gift/burden

I got home last night, on foot, at 10:30, to find a present on our doorstop. It is a little ghost-themed tin pail, with rice krispie treats, glow-in-the-dark bracelets, and little foam pellets that expand into monsters when you add water. It also had a little note, in rhyme, saying that I should copy the note (ghost-shaped) and make gifts for two other families, and post the ghost on my door to show I had already been gifted.

So basically, it's a Halloween gift basket chain letter. My choices are: ignore the instructions to pass it on, and feel guilty; run out to Kroger after work tonight and buy stuff for two more baskets and make them and put them on some other unsuspecting person's door. I'm not sure which I am going to do. This is one of those little gestures that seems like a nice thing, but honestly, I'd rather not have received it.

school woes

I actually think Casper is doing fine at school. She is learning, she seems to enjoy it.

There are certainly problems, however, and pretty much all of them stem from the fact that a large percentage of the kids (in her class, in the school, in the district) come from households that are not functioning optimally, due to economic and social conditions. I had coffee with two of the other parents from our classroom yesterday, one of whom has been volunteering a lot in the classroom. Our teacher is a new teacher, and is run ragged to keep up with the kids who have special needs (not officially, but need extra attention to be kept on task or prevented from being disruptive). We talked about issues in the district, the proposed rezoning, and how we can best support Mrs. E in her teaching, because we do think she is doing the best she can and has good fundamentals; she just needs to learn the skills she needs to tackle the challenges of teaching mostly underprivileged kids.

Of the two mothers I met with, one is definitely pulling her daughter out of public school after this year. The child is physically tiny, and seems sensitive (the mother is sensitive, anyway) and they feel it isn't worth it. They would also be rezoned out of our school if the rezoning goes through as planned. The second mother thinks school is going fine, but her house is for sale, and even if it doesn't sell they will be rezoned as well. The mother who wasn't able to come just wrote to tell me they also have their house on the market, and if it sells they are almost certainly moving to the suburban county with flipped demographics from the city.

Our school has just gotten a boost of energy from a renovation and a movement of middle-class people to send their kids there - the only grades affected so far are K and 1. We have a brand-new PTA that is just learning how to work with the school and support it (and vice versa). I am afraid that parental impatience with progress, coupled with the rezoning, is going to make what could be the beginning of a very good thing fizzle, and leave us with even harder choices to make. I guess I need to start talking to some of the other parents I have met, with kids in other classrooms, who won't be rezoned no matter what, and get my gumption back up.