A "Yay for a great school situation" thread...

[jse107]

I know that there have been a lot of posts about people being frustrated with their child's school situation, but I am actually brimming with happiness this year and I want to share!

Last spring I posted about a less than ideal classroom situation for O. In fact, we explored other options and almost ended up leaving. After meeting with the director we ended up staying and I am so glad we did. As a note, he's at Goddard, which I recognize is not everyone's favorite...no flames please. At the time, the director was totally receptive to my concerns and made changes in O's schedule for him to be in a different room with a teacher who had a very different personality. He had a good end of the year and a fun time over the summer in their day program.

Because of his August birthday, we decided to wait a year to send him to our local public school for kindergarten. That has ended up being a great decision. He is already so much more confident and happy. He relates well to his peers and is a good role model in the room. I think *for him* being the oldest, rather than the youngest, makes a huge difference.

The best thing right now is that he LOVES, ADORES, and ADMIRES his two teachers. On his own, he chose to write: "I love you, Ms. Kim" and "I love you Ms. George" on his "homework" packet. The next day at school he told me that the reason they have hearts for their (the students) name tags is because their teachers love them so much...but that his heart probably should have been made bigger because Ms. Kim loves him the most. :) I was ecstatic!!! Not that I think Ms. Kim loves him more, but that he FEELS like she does! Every kid should feel that way.

He is so much more inspired. From a kid who used to dislike art and getting into creative, open-ended projects, he now tells me that art is his favorite center! When I ask him what his favorite part of the day is, he always tells me "Ms. Kim!"

As a parent, that's pretty much all I want. He's being challenged with work (academically he's ahead of a lot of the kids in his room), but he's HAPPY.

Yay for us!

[maestramommy]

Okay, I've got one.

We're at a new school this year. It's just a church preschool, but all the moms in the area rave about it. I won't go into all the reasons why we switched from another school to this one, but it's been a hard transition for Dora. New place, more kids, 2 new teachers. I got the sense how stressed she was when I go pick her up, when she sees me standing at the door, her face just lights up with thrilled relief and she comes running to give me a hug. If you knew Dora you'd know this is really out of character for her. At last pickup one of the teachers was about to hug her goodby, but she pushed her away in her eagerness to get to the door. She wasn't even about to say goodbye to the other teacher until I prompted her. Although Arwyn did step in to hug said teacher:p

I was a little embarrassed and felt bad for the other teacher, so I emailed them both, explained that Dora really isn't a huggy person, esp. if she doesn't know someone well, and please not to take it personally if she doesn't hug them. The head teacher emailed me back the nicest message, saying they could never be offended by Dora or any other kid. It was good of me to tell them because they don't want to force Dora to hug them if she's not ready (what a relief!), and transitions are always hard, to let them know if things don't get easier at home (I mentioned the problems we were having getting out the door).

I'm still undecided as to whether we will stay for both girls next year, or go back to the old place, but for now I'm so glad that the teachers are responsive and caring. It makes me feel better about sending Dora there.

[kijip]

T's school situation is WAY better. I can't say anything but positive things about his teacher and his principal. His teacher is only in her second year teaching but seems to be a real gem. T just loves her. The principal has a coffee every month for parents to drop in to and talk to her. The principal read a book to each class which has been really helpful to T with his behavior at home and school.

He has seemed a little stressed, not by the work but by making friends in a new class, and his teacher has been working with him on that, pairing him up with kids for projects and drawing him out of his shell the best she can.

Communication is really good- the teacher sends a weekly email and updates a class website etc. Her approach to teaching an accelerated program is really good.

We were not assigned to this school in the spring because they were full and it is "out of our cluster" so we are lower down the list, we got a call over the summer. I am glad we decided to take the spot. While he would have been in an accelerated program in our cluster the school would not be as good overall and this principal is really amazing.

[Tondi G]

We are having a great year too!

My older DS is in the 3rd grade and we didn't think we could top last year with Ms Frazier. She really is a special teacher (my DS hugs her whenever he sees her and we still talk a bit when I see her picking DS up!). The test scores just came back from the state testing last year and she was impressed with my DS's score and made a point of telling us. She said her whole class did rather well and her response was "yup... those are MY kids!".

So on to this year.... my DS has a male teacher this year. Mr M and he seems to be great. My DS was quite pleased to get him as a teacher. He is very interested in using the computer lab and said the kids might even get to do some math homework using a computer at home! At first the class numbers were quite low so they ended up splitting one other 3rd grade class and moving the kids into the remaining two. When they did that 4 kids that were in my sons class (2 boys which were his buddies) ended up coming to his room and now he is THRILLED!!!!

We were doing his homework the first week of school and he had to make up sentences for his spelling/vocab words. One he came up with on his own was "I am happy to be back in school with my friends". I was thrilled to see that! :)

The school got a new principal this year and we were hoping that things would be good... so far she is great! She speaks well. Seems really involved and wants to improve things. She is implementing some programs to help motivate the kids in different ways. So far she has been doing positive things all around. We love our neighborhood school... so happy to have my child here and look forward to my little guy starting K there next year! Now if only I could sort out a preschool thing for my 4 year old.... thats a whole other issue for me!