Thursday, October 19, 2006

Izzy just got kicked out of preschool.

I go to pick Izzy up from preschool today and he's not even in the line of kids. I watch his teacher, let's call her Mrs. L., tell a couple of other parents that their kids were disobedient today, telling her no, not coloring, and pushing their papers. As the last one walks away, I say, "This isn't anything good, is it?" No, she tells me, he was very bad today.

She walks me back through the school and tells me that he got two time-outs today for being very disobedient, telling her no, and not coloring. Except for he did color on the desk (which wouldn't have happened with proper supervision, if you ask me). When she told him he had to be good, he told her, "No, I’m not going to be good," so she took him to the office. She then took me to the office where he was sitting very quietly in a little chair.

I'm pissed, I have to tell you, because EVERY SINGLE DAY when I pick him up, she's complaining about something stupid. It's all normal three-year old behavior, which is exactly what she said when Chris called her Saturday. A little back story - last Thursday she kept him till last, which means she thinks he was the worst kid that day. She tells me, and several other parents, that it was a very difficult day and she had four or five calls to make later to tell us what happened because her nerves were so frazzled that she just couldn’t talk about it yet. That is a sure sign she is NOT in the right profession. Then she never called, so Saturday Chris called her. Izzy had blown raspberries at a couple of kids and crumpled up his crackers at snacktime. She paused and when Chris was silent because he was thinking - that's it?? - she said, "I guess it was all just normal three-year old stuff." That has been our point the entire time.

So back to today. I'm standing there holding Izzy's hand and she's just going on and on about how disobedient he'd been, so I say to Izzy, "Had a rough day today, huh?" Apparently, that irritated her. But I'm certainly not going to embarass Izzy in front of everyone just to convince her that we discipline him. So she tells me how much he disrupted class and what a hard day she had. I've had enough at that point, because he didn't do anything other than what the other kids had, but because he's the biggest, SHE ALWAYS PUNISHES HIM THE MOST!!!

Like I said, I'm fed up so I say, with a smile, "Well, I think we'll just take him out at the end of October then. You can't handle him, he's not doing well, so rather than wait, we'll just finish up the month.” They already knew we are moving, but we hadn't decided whether to stop school at the end of October or November. She looks a little taken aback and says, "Okay, fine." I say goodbye and we walk away.

I reach the end of the hallway and Mrs. L. sticks her head back out of the office and asks me to come back. I do, and the retired secretary who is in there says, with the teacher standing right there, "Today is going to be Isaac's last day. He's too disuptive to the rest of the class and Mrs. L. isn't comfortable finishing out the rest of the month with him." BITCH. Seriously.

First of all, she didn't have the guts to say it herself, second, she only kicked him out because I said (TRUTHFULLY) that she couldn't handle him, and worst of all, she knows that by not letting him come back, she's just keeping him from getting to go the Halloween party next week. VINDICTIVE BITCH. She's hurting my son just to piss me off, and it worked.

"Since you're kicking him out, do I get a refund for the rest of the month?," I ask. The secretary says, "Oh yes, of course, we'll prorate it and give you a refund, but he's not getting kicked out - he's just not being accepted.” No shit - he hasn't been accepted since day one.

I walk away and then go back and ask back for the $16 Yankee candle set I donated to be part of the preschool basket to be auctioned off at the school's Octoberfest. She says fine, that the homeroom mother has it making the basket, but she'll get it for me and leave it in the office. Yeah, I know, that was immature of me, but if they're kicking my son out, I don’t want to give them gifts. They ask me to write a description of it and leave it with them, so I do.

Then I ask them about the cookie dough we sold. They don't know when it's coming in yet, but they said they'll call me. I grumble fine, then the ex-secretary asks if it's paid for yet, and I tell her no, so she says she'll just cancel it if I want, which, of course, I tell her to do. I'm sure she was thinking it was a $15 or $20 order, but nope, it was over $125. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I start to leave and go back one more time to ask her for anything he's made and left in the classroom. The teacher goes herself and gets his pumpkin off the wall, says she's think that's the only thing, then says, "Bye! See you later!," like it's a normal day and Izzy will be coming back. I don't look at her, or speak, I just leave.

I told Izzy we're not going back to that school, and he said, "But why? I want to go back." That makes me even angrier. Luckily, I don’t think he's really paid attention to the whole Halloween party thing, so I don’t think he's going to realize that he doesn't get to go. But knowing that she was just trying to hurt Izzy infuriates me.

Izzy is not a perfectly behaved three-year old. I KNOW this. But I was paying them a lot of money to help him learn to socialize and have fun, and they weren’t doing that.I followed every single suggestion they offered, I met with them, I offered solutions of my own to help. And when she did what I told her to do - a minute or two of individual attention, as well as taking his face in her hands to get his attention, she said he was wonderful. WONDERFUL. A few weeks later and she's kicking him out?? This woman has problems and SHOULD NOT be teaching preschoolers.

It sucks for Izzy to be so big. Not only is he the first one to stand out when a group of kids are being bad, but when he pushes papers or throws a toy, it's greatly magnified because of his size. But half the time he was getting pumpkins or stars, so he wasn't ALL bad, and they said themselves that he never showed any signs of meaness or aggression.

Last week before class started, I was putting his shoes on the right feet, and a small three-year old boy purposefully hit him in the head with a ball. Twice. Both times the aide just said the kid's name, but no time out, warning, or anything. Had Izzy done that, they would have waged a holy war against us, and made us have another meeting with the priest/principal/headmaster, I’m positive.

I should have gone with my gut in the first two weeks. Mother's intuition is not something to mess with. Next time, I'm trusting it. Oh, and he'll not be going to a Catholic school ever again. If the preschool is this hard, this punitive, then I shudder to think how tough the actual school must be. This has been a horrible experience the whole way around.

1 comment:

Denise said...

I think it is ridiculous how that teacher behaved with him! However, don't be mortified. Seriously, I can just hear him--a 6'4" left tackle--telling the rest of the team (or the opponents), "I was kicked out of Catholic school at the age of 3. You DON'T wanna mess with me!"

Here is a link to a story with the Pope's e-mail in case you change your mind. ;-)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-21-pope-mail_x.htm