of one single week? No wonder I was so tired by the following Saturday.
