Back to School

For once, the girls were actually a little excited about going back to school...not that they would have complained about staying home for another week...or two. Emily is starting in the 6th grade this year and Caitlyn is in 3rd grade. We didn't bother to check into what classes the girls would be enrolled in this year as we were out of town and we were reasonably sure who their teachers would be anyway.

Emily had the same teacher as we had expected but Caitlyn actually got a totally different teacher. I took both the girls in that first morning to make sure that they knew where they were going and that they had a math teacher set up for Caitlyn.

Caitlyn's new teacher seemed very approachable and seemed to be on the ball. She was aware of Caitlyn's situation and had already arranged a 4th grade math teacher for her...they just had to work out the kinks for their schedule.

It ended up that the third graders and 4th graders don't have math at the same time but Caitlyn's teacher was really flexible about working around their schedule even though they might have to go against the rest of the third grade schedules. I was quite impressed that she would make that extra effort and was totally willing to rearrange her schedule.

As it turned out, that wasn't really necessary or even possible. It turned out that the fourth graders started their math before lunch and the third graders don't do math until after lunch. We could not rearrange that kind of schedule. What we ended up agreeing on is for Caitlyn to go to math while her class is finishing up their writing exercises (which is okay since they are doing group exercises while the teacher is working with the kids who are struggling more) and then she would go to lunch with the fourth graders and come back while the third graders are finishing up with their math. In which case, she would either finish her writing assignment or play math games on the i-pod or read...which she is used to.

Also, since Caitlyn has been telescoping in math for the past 3 years already, she is familiar with a lot of the kids in that grade already and would not feel quite as intimidated about going to lunch with them. Ideally, we would probably like her to test out of the fourth grade completely by the end of this year and just join those kids anyway in the 5th grade so that we don't have to juggle her schedule any more and she can settle in to be a normal student. So, this will make the transition a little easier for her. But whether that actually happens will be up to her and how hard she wants to work at it.

The transition was very smooth for the most part for Emily and she seems to fit right in. She seems to like school more and is actually being challenged so we are all happy that we made the right decision for her. I hope it works out as well for Caitlyn...I guess we will see.

They get to have lunch at school again this year so I am very relieved to not have to make lunch for them in the morning and worry about whether they are going to just chuck it. They also get to ride the bus to school for one last year and it's a good thing because they made some "improvements" in the parking and drop off situation with the new principal this year and it has made a huge mess of everything. It is a complete nightmare.

We had not quite set things up about how they were going to get home because I wanted to see how many kids was on Caitlyn's bus so that I could make special arrangements for Emily to ride with her again this year. I did not see the bus in the morning because they had moved the bus drop off to the side of the school. I went to pick up the girls at the end of the day and could not get parking anywhere. I tried to turn around and I got stuck in the street and ended up just parked there for the longest time. I could not move and the kids' school had already let out. I was afraid of them wondering where I was. In the end, I had to follow the slow train into the school parking lot so that I could at least let the kids know I was there and we would eventually get out. I did not see them and found my way back out of the parking lot and parked. I ran into the school looking for them. The campus was mostly empty now and I still could not find them. I figured that they might have actually gone on the bus so I hurried home to find them there. They were not there. I found Christian had come home early though. It's a good thing because now I was not just annoyed about the zoo the parking and pick up situation was becoming, I was really starting to get worried.

Back at the school, we still could not find the kids still but we ran into Caitlyn's teacher who confirmed that she did indeed put both the girls on the bus but that it was running very late. We spoke to her for a few minutes and then headed back home. We finally found the girls in front of the house waiting for us. Since they agreed to take Emily on the bus even though she is older, we figured that we would leave it at that unless they said something. Their bus is more than half empty and I certainly don't want to add to the circus around the school at pick up time. I just hope that a few more kids end up riding the bus so that they don't just cancel the route altogether!