How’s Your School District?

How’s your school district? Our district sucks. We live in the southland of a major metro area. While our district isn’t quite as substandard as the urban core district, we barely achieved accreditation in the past several years. The district was reconfigured last year: a high school was closed and converted to a middle school. One of the two middle schools was closed and converted to a  “catch-all”: gifted education, alternative students and administrative offices.

My daughter attends the gifted program and the students were informed 2 weeks ago that the year would be cut short by 4 weeks because the middle school is closing again. The gifted program will return to housing in a small inadequate space they inhabited for years.

I’ve homeschooled my daughter for 4 years (expect for the gifted program; we’re still taxpayers after all). I read an article recently that stated that there were two main reasons parents *choose* to home school their children: 1) parents want their children taught from a Biblical perspective and 2) parents want to keep their children from mingling with minority kids.

What a load of bullshit! I’ve homeschooled my daughter because the level of education she can receive from our district is piss poor. The two or three secular private schools in our area want college tuition to attend and I don’t believe in religious education. (I sent my daughter for one year to a Catholic private school. The teacher in third grade was fantastic but overall the school was deficient). Plus I discovered I’m suspicious of religious education or maybe just Catholic instruction since I disagree with so much of their tenets.

My daughter will be entering the ninth grade next year. She and I are both weary of  home school. I’d like her to attend the 4 years of high school at the same school. Don’t know at this point what we will do. Move you say? You must not be one of those Americans crushed by the Great Recession.