The Glade 4.0

Actually yes, that's exactly what you should do, in a sense. Read any material before asking questions. Then you can address areas that specifically concern you, and clarify what you've read, and avoid implying anything unintentionally via your questions. It also prevents them from answering questions with "it's in the student handbook" because you'll know not to ask things you already know about from reading.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They're giving out the handbook at the meeting. I'm going to let it go for now and follow up if needed.

That sounds like the best decision.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Despite how your post appears at a first glance, I understand your concerns and they are not without merit. You have to realize right off the bat that teachers and other staff in the school itself tend to be female and liberal. The district as a whole may be a bit more even with respect to gender demographics, but elementary schools are predominately female. Men are more commonly found in upper grade levels and in the administrative offices. You must know who your audience is before you do anything, otherwise you're going to get a response like what Farsky gave you, and they're going to single your child out to spite you.

So the first thing is, you leave your son out of it as much as you can. Don't make it about him. You have concerns based on the stories you've read of zero tolerance policies. That's what you know of how public schools operate, and that's perfectly fair. Make your conversation about that, rather than your son.

Make a list of those articles, and bring some of them with you. You've spent the past ten to fifteen years hearing these stories on the news about schools overreacting. At the time, you didn't have a child. Now you do, and that child is going to school. You're worried, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with being worried, and asking the school what they can do to put your mind at ease.

You want the focus to be on your fears rather than your child's behavior. You might end up with a reputation in the school of being "that guy" but that's better than people thinking your son is going to be a behavioral problem.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

They just emailed out the calendar for the year.

There are 8 full school weeks between now and the end of the year. 20 total for the entire school year.

Holy hell I am in the wrong profession. I work waaay too hard. This is going to chew up all of my wife's leave. No more vacations for us, I guess.

The school day is from 9AM to 3PM (6 hours). On top of that, apparently they need to cut the Friday school day in half every other week for lesson planning.

Oh man, this is going to suck.

Huh?

You mean weeks in which there are 5 (Mon-Fri) days of school with no days off?

My daughter had all-day kindergarten here; I never heard of a half-day for lesson planning though.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Only 8 weeks with no days off or half days until the end of the year. That means, that of the 19 weeks between now and the end of the year, we're going to have to use leave time to accommodate the school schedule on 11 of them. There's 15 days off and 6 half days between now and January 1st.

And this is on top of us having to deal with a 8:30 bus pickup and 3:30 bus drop off schedule, which I can tell you is not easy.

LOL ok, so in order to get into the cafeteria, each student must enter an 8-digit code.

My 5-year old's code is a random series of 8 numbers. I wish I could be there to see the kindergarten class all try to get into the cafeteria the first week. And if one of the kids can't get into the cafeteria, what then? LOL

Please go the firat ay and film this. Also, are you SURE private school isn't an option?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So I'm not sure what all the lesson planning is for, we are apparently teaching via checklist.

The kids are apparently going to spend the next two months learning what sounds the letters make. My son has known this for 2 years.

This is retarded.

I'd like to chime in here and say, suggesting that the behavior he's talking about is a "behavior problem" is ridiculous.

There is nothing wrong with children pretending violence. It's normal, proper, and they should do it. Any school that says otherwise deserves to have its entire board and staff fired. It's "zero tolerance" idiocy like that that has created the environment which later allows teenagers to shoot up schools.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10488

Yes, yes it is.

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Holy shitsnacks!

so, how did the 8-digit code thing end up working out?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well its not like schoold do stupid things:

http://freakoutnation.com/2013/10/16/n- ... -children/


http://benswann.com/special-needs-child ... toon-bomb/

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

@DE:

Don't know. I asked, and got a 5-year old explanation, which was.... too much for me to comprehend fully. I think there were issues but they were overcome.

Ok, so the last day of school in December was Dec. 20.

Off Dec. 23,24,25,26,27,30,31, Jan 1.
Full day Jan 2.
Snow day Jan 3.
Got out early Jan 6 because heater broke.
Off Jan 7 (cold)
Two hours late Jan 8. (cold/ice)
Full day Jan 9
Two hours late Jan 10 (ice)
Full day Monday and Tuesday of this week.
Half day yesterday because he had a ceremony where he received an award for excellent behavior (IN YOUR FACE AIZLE!!)

So now they are getting out 3 hours early tomorrow so the teachers can plan lessons. Monday's a holiday for them. Tuesday and Wednesday is "Teacher Development" so they are off.

Bloody hell. I don't know how anyone maintains enough leave to ever take a vacation.

They don't get married and don't have children.

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I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I can work from home when such events occur. My boss would rather have most of my normal productivity rather than none.

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The Dude abides.

Before I retired my response would have been, "What is this vacation of which you speak?"

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Working from home with two small kids is not very productive. But yes, I try. Then I'm the guy that always has his laptop open at home, and sucks both at work AND at home.

Vacation is my vice. It's where I spend all my spare cash. Some people gamble, others shop, I travel.

I had a similar discussion with my daughter. She seemed to understand, and we haven't had a problem.

However, I did explain my non-standard hobby (the SCA) to some of her teachers so they had a frame of reference for when my daughter comes in and says something like she met the queen or her mom stabbed a pirate over the weekend.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Off Dec. 23,24,25,26,27,30,31, Jan 1.
Snow day Jan 3.
Got out early Jan 6 because heater broke.
Off Jan 7 (cold)
Two hours late Jan 8. (cold/ice)
Two hours late Jan 10 (ice)
Half day Jan 15
Half day Jan 17
Closed Jan 20 (MLK day)
Closed Jan 21 (teacher development)
Closed Jan 22 (teacher development)
Two hours late Jan 24
Closed Jan 29
Son sick Jan 30
Daughter sick Jan 31
Closed Feb 3
Closed Feb 5
Closed Feb 6

OMG make it stop.

I don't think any school on Maryland has had more than 2 full school days out of any given week since the 1st of December. It rained (not snowed) yesterday and half the state was still closed today ( the other half were 2 hour delays). Rain!