New school year and fears...

In our school system, there is no before school program so the principal is keeping an eye on many kids unofficially for about 20 minutes before school. Having total quiet during that time is the only way to keep things safe so I’d expect my child to understand the situation. Lunch to me is another matter. There should be adequate staffing and the kids need a break. It seems like a civil rights issue to me. If you tried this on adults you would have a front page article in the newspaper. Hopefully some other parents will fight this one and save you the effort (since you have enough battles of your own.)

Congrats on the gifted program and welcome back!

Terry

Is the silence rule applied while eating, or over the whole lunch break? Big difference!
A lot of kids work themselves into a frenzy when they are in a group making noise — mob psychology. The lunchroom gets so loud it is painful and dangerous — I have seen cases where kids are sick or hurt and nobody notices for ten minutes because the new screams can’t be heard over the general chaos. Lunch often doesn’t get eaten, and the stress can be hard on digestion. Silence for fifteen or twenty minutes *while eating* can be a way to have a restful meal.
On the other hand, after the meal, I hope there is some play time. That’s a whole different story.
For the mornings, well, if there is to be activity time, there needs to be a supervisor. Anybody who feels strongly about this should volunteer to supervise.

The hallway issue is in the morning with teachers there to oversee it. They are making the kids sit in a line with their backs to each other and they cannot look up or talk. I personally would go crazy with not being able to look around. I fully understand keeping the children quiet and calm before school however, I don’t believe they can stay that way for over 30 minutes at the ages of 6, 7 and 8. If they don’t, they have to begin their day with a bad mark.

As for lunch - the last 15 minutes of the time there must be total silence. No seconds, no going to the bathroom. In fact, you cannot go to the bathroom except at the alloted time or you must hold it. The teacher told us that they needed to go at home and then they shouldn’t really have to go till after school. What???? That’s cruel. My son is worried he will have to go and he’ll end up peeing in his pants. I have explained that if it gets that bad - she will let him go…I promise.

They are not allowed to talk during recess either as it is now the new PE time so they must walk/run around the track. When do they get to socialize?

It’s going to drive my daughter bonkers as there is NO leeway or chance for creativity except once a week in art class.

I don’t know what to think at this time…I’m waiting to see how long they keep it up.

I agree this sounds excessive. Surely your principal has heard of the value of free play for child development.

I am cautious about this issue because I have been in schools that were far far at the other swing of the pendulum. One nightmare place I had Grades 7 and 8 — who really *should* be able to hold it for an hour or two — and they were not allowed to go inside during either morning recess or the 75-minute lunch, so after being outside for more than an hour and a half what with lunch and play and lining up etc. they came into the class, then immediately left again for the bathroom, then on the way back went to the fountain to tank up again and prepare to go out again half an hour later … There has to be a happy medium between the two extremes.

When you say there are teachers there before school, yes, but are they designated (and paid) for the supervisory task, or is it one more load added to their day at a time when they are also expected to be preparing their classes, meeting special ed teachers, meeting parents, and so on? There comes a point when you have ten tasks to do simultaneously when you throw your hands in the air and give up. Just because teachers are present you can’t assume that they are free to give their full attention — and they are legally responsible for any accidents that happen when they are distracted, so they get more and more restrictive with every lawsuit.

Maybe you could get some other members of the PTA to do something for education, and form a committee to work for more play time and appropriate supervision?

The bathroom restriction really bothers me. My child had a 3rd grade teacher that would not allow kids to go to the bathroom. My child had toileting problems that year I was wondering why she was regressing until I stayed in the classroom and saw the teacher refuse other kids to use the bathroom. I talked to my pediatrician and they said this is a constant issue with them and that the schools just don’t listen. Other teachers at the same school had a board with envelopes with a card with the child’s name on it . When the child had to go to the bathroom they took out their card and put it in the bathroom envelope so the teacher knew where they were and another child would know they would have to wait for the other child to come back.

Again, there has got to be a happy medium on bathrooms.

My family runs to digestive allergies which upset the whole system, and both my daughter and I had this same trouble with schools and excessively strict bathroom policies. I had to go in with a doctor’s letter a couple of times when she was smaller; I also threw a fit at an after-school center where they ignored her allergy instructions and gave her the wrong foods, causing her to wet herself every day, and then said they ifnored the allergies because they “didn’t see any problems.” !! I told them the next time they could wash her underwear after the runs, I would give it to them.

The nightmare school was K to 8 and the policies were set up for the lowest possible K level, so the middle school kids had never developed any maturity at all. It was simply inconceivable to them that they should hold it for more than twenty minutes or that they should go to the bathroom on their own time at recess. There were also three fourteen-year-olds who were still constant thumb-suckers, so that gives you an idea on the general maturity level. Literally, it was impossible to get more than two hours of teaching time in a day and that was a good day. Not surprisingly, the Grade 8 kids were working academically on an average Grade 4 level — you can only teach half the curriculum, maybe, in less than two hours a day …

Learning self-control, both physically and emotionally, is one of those goals that are the purpose of sending kids to school. Just that the goals have to be reasonable for the age group and the standards have to develop yearly along with the kids.
Get the doctor’s letter and put it on the IEP if necessary, but also encourage the child to learn to go at recess and not to tank up with a quart at the fountain.

Gosh, in our school there are scheduled bathroom trips in the AM and in the PM so that the kids get it over with. A child can still ask to use the bathroom in between times and will only be restricted if he is abusing the privilege.

Lost,
It is possible that you are misunderstanding some of the issues BUT there are so many problems that it seems hard to believe that you’ve got it wrong on all accounts. It almost seems like the school has an atmosphere of disrespect toward students or maybe they are stretched way to thin with resources. Unfortunately, life is not fair and I would try to find ways to deal with most of it unless you can put your child in a better private school. Is there any way to get your kids to school later for example. I would take Victoria’s suggestion about peeing but if your child has to go then s/he should be assertive about telling the teacher that she has to go! I bet that the teachers are not going to argue with a child who’s doing the wee-wee dance! Most of the teachers probably don’t agree with the policy anyway. Sounds like a scare tactic to cut down on unnecessary bathroom trips. I bet you could get a doctor’s note if you explain that your child can’t hold it for over a certain amount of time.

I’d network with other parents to see how they advise their children to deal with the school’s policies. I’d also get plenty of enrichment outside of school to make up for the lack of art, music and physical activity at school. I would pick them up from school (if possible) if there is a long bus ride afterward school.

Sometimes, if the public school is pretty lousy, there will be some private options that are better. Some private schools can’t handle the ADHD though. We have a pretty good “grade-less” school in our area so that kids can work at their appropriate level and the classes are small. I have little doubt that my ADHD daughter could do well there. Our public school isn’t a prison though so we’ll stay put.

Terry

…it seems like you’d switch if you had an alternative, so here’s my 2 cents given you must ‘give it a try’:
Lost Parent, you said: “How do I keep my DD from losing her wonderful outlook and sweet nature while learning how to “fit in”?”

IMO, we must all learn to ‘fit in’. She may take alot of flack at school — but if she is told daily that we must all, at some time, learn to do very difficult things to fit in, and if her errors are met by YOU with sympathy and encouragement to do better, and MUCH praise when she succeeds, even if not to THEIR standard, I don’t think this will hurt her too much.

I do have concerns that this system seems overly harsh and a bit out-of-touch with child development, but I have seen a strict system at our local montessori school where my son attended a summer program — it was STRICT, much in the ways you mentioned, but it was strict in ways that, as Victoria mentioned, made life much better for everyone. And the children adapted very quickly.

I happened to work at a church where an overflow Casa program (ages 3 to 5) from this school took place, and I had a great chance to observe ‘unnoticed’ as I could hear but could not be seen, and was often forgotten, so I saw/heard ‘the REAL thing’. YES, it was hard at the beginning of the year in the daily program, as littles in the CASA learned to ‘fit in’, and teachers WERE not ‘soft’, more like the terrifying dragon-ladies I remember in Gr. 1 circa 1966, but it was AMAZING what they could do, compared to the local public school kindergarten class my son attended.

When my son went to the summer program, it was also VERY strict, and SO different from Public school - but my son LOVED it! (probably more to do with the fact that they TAUGHT in a way he could LEARN, than anything else, however!). One thing that lasted was the lunch ‘rules’. Very strict - very easy!:
1. Unpack your lunch, put your lunchbag under your chair.
2. Eat — NO TALKING AT ALL! Could read tho!, a very good idea, IMO!
3. When told, pack up ALL leftovers, containers, and garbage, put in lunchbag, and replace lunchbag in your backpack. Then out to playground for 1/2 hour of free play.

YES, they had washroom breaks at scheduled times…but I don’t think they were MEAN if you went outside the rules provided it was not constant. It’s an old-fashioned idea, to ‘schedule’ bodily functions, but it DOES work, and it is not necessarily ‘mean’.

I think it is important to support the school whereever possible — once again I realize you may have a poor system to deal with, so of course you are wise to be secretly ‘on guard’ — but maybe it will be good to ‘see how it goes’. Help your children understand ‘why’ the rules must be like that, and expect success…then you can praise your children even more when they succeed, since success at a hard task deserves more praise than the easy ones…

Lost Parent, you have smart kids. THIS is their strength — you can use it to overcome their behaviour challenges. They will rise to the occasion, and if you encourage them to tell you everything when problems arise, and they are used to your support (or sympathy, which is just as good when you MUST back the mean old school) you will be much better off. They may not get alot of positive strokes from SCHOOL — but that is not necessarily the most important thing. I think YOUR attitude, if you can balance between supporting the ‘rules’ and understanding that your children may be unable to be ‘perfect’, will be much more important.

As for the non-welcoming gifted teacher who believes only type-A gifted people have a reason for being, I would watch her — but keep on quoting those scores. GIfted underachievers are just as deserving of enrichment as motivated achievers! HE BELONGS THERE…have some snappy answers ready for her inevitable complaints…’I’m sorry DS is not motivated/yet able, due to his LD’s, (insert appropriate term for specific complaint, LOL!) to work to his potential. Not everyone is. However, given his scores, Mr. Principal advised me that he belongs in this program…what do you think we could do to help him improve his output?’ I could go on and on, but better NOT to anticipate problems and deal when they arrive!

Good luck — I’m so happy we still have three weeks of freedom before we face our own dragons!

Elizabeth —

I give daily thanks for my own dragon ladies.

Mrs. Ross in Grade 3 taught us to write copperplate with dip pens and ink wells. No excuses. Voila, I got an F from her (you should have seen her A students!) but I am not dysgraphic. She taught us French grammar (my very first introduction to the language, moving in from out of province) no excuses, recite the verb conjugations as a group chant, and now I’m in Montreal living over half my life in French and being frequently complimented on how well I use the language. She taught us math tables as I have described elsewhere, visual dot patterns (no cutesies) and group chant, and voila, although I have reversal problems with numbers I did acceptably in arithmetic and was able to blossom in algebra. She insisted on systematic work, write down your carry numbers and show all your steps, no excuses, and having difficulty with writing I resented this and wanted to do it the “fast” way, but she wouldn’t let sloppy not-quite-your-best work slip by, and voila I am very very acccurate and quick with number work. After teaching English and French and math, she also taught us how to read music, sing scales, and how to really sing in tune (not just shouting in unison).

Mrs. Seidel in Grade 10 English was a terror to the whole school. She gave out detentions generously, and if a student said he couldn’t come to detention because he would miss his bus, she said “oh yes you can, I’ll drive you home afterwards,” and she did. She insisted on your best writing and if it wasn’t up to standard she would throw the essay back on your desk with a scathing comment. She taught us things that I now see being taught in third year university, poetic diction (rhyme schemes, sonnets, iambic, trocaic, spondaic, anapestic, dactylic), symbolism, Shakespeare, and essay writing. Before her class, I was a pretty good high school writer; afterwards I got jobs as a proofreader and with no further formal English classes in university, have even proofread an English PhD thesis.

By the way, neither of these ladies would stand for any fooling around with running in and out of class for less than an emergency either.

Everyone should be lucky enough to have a few dragon ladies like this in their educational career.

I don’t think there are any left in the public system, but I’m hoping! I call them ‘real’ teachers as opposed to ‘professional educators’ — the second term is an insult in my lexicon.

Well,

So far so good. My son’s GT teacher this year seems to have a LOT more understanding of children and ADD. She is sending home an email every friday with upcoming work/tests/projects for the week. It is so much easier to be proactive with an ADD child! She has eased up on the bathroom issue - seems a lot of flack was given by other parents (we stayed out of it this time). There are now scheduled bathroom breaks.

She is a very strict teacher - however, she lets the children know ahead of time what her expectations are so THEY KNOW when they are breaking a rule. My son works much better under this type of program. (I did, too. My favorite teachers were also the toughest ones.) He loves her! He even commented on how much better he felt about himself this year because he knew what to do. Funny thing is, he’s not scared to ask her a question if he is lost or confused. She doesn’t make him feel like a failure for asking. Whew….hope this continues.

We are soooooo lucky. One of the best kindergarten teachers is now a first grade teacher. My DD’s prior kindergarten teacher made sure she was able to get my DD placed in this teacher’s class. Yeah!!!! She loves children with imagination and spunkiness. She is so inventive. They all have mail boxes and receive letters and postcards. The teacher mails little comments or poems. My DD is having a blast!

I was at a Ladie’s Game Night for our subdivision and met a lot of other mothers and teachers. It was amazing how many of them are having the EXACT same problems I have had. The teachers work for different schools in the same district and they hear the nightmares regarding our principal and her little group of followers. Seems my DS’s GT teacher last year is one of the groupies. Anyway, many of the parents have been setting up meetings with the Principal for the same issues. We were all so glad to know we were not alone. I felt better since many of the mothers are also area teachers!

But the best news was that my “tantrums” had a great outcome for my children. Seems they have two of the best teachers in the school - two teachers that have learned how to work around the Principal’s ridiculous need to create “robots” instead of children. I heard over and over again how lucky my children are this year!!!!! It made all of the last year and 1/2 worth the stress. And, other parents heard about it and are now coming forward. Ahhh, I’m becoming an activist (joke!).

Just goes to show that just because a school is considered “one of the best in the country” - doesn’t mean its the best for our children. And if a parent has a gut feeling something is wrong - listen to it!

IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!!

However, I would NOT have been able to substantiate my complaints without this forum. Your comments and suggestions played a huge role in the information I provided the Principal and Superintendent. They were shocked that I had diagrams, matrix’s and research to back up my complaints - not just emotions. You guys are wonderful. You kept me on track and focused on the important issues and able to put my feelings into a context that made sense. I hope other parents find this site!

YOU HAVE FOUND YOURSELF! I’m so happy your year has started off with such promise…enjoy it! Now you can have the fun of passing a map to other poor lost souls…looks very good on you, ‘Activist Parent’!
All the best to you and your kids — they’re my type too!

Lost,
Thanks for posting the good news! Somehow I think your son is going to compensate for many of his “issues”. My husband would be considered “gifted/ADHD” today and he stated tonight how his entire job performance and ability to relate to other people is based on “compensating tools.” We were talking about how his father had never recognized his ADHD issues so he never learned how to compensate.
Terry