School's Out For Summer

This should have been what we listened to friday for Gracie's 5th grade "Completion Ceremony".

Instead we sat through three rousing versions of Miley Cyrus and the "The Climb". Yes, three (3) times in a row. One hour and forty-five minutes later I was on the edge of my seat willing it all to end. *

I am very glad the school principle had the forethought to call the ceremony a '5th grade completion ceremony' and not a graduation. I am one of those aweful parents that truly tires of all the 'ceremonies' and 'graduations' that seem to accompany so many days in our children's elementary life. That makes me a horrible monster in many parents eyes. This is fine with me it keeps the pesky parents away.

I am so very glad to be finished with 5th grade, elementary school and a certain teacher that I can barely contain my joy. With the inclusion of the song (repeatedly) 5th grade has seriously scarred me. The year itself has been a real struggle for Gracie.

One particular teacher has been a nightmare to cope with. Just her personality garners her very little respect. Her approach to the students adds even more disrespect and her approach toward me left me watching to rip her unevenly cut long around the face, men's cut in the back, blonde hair right out of her scalp.

Also, not once, not twice but multiple times she has 'lost' or 'misplaced' Gracie's work and then given a failing grade. Once, after Gracie completed make-up work, this same teacher tossed it in the trash, gave her a second packet of 'make-up work' and then flunked her anyway. Believe me the meeting with the principle wasn't pleasant but I made my point. This was one conference even Steve refused to miss and he drove his commute from DC on the speaker phone. The other teachers are in a position not to be able to say anything but I was given much head nobs and indications they understood fully and we were not the only ones it happened to.

Did I say I was happy to be finished with 5th grade (and a certain teacher) for a few years?

I am hoping that by the time Steven enters elementary school that this young teacher will have moved on and is procreating her pig pen style teaching habits in some far away place where we will have forgetten about her.

Now that elementary school is a thing of the past we are looking forward to middle school and even though the academic load will be increased and there will be other hurtles to follow I am hoping this is one year Gracie will have teachers who compliment her personality instead of thrashing against her like the waves on the rocky shore. I say this because we had another suck-ass teacher last year also. Steve nor I could find ways to be kind to her without something making us want to poke her with a set of tramontina steak knives.

This teacher was one who accused Gracie of stealing a set of stickers which came from Steve's aunt in a birthday box over Christmas break. The teach confiscated the stickers and made a HUGE production out of trying to teach me a lesson about my child and when we arrived at the school the next day and sat down in the principle's office with Gracie's birthday box the teacher could barely contain the red rage that flooded her neck. She was ready to pounce on us and call us liars that the items in the box could only be purchased from XYZ magazine by a teacher etc etc etc. Umm, yeah, Steve's aunt is a teacher. In fact she has a master's degree in education (one paper short of a PhD) and teaches mentally impaired children. She always sends the kids a box of things she thinks they will enjoy having - marker, stickers, odd little pocket games, puzzles and other goodies with an educational and fun theme.

Can you see here how happy we are to be moving on?

Now, about middle school. When did Jr. High get replaced with middle school? Jr. High was exciting words. I mean it's like high school only it's junior high school. Meaning you get lockers and change classes and wing your way to different places on campass all day long instead of doing the duck walk single file to one class.

Come on school official people who make up the names. Give them a break and bring back Jr. High School.

Speaking of which, Gracie got off the bus friday with tear stained cheeks and red eyes. After a while she was ready to talk. She told me how sad it was to be leaving so much behind and how even the toughest boys were teary eyed as well.

The school Gracie is leaving is a school caught in the middle of a zoning area. All the kids that live south of the main interesection here will be attending one middle school toward town and all the kids that live north of the intersection will attend another middle school. So for some students this is indeed the last time they will see one another in the halls of academia.

Which leads us to the watery statement my daughter choked out behind the tears friday afternoon -

"it is like we are graduating high school and going off to college. We won't ever see each other in school again. We are lost apart forever."

I am going to show her this when she actually makes it to high school graduation and is going off to college.

I think I am rambling here with no end in site. So, umm, I am going to end it now with one last thought.

On a school morning the traffic is beginning to start rolling, he sounds from the highway drift up to the hows and we can hear the dull distance whine of tires as school buses get to rolling, the US Mail truck comes to pick up at the PO and parents are off to work. This morning everything is absolutely quiet. Like a sunday morning. The sun is rising, the birds are singing, it is a strange sound for a week day morning.

I like it.

*Sorry, I cannot post a you tube of it on my blog. It makes me twitch and itch to even think about it.