Public Schools

My 4 year old goes to a specialized public school that is offered by my district that is free because it is funded by the taxpayers such as myself. He goes for speech and for his behavior both of which he has improved on greatly but still needs more work.

About 2 weeks ago, our son started acting out. One day it was "school" and the next it was daycare but we could never clearly see a pattern as to where it was coming from. Finally last Thursday, everything came to a head. He had a meltdown at school and then another one later on at daycare. When I say meltdown I mean growing horns and a tail and he is throwing his pitchfork directly at your face because that's where he posted the bull's eye. When asked what was wrong, he couldn't tell you if the sky was blue. Some of that has to do with his language and being able to create sentences out of ideas in his head.

He didn't go to school on Friday because they are closed on Friday and he was sick on Saturday and Sunday with a fever. On Monday we had a holiday so school was closed and yesterday the weather was bad so they closed it that day too. I also forgot to add that everyday for the past 2 weeks he's told me that he doesn't want to go to school. This morning was his first day back in 5 days. For a 4 year old, that would be plenty of time to forget whatever it was bothering him in the first place to make him not want to be there. Not the case today. He tried to tell me that school was closed today and that he couldn't go because it wasn't open. When he was at daycare and they tried to put him on the bus to get him to school, he threw an awful fit and threw his coat and book bag and started screaming. . . .

I'm sorry, children don't do that for no reason at all. There has GOT to be a reason why he is acting like this. I want to make one thing clear before I go further, I do not condone this behavior, nor do I make excuses for it. However, in order for me to be a good parent, I need to know WHY it's happening in order to help my child. My son does not have the skills to be able to explain why a leaf is green or why he had to go potty earlier. He just knows that he did it. His cognitive skills are in need of a lot of work.

I have been going back and forth with the "school" and they insist that he has ADHD and that he needs medicine. They claim that everything that is wrong with my son has to do with his attention issues or that they think we starve him or keep him up at all hours of the night or that the daycare that we chose for him is inadequate. Never mind the fact that they do not take responsibility for their role in his life even though he spends approximately 25% of his day with them throughout the week.

So I asked them the mind blowing question today of "Within the past month, has my son been successful within your program and if so, how. . . give me some examples". I was told that he is successful at recess and doing things that only he wants to do. Fucking mind boggling! Who knew he needed such comprehensive help with running around outside and being a kid?

People, this is what your tax dollars are going towards. I just got done paying personal property taxes and saw that I was paying over $400 alone to the school district annually. My taxes were just shy of $700 so you can easily do that math. My question is if I'm paying so much money for the school system, why am I not getting better care? I have a coworker that doesn't even have children and he has to pay the same amount that I do! That's a bunch of bullshit in my opinion. I'd be pissed as hell if I had no children AND I had to pay for a crappy public service that was the most expensive allocation on the breakdown. I would think that fire and sewer. . . things that ALL of us benefit from would be up there but no. The highest paid government facility which happens to be the shittiest out of all of them gets the most money.

I've talked extensively with hubby and equally as much with my daycare provider who has a degree in early childhood education. Both have a unanimous opinion that he needs to come out of this program. What bothers me more than anything is that there is something going on that someone is not being honest about and my son doesn't have the ability to tell me what that is. Either way, he is not going there any longer. . . .