A story from last night

Every night, after dinner, we go to a local playground close by to play (weather permitting). 

Doing this has allowed us to get to know many of our neighbors who attend different schools.  We started this after I read the book: Last Child in The Woods which talked about how less and less children are getting the chance to be with nature on a regular basis. 

Nightly park visits have become a habit (even though, believe me, there are a million things I could be doing around the house instead).

Still, I've been really glad of the chance to meet other families, many of them in our local public schools, and have my children know these neighborhood friends also.

Last night we ran into a family I knew from our last school- the Catholic School.  Even though they only live 2 streets away I didn't know them well because their child was so much older.  They didn't know that we left last school year and I told them the reason why.

The stepmother, who is in education, then proceeded to tell me that she believed that their child also has dyslexia.  He is going into 5th grade and reads at a second grade level.  He is strong in math (typical) but language is a huge challenge.

She said in fact, at the end of the last school year the school told their family that they didn't believe Our Lady of The Pines was a good fit for him.

One would think by now that I wouldn't be shocked at this sort of thing, but I still am. 

So he is going into 5th grade, is not reading at a level to "keep up" and just now the school mentions that fact?  

Should I be looking at this sort of honesty as an improvement on their part?  Are they attempting to be more upfront with parents (after all my family went through with that place). One can hope but I doubt it.

Perhaps I'm simply still too angry at all their shenanigans with my own family to give them the benefit of the doubt. Still, if I were running a school and saw that children were not learning I would hope that I wouldn't be blaming the child or parents for that. 

We aren't talking about a principal who is new in the school business.  The principal has been there something like 30 years.  She was the principal when my husband's friends went there. 

She knew how to teach in the pre-whole language teaching method days. 

So when 20% or more of the children going through that school were not able to catch on to the whole language teaching method those children got to shoulder the blame?

(That is the typical school routine- blame the child, blame the parents and that is the story I heard last night).

Good grief how is any of this okay! It's not.

So of course I told this stepmother our story and all about our school but the mention of money of course made a decision like the one we made out of the question.  I could see her shut off.

She is going to ask that the tutor start using the Orton-Gillingham method with their child (question: what the heck method has the tutor been using on this kid for the past 3 years and if it wasn't working then why didn't she switch until she found one that would?)

I understand that this is a long road.  She is speculating that it's dyslexia (most likely true) and they don't even have a real diagnosis at this point (and those aren't cheap even if you go to a less reputable place to get it). 

I know my family is blessed to not have the same financial struggles as so many people these days

Still, in our society money takes precedence over children all the damn time and in my belief system this is simply not okay. 

We all make choices as far as money is concerned.

I want to be understanding and sympathetic to their plight (and the struggles of so many in these hard times) but I also want to say that our family choices have historically and presently included positioning myself so that our children's needs, rather than money or needlessly expensive items, are the priority.

Quitting my career in grant writing to work part time and breast feed was a major choice.  We know others who have sold their house and moved into an apartment in order to be with their baby. 

There are school loans that can be taken out in order to pay for an expensive school like the one we go to. 

I enjoy looking at mommy blogs that are so popular right now but frankly, the silly overpriced items that so many of them seem to be hawking grate on my nerves.  I wouldn't ever spend the sort of money these mommybloggers do on clothes and sunglasses and who knows what.  Those things are nice but they are not my priority and I wonder is there all that much wealth in this country right now or are they part of the illusion that there is.

Public schools need to be addressing dyslexia and I don't think they are.  If Catholic Schools overall act like the one we attended then I think it's safe to expect that the overall quality of a Catholic School education is greatly reduced from what it may have once been.