flea

We finally got a school directory. Although this school has Asian students adding some name diversity, as a rule it is much less interesting than our school in Georgia in terms of names. There is ethnic diversity at the school, but little class diversity, so kids of all ethnicities tend to have upper middle class white people names.

Girls: Elle, Ellie, Kyla, Kayla, Chaya, Lila, Lila, Lily, Emma, Amy, Savannah, Vivienne, Danika, Alexandra, Reilly, Delaney, Sena.

Boys: Alexander, James, Elliott, Nicholas, Noah, Charlie, Henry, Owen, Owen, Max, Robert, Robert, Sean, David, David, Jonah, Matthew, Tate, Gabriel, Brayden, Kaden, Rohan (South Asian, not a LOTR fan), Raj, Ajai, Ziyin.

One thing that's interesting to me is that in all of the gifted classes at the school, boys outnumber girls, usually at about the rate seen above in the 4th grade. I know that at extreme outliers males tend to test higher (and lower) than females, but the requirements for the school are only testing in 95%ile, and as far as I know there's no inherent gender disparity in giftedness at that level. But my suspicion is that gifted boys are not as successful in mainstream classrooms, as a result of the way boys and girls are socialized at school and in our culture generally (girls - organized, high achieving, good behavior; boys - disorganized, underachieving, boredom causes disruption). I would guess that of the percentage of kids who are eligible for gifted, more girls than boys are already flourishing in their schools, and parents are reluctant to change something that works, whereas more boys are not doing well in their schools, so when they test into gifted, the parents are open to change.

Took both kids to the dentist. Casper got a referral to the orthodonist; she has a "deep bite." Dillo got the real prize, though; one of the teeth that got a pulpotomy and crown when he was 4 is now infected, so he gets amoxicillin for a week and then gets it pulled. The tooth next to it will need to be crowned (capped, at this age; it's not a permanent tooth), because it has an existing cavity and can't support the spacer without being crowned. She thinks it may need a pulpotomy, but she can't be sure until the abscessed tooth is out. Cost for today: $425 (will be mostly reimbursed by insurance, but not for months). Cost for next week: $845. So much for our dreams of a new mattress.

Took elder cat to the vet. Talked about Feliway diffusers for her stress level; talked about switching foods (they recommend Iams hairball control); got blood drawn to look for other things that may be causing occasional puking; had anal glands expressed. I felt very knowledgeable, thanks to Homer and other b.orgian cats. Another visitor to the vet had 5 dogs in for a visit together. Could never be a vet. Or a dog owner.

Dropped cat off at home, went to get sandwiches, Casper started getting stressed out about the next event, which was an open house to meet the principal of the gifted academy, which she is enrolled for. Said freakout expressed itself in a horror of sandwiches. Luckily, the promise of a bacon sandwich on white bread calmed the situation.

The open house was okay. The principal is very experienced, originally from Brooklyn (a plus for me), talked a good game. The PTO/other parents are as obsessively organized as they were at last year's school; this stresses me out and makes me feel small. I am a little worried about Casper underperforming in the gifted academy; she's such a space cadet sometimes. Dillo is enrolled for first grade at the new school (in the same building as the gifted academy, with the same principal), but they have not hired a first grade teacher yet (school starts Aug. 22) and last I heard there are 5 first graders enrolled. So, while the principal is still officially saying that first grade will happen, I am pretty skeptical. Dillo at this point wants to stay at his old school, and we have not told him that there might be a switch, so I guess it's all okay if they cancel first grade at the last minute. It would be a pain to have the kids at 2 different schools, though.

Several really big thunderstorms rolled through at various points during all this. When it wasn't bucketing rain, it was in the 90s and soupy.

I am exhausted.

We've been trying to get copies of the results of Casper's gifted testing done in Georgia since before spring break. I'll spare the ugly runaround details, but we got them today, and I think her existing scores will be good enough to get her into the [public school] Gifted Academy that's moving to the elementary school a 10-minute walk from our house.

Can I brag? I'll cut-tag it if you are squeamish.

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As you may remember, I've never felt super-great about the kids' current school. It's rated excellent, they have a lot of good enrichment and so forth, but we haven't felt like it's a real community for us, and it seems like there's an excessive focus on test prep and achievement generally.

A couple of weeks ago we did a Girl Scout Cookie booth, and the leader, who has daughters in 6th and 3rd grades, gave me an earful about 4th grade at our current school (unprompted). She said, "4th grade is the year [school] loses kids," and talked about the 3 4th grade teachers who have worked together for 15 years and are very tight, how parents are explicitly discouraged from spending time in the classrooms (despite a school-wide open-door policy), and how they are very hard on the kids, with respect to strictness and high standards. Today Casper told us that her current (3rd grade) teacher gave them a lecture today about how hard 4th grade is, and how if you forget to turn things in you get a 0, and (unlike in 3rd grade) they don't let you correct mistakes in your work for extra points after a first grading. Casper was in tears about this.

So, what to do? I definitely think it's a bad idea to paint the 4th grade as a "make or break" year, presenting a challenge in a negative light, to the children, as Mrs. S did today. Casper now has the impression that the 4th grade teachers are mean.

But aside from the PR problem 4th grade has, is the actuality a red flag, or not? I've been ambivalent about the level of rigor at the school; it certainly feels more authoritarian and focused on achievement in the matter of grades rather than in the matter of understanding than our previous school. I have tried to convince myself that this is a good thing, or at least okay, since Casper has mostly managed to rise to the challenges of lots of homework, and she has a tendency to be a bit lazy and sloppy by her (daydreamy, rushing through boring work) nature. I told myself that the enforced rigor would be good for her, teach her that she can achieve high standards if she pays proper care to her work. Now I'm concerned that the school is teaching her that dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's is more important than love of learning and understanding concepts. Which way is right? Does anyone have experiences with school personalities and the rigor question?

I'm going to an open house on Thursday for the new neighborhood school we'll be eligible for. Unfortunately they won't have 4th grade yet next year, and they won't have 5th grade yet by 2013, so it's not really an option for Casper. There will be someone from the Gifted Academy for 3rd-6th grades which will also be moving into the building. But I'm not positive Casper would be able to get into Gifted by the Ohio criteria, and I have no idea about the environment there. And then we get to think again about magnet schools and private schools, again too late and of course the $ issue.

Next on Woes of Elementary School Parenting, we'll have a fun discussion about social anxiety, brattitude, and your 5 year old. At least he has excellent grades?

Applications to magnet elementary schools in Cincinnati occur November 16. As Cincinnati magnet schools operate on a first-come, first-served basis, parents are now camping out outside the top schools, to get a preferred place in line for when the name-taking begins on Nov. 16. Which, you may note, is still 10 days away. An acquaintance posted to twitter from the line (in a tent? mr. flea suggested we drive by the school and see!) with the hashtag #occupyfairview. Note the inherent favoritism in this system not only for the organized and dedicated parents, but also for the parents with the resources, support, and flexibility to camp out for 10 days. What do single parents, families with two working parents, families with small children at home (which must be in a majority, as most of the camping out is for K enrollment) do? It's beautiful weather today, but generally in the low 40s overnight. Surely there is a less cruel way?

This is why my kids attend a "neighborhood" elementary school.

Just for shits and giggles, I looked into the application procedures for the magnet K-12 school for the creative and performing arts. For students entering K-3, you fill our forms and go for an interview. For students entering grades 4 and above, you fill our forms, get written recommendations from academic and art teachers, and audition. 4th and 5th graders submit a portfolio of visual art, a portfolio of writing, sing "America the Beautiful" (in the key of F), perform a short dramatic monologue (from the beginning of Charlotte's Web), are asked to turn up in a leotard (and those with dance experience are asked to submit a photo in first arabesque), and those with experience in musical instruments are asked to play.

I think getting into college might be simpler. Can we move back to small-town Georgia for the sake of the kids' education, please? Or at least for the sake of my stress level about it?

Let us begin with school. The school is a "neighborhood" public school, in a very nice neighborhood (some rentals in the zone, but houses for sale at $4-500,000 are the standard.) Judging by eye the student body is about 10% non-white, largely black but a few Asians (south and east); I have not seen a child I would guess is Latino. There are a lot of blondes; we're back in the land of the Germans! We're scheduled to get on the bus route on October 24 (there is no stop within 1/4 mile of our house, so they have to create a stop for us, and this takes 2 weeks), but in the meantime our routine is mr. flea drives us all to school at about 8:30; the kids play on the playground and I watch them (other kids start showing up by 8:45, the before-school program, kids off the buses, and drop-offs); and at 9:15 they line up and go into school and I walk 2.1 miles home.

In the afternoon I walk 2.1 miles back to school, pick the kids up when they are released at 3:35, and we all walk home. We haven't actually walked the whole thing yet. Day 1 we were 2/3 of the way home and our neighbors drove by and picked us up (on purpose - I had mentioned the bus assignment delay, and their 8 year old saw us from her schoolbus and begged her mother to come get us so they could play. Neighbor 8 year old and Casper have hit it off great guns - a sleepover is planned for tonight.) Yesterday it rained and mr. flea did the pickup, but he forgot and was late and was unreachable at work, so if it rains again I am calling Nice Neighbor and asking for help rather than spending an hour and a half trying not to panic about whether someone is picking up my kids. Today is cool but sunny and I am planning to break at the library.

Dillo is in K is a large mixed class (I think it's actually K and 1 together) of about 36 kids and 2 teachers, although one of the teacher is his primary. He seems to be doing fine, and the work is at his level, and to his interests (they are doing planets and the sun; we had a talk about why Pluto was no longer a planet this morning). He had an accident yesterday, but this is hardly unusual for him.

In general, Dillo has pretty much taught himself to read this past month. He sounds out words everywhere and all the time - from boxes, on signs, anything with letters. He hasn't grasped the Silent E concept yet, and in general tends to be frustrated that letters do not always make the same sounds, but once he's read a word he tends to remember it. SO completely different from Casper at this age, who got letter identification and sounds, but never had any spontaneous interest in sounding out words and in fact is still not very good at it.

Casper is in 3rd grade in a small classroom with about 20 kids and 1 teacher and a part-time student aide. She got off to a decent start socially - the teacher cleverly seating her next to an extremely social and outgoing girl - but has been overwhelmed and disorganized about work. She never brought the homework packet home, and I discovered last night that she had a spelling test today, but she had no idea on which chapter in the spelling book, and she seems to have lost the book (Danger Along the Ohio) that is serving as their reading and social studies text (it has never come home). The teacher has been responsive to email, so I hope we can get Casper sorted out soon. She is happy, in general, and they have started division (with Smarties) and she picked it right up, and I sent her in with $5 to buy a recorder for music class.

At home she had a brief phase of obsessively reading Dahl's Matilda (her proper first chapter book) but she has stalled out on p. 91 and I need to get her going again. Neighbor 8 year old takes a dance class that seems fine, so I think we will sign Casper up for that too. Next to look at are Girl Scouts (although she does not seem interested at the moment), and maybe Art club at school, and then when our finances settle out some kind of music lessons I think.

Every afternoon the 4 kids on the block play together, outside, at their house, and at ours (Neighbors have a 5 year old girl with an October birthday, so she is still in preschool; she and Dillo are not BFFs like Casper and the 8 year old, but they deal perfectly well). I was brave and spent 45 minutes with the parents over a glass of wine yesterday (and nearly burned our soup - gas stoves are enthusiastic!) so I am starting to get to know them.

Never mind that we've been in the near-100-degree range for the past week and are forecast to continue this - fall's around the corner! It's Dillo's last week at day care and Casper's last week of camp. Sunday mr. flea's parents come for a week, with them doing some child care and us alternating partial days off so they don't get too frazzled by 4 year old antics. August 3 we have a PreK orientation and August 5 it's school open house where we find out teacher assignments, and then the following Monday school starts.

We've got to do something about the sleep situation - these last couple of weeks we've overslept a lot and ended up late for our morning routine (only by 15 minutes at most, but nearly every day.) And when school starts that wakeup time needs to ratchet back half an hour, since the bell rings at 7:45, which means leaving the house at 7:35 if we drive and 7:15 if we walk, which I'd like to start doing, with our neighbors. I've been sleeping badly, partly because of the heat. Last night is an excellent example: Dillo went down late (9:30) even though it was the weekend. mr. flea found and killed a roach crawling on him in bed at 11:30, so I was awake for some time after that imagining roaches crawling on me, and listening to Dillo cough (he has a little cold) downstairs. Also it was 83 in our bedroom, which is about as cool as it gets when it's 98 outside all day (THIS is why we wanted a metal roof). Then Dillo woke up and wanted me and came into our bed, so I kept getting woken by him wiggling, and ended up sleeping across the foot of the bed (mr. flea had removed to the couch.)

I don't think things are going to get much better until it cools off and starts getting dark sooner.

The Dillo has slept through the night - aaaall the way through the night, from bedtime to past 6 am - for the last 4 nights in a row! I am so well-rested that I lay awake in my bed between 5 and 6:15 am today!

It's not likely to keep up through the week, alas. He is much more likely to sleep all night when he hasn't napped (as on weekends). With no nap, he goes down fast between 7 and 7:30; with a nap (as in, last night) it is a huge struggle to get him down (last night he wasn't asleep until 9:30, and was rubbing his face on my saying "I wuv you, cat momma" for about an hour before that) and he is often awake in the night. But not last night!

Casper took off all her clothes as soon as she got home last night and scratched herself like crazy for hours. She has a little patch of skin on her cheek that sometimes flares up like eczema, and it was flaring. I rubbed her all over with lotion which didn't immediately help but I hope will - we've been having cold nights and the heat and dry air (very staticky heads!), plus she and Dillo and mr. flea had a huge bubble bath Sunday night which may have dried her skin out.

Casper is going to the dentist today (for the first time in 18 months, oops) and is VERY HAPPY and EXCITED about it. Also yesterday I was complaining about a boring day at work and she said I should come to her school, where I could "practice [my] coloring skills!" and read, and that would be exciting!

I emailed her teacher about something, and mentioned the "Casper is tall and beautiful" statement she (Casper) used to illustrate a fact, and she (the teacher) replied: "She has a wonderful imagination, and quite a well developed self-esteem! I wish I had her confidence!"

Heh. She's been sassy lately; we need to do a little cracking down about respect.

It was Kindergarten Parent Breakfast on Friday at school, so I flex-timed it a little and went with Casper. It didn't worry me, exactly, but it didn't greatly reassure me about how things are going in her classroom.

I sat in the classroom for the start-of-the-day routine. Casper is supposed to hang up her bag, put a frog on the chart for lunch choice (interestingly, every single child who was in class that day was buying lunch - am I the only one who sends a lunch? The low-income kids probably get free lunch, but there are at least 5 middle-class kids...) Several students were doing puzzles on the floor and the rest were at their seats doing small hand projects (blocks, coloring, etc.) Based on the dynamic I was seeing, I wonder if "playing with puzzles on the floor" is the teacher's answer to the kids who haven't got good control of sitting quietly - those kids got most of the classroom attention in the entire time I was there (including in the cafeteria at breakfast). So now I am worrying that because Casper knows about sitting quietly she'll get no class attention.

The breakfast was fine, and Casper was extremely pleased that I was there. I spoke to a couple of the parents whom I'd met before. J had just switched classroom seats because of behavior issues, and his mother was a bit concerned. Gave her a card, and S's mother too. B's mother (the one who freaked out on the first day) wasn't there (nor was B).

I'll be working Tuesday nights starting this week, and I'm wondering if it's worth it to offer to volunteer in the classroom that morning. I was so looking forward to that free time to myself, but I'm worrying about school a lot. I don't know if it would make me feel better or worse to be there, though - and it might be disruptive for Casper. We get reports next week, so maybe I'll see what the teacher has to say at that point.

Yesterday was a grueling day, mostly because the night before was grueling (kids don't sleep well on mats on the floor in a new empty house, surprise!) and because Casper turns out to be the kind of child who will poke the kid in the next seat every two minutes for SEVERAL HOURS. Dear Lord I wanted to slap her several times, and mr. flea turned to me at one point and said, "Let's not have another."

Accomplishments of the day included getting Casper into Chase Street school - by luck and the skin of our teeth. There was so much demand that they decided to open up an additional kindergarten at Chase last week, and we got in. We almost were doomed to the bad school way the hell on the other side of town.

Also, we bought a couch and a chair. I am not sure about them; it was a long long day, and by the end of it my faculties were impaired. We'll see how it all works out when they show up in GA.

So we don't have a negative post, here's His Cuteness: