School Issues: Some Positives and Negatives

A few posts ago, I was having annoyed with our school about aide time and other things.  As I mentioned somewhere here Boy Child has been accepted into the High School we wanted for him.  I have returned our acceptance of the placement and now am hit with the logistics of this.  The High School is about 20 minutes drive from our place.  Or Boy could take a bus which is a 30 to 40 minute adventure depending on which bus, etc.

Boy is very uncomfortable in public.  He has lost his ability to ask for help and apparently hates buses. The issue with driving is that Girl currently goes to our local Primary school but starting only slightly later.  So I am wondering how this is going to work logistically.  Part of the reason we selected the High school we did was it is only one bus away.    Now when I was really frustrated with the current school I thought Hey there’s a primary school not far from the High school.  I’ve heard good things about that school why don't we just move Girl child to that school.  So I dropped in there yesterday and today we had a tour.

They can take Girl child next year.  Yay.  But they start 30 minutes later than the high school. Boo. And to do this, I would be driving a minimum of 80 minutes a day and have to hang around with Girl for at least 20 minutes in the morning, every morning.  So that is 100 minutes out of my day (in reality not that long, I know).  On the plus side she wouldn't be late.  Also instead of going home I could always park myself at a Gloria Jeans or somewhere else with free Wi-Fi and work there remotely.  Or we could send both kids on the bus, at least one way but would still have the issues with Boy and while he is quite responsible I’m loathe to make him responsible for her or her responsible for him depending on what is going on.

Despite having issues with our current school I have managed to get some resolution.  I have discussed the issues of aides either being removed or reallocated and am okay with the answers.  And the child who depended on their aide too much?  Apparently they still have aide time at the moment and their parent is okay with that. 

I also had a good response from higher ups at our school about transition to High School which is a bonus.  I have a meeting scheduled with Boy’s teacher later to discuss what is happening with him (but she is great and I expected no less!).

Of course Boy is still very anti going to the High School. He and a friend (I use that term somewhat loosely) have decided that Boy needs to either do really badly or get expelled so then we have to enrol him in the local High School.  It’s funny the way 11 year old boys’ minds work.  What’s even funnier is that Boy Child told me their great plan.

So what would you do? If school had sucked as much today and yesterday as it did a few weeks ago I would have no hesitation to move schools for Girl.  But they came through on a few issues. And I know that first appearances aren’t always accurate when you are trying to sell something.  And long term… 100 minutes a day adds up to a lot of time.