The First Week of School

Sometimes I forget what I've already said on here and what I haven't. I was thinking I told about what happened with Job Corps, but I guess I didn't because this week's posts have been a wind up of summer (with Jasmine's journal still to go) and my thoughts about the Hana Williams case.

I'll start with last Monday. On Monday the twins had their third grade open house. Their classrooms are right across from each other. Yes, Kayla is at the same school she's been attending. There was not even one opening in third grade. That's very unusual, but I guess it IS usual for third grade, though.

I'd guess it's because third grade is the one grade where you have to pass both the math and reading FCAT tests to pass. I'd guess the slots created by people leaving the school were taken up by kids failing to pass the FCAT to move on to fourth.

Kayla outside her room.

Kaleb outside his room. He's in a portable again.

Jessica went along to openhouse since I can't be in two classrooms at once. Then she came home and finish painting the wall in the girl's room. We are waiting on border, and then this should be done.

Jasmine didn't have any kind of openhouse, so she just went Tuesday for the first day of school.

Kaleb, third grade

Kayla, third grade

Jasmine was not able to be in the correct band last year because it met while she was in her resources classes. I expressed concern about band this year because she has tested into advanced, and I do NOT want her put back into beginner. Unfortunately, there was a complicated schedule conflict that results in her NOT being intensive reading and language arts this year but in a regular class. It makes her whole schedule a mess and consequently she lost her resource classes--math and science. She was supposed to be doing 6th grade math and intensive math in the resource room. Instead, she is in a 7th grade regular math class!!! And regular science. I can't really argue because doing so will land her back playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with the beginners. UGH. 

Jasmine is not my only one with issues, but the other one is not documented. It's this, Kaleb understands concrete learning skills well. He can memorize how to do things. He has very little comprehension and reasoning ability though so this year will probably be a struggle. 

And he is acting like a kindergartening in some ways--putting his shoes on the wrong feet and his clothes on backward, picking up folders, notebooks, homework papers and snacks that are clearly labeled with another child's name. He's not doing his personal hygeine and grooming  and so on. It is getting old really fast. I don't know how much is on purpose and how much is true delays. 

I try not to give him any attention when he does the goofy stuff and just say  "Good job getting ready" when he does it right. If his clothes are on backward or shoes on the wrong feet--and these are high tops with velcro straps so he knows if he's pulling the velcro toward the other shoe it's on the wrong foot--I just say, "It looks like you have chosen not to have 'big kid' privileges today." He goes to bed early instead. I'm pretty sure he can tell when his pants are on backward or high tops on the wrong feet.

I started physical therapy for my foot Wednesday morning. It appears that everyone who works there is a Christian. The PT was painful and I limped around the rest of the day and was awake much of the night with my foot. Hopefully it will help in the long run.

On Monday (or it might have been Tuesday) the nurse from the Job Corps school where Ty will be going in KY called. She asked some general health questions and then said she'd clear him to attend. I asked her if she had a general idea of when he'd go. She said it might be next week. They do intake every other week. I said that didn't give him enough time to adjust to the idea. He is aspergers and need to get used to the idea of going. We hadn't heard anything so as far as we knew, it was still a ways off.

She said, no problem, he could come the week of September 9th. I knew that was still not going to really be enough time for him to mentally adjust to the change, but I didn't want to push it.

Then on Wednesday, the intake lady calls and says Ty needs to be there Tuesday. Less than one week to pack up and move from FL to KY. I told her the nurse had said Ty could go during the next intake week. She got an attitude about how the nurse shouldn't have said that, she wasn't authorized to make that decision, it was her choice blah, blah, blah. I said that he was aspergers and needed a little more time to get adjusted to the idea of going. She probably thinks he's  been sitting around just waiting, but since we had no clue, we were thinking it would be at least October. She tried to turn it into me saying he wasn't ready for the program. She didn't want to listen. She said she'd have to call someone else on the list and hung up. Now I don't know if he's going the week of Sept 9th or if she's dumped him off the list.

Tyler agreed with what I told her and has been trying to get ahold of her but has been unsuccessful. He final talked to someone yesterday who told him to call back Monday at noon. We are preparing as though it will be the 9th. Sure would have been nice if this lady had been the slightest bit understanding. The nurse was very nice when I talked to her about it. I felt like she was trying to look out for him, but this other lady couldn't care less. He's just a number and needs to come when she says.

Tyler and Jessica went to tumbling again. It's about their fourth time--and probably their last until next summer. Jessica starts her senior year of college next week and four out of five of her classes are on Thursday--the only day they have drop in adult tumbling. Tyler could go one or two weeks more but doesn't want to go without her.

Most of the pictures the kids took are blurred, but I'm going to post them anyway so you can get an idea of what they do. I guess they can pretty much choose to try what they want.

Yes, that's Tyler under there. The video shows how he got there.

So this pretty much brings us up to date. We have survived the first week of school. Oh yeah, big bus problems for Jasmine. She has to transfer twice and today the bus arrived at her school one hour late!
How was everyone else's first day or week (if you've already started)?

Your turn. Leave some comments.