Thoughts on school

Well, we barely made it through the whole year at Quail Run. Despite that three weeks into the school year, I decided to only send her in the afternoons and continue to homeschool in the morning for all the core subjects (it was week three and still there had been no reading at school), we almost didn't make it. I should say, I almost didn't make it. Sofia enjoyed going to school for the most part. Once, in a while she would have preferred to stay home. If she did happen to attend a whole day, she would come home very exhausted and cranky. And it wasn't from the demanding schoolwork she'd been doing.

Sadly, none of the wonderful ideas the school sold itself with ever materialized and I have nothing but bad things to say about the school. Sofia learned many, many things, most of which where bad: attitude, bad words, how to flip people off, how to talk rudely to your parents, how to write like a crazy person, how to deface your own work and body with markers, how to not do any work, how to not be expected to excel, how to not be expected to do anything, how to watch a lot of cartoons and movies in EVERY subject including P.E. On the more positive side, she learned: how to get your lunch stolen, how to deal with bullies, how to be overly affectionate with boy friends, how to almost get run over by cars crossing the street, and on and on.

Since this is a paperless school, I never saw any papers come home. The last week, a few things started trickling in. Here is her art portfolio from the art class she had two times a week. 

Nice title - NOT.

One sticker in her Great Job Chart.  Impressive.  I wonder how many the other kids got.
I like the creativeness expressed in the crayon scribbling all over the bottom and back of the folder - NOT.

Contents of portfolio: one ripped up paper with scribbles, one genuine piece of artwork,
that without explanation, lacks merit from my assessment.

Here is something Sofia created at home[school] for the charter schools' Inspirations Art Contest using a technique and idea from a previous art lesson, of which we've done on average maybe once a month.

Placed 1st at the school level.  2nd place at the county level.

I could write volumes and make many, even more poignant comparisons across other, even "more important" subjects, but why bother.  I've already spent so much time pursuing a good education and experience at this school, making dinners for the teachers, paying for school supplies she never used, going out of my way to attend parent teacher conferences to sit there for five minutes so the teacher could have absolutely nothing to say or show, volunteering for field trips, trying to find out what the hell they were doing all day other than watching movies, that I don't want to waste any more of my time on that endeavour.

So we continue to homeschool.  It's working.  She's learning.  I can manage it much better, than sitting back and watching her sinking in the public school system.  Not sure if she'll attend the same school next year or not.  Not sure if I want to spend any more time looking at other schools.  We'll see.