This is really silly

Last night I called home to check on Josh. Seems he has earned yet another day of in school suspension. I want him to grow up respecting authority - I want him to know that the rules aren't always fair, but to combat them we have to play fair anyway. Most of all I want him to become the kind of man who takes responsibility for his actions. Unfortunately, he has one teacher who has put him in detention nearly every week. Word gets around, and he has been labeled a trouble maker. The first suspension was because he started laughing when another kid in the class was singing some rap lyrics. This kid's mother took him out of the teacher's class because she felt the treatment was unreasonable. I left Josh in - to help him figure out how to deal with people who are fussy.

The second was for lighting a match in class - okay, this was stupid, I backed up the principal, but he got an entire week for lighting and blowing out a match - he didn't try to burn anything - didn't try to hurt anyone - just lit a match. And we took the punishment because he should have known better.

Now he is in suspension today because someone in the lunchroom yesterday threw a Cheerio at him. He threw it back. Another person joined in and threw syrup, hitting a fourth student. Josh got blamed for the syrup- even though he didn't throw it. I can see that this might warrant a trip to the principals office - but suspension??? For throwing a Cheerio??? How in the world is the child supposed to enjoy learning when he is in trouble for nonsense every week?

So I am instituting parental rights - I withdrew him today -this suspension will hopefully be his last - and he can start fresh on Tuesday at a new school system - where he was going to transfer anyway with a new address. I am not naive enough to think this will stop all the problems, but he needs a new start - and since the school administrators aren't listening, I have to step in.

Okay - since this post I got a call from the gifted program teacher. She has been working tirelessly for months to try to get Josh into the program - and give him more to do. Last week he scored higher than any other kid in his class in a math aptitude test - including the kids in the gifted program - so she went the extra mile and gave him another gifted program test. About an hour after I called in his withdrawl - she called me to say that finally everything is done and he is in the program. Luckily this will transfer over to the new school - so we are still switching. But she restores my faith in the system - when one person sets out to make a difference, it really can be done!!