There are things in this life that I love, things I like, things I tolerate, and things that, to steal a line from Peter Griffin, grind my gears. The following grinds my gears:
Kiddo is in the big high school now. Eight classes broken into blocks of four classes a day. Remember when you were in high school? Could you not go to all of your classes every day? I digress.
She has Honors English. Now, what they are trying to feed me is that if you have HE, you must take this class called Inquiry Skills. (Apparently this is because "the county" has been told that their graduates are lacking in writing skills. This would have nothing to do with the fact that many, many children in the county are ESOL but that's neither here nor there.)
Kiddo showed me some of the homework that she has gotten in this class. Sentence structure. Compound sentences. Basic 5th grade stuff. Yes, I know that those are not sentences. This is 9th grade, people! If you do not know these things yet, then maybe you should not be placed in HE?!?!
As a concerned parent, I called the school to speak with Kiddo's counselor. Here's what grinds my gears.
HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT! When speaking with a parent whose taxes pay your salary, one should not immediately adapt an attitude. One should not speak over the parent and do their best not to let a parent get a word in edgewise. One should not flat out disrespect me because you do not know me, you have no knowledge of my life, you do not know my child, and I will smack a bitch.
Part of me wanted to reach through the phone and throttle this man, but I refrained because some people will not listen no matter what you are saying. Said conselor is one of those people. After I vented to innocent co-workers, I proceeded to call the school and asked to speak to the person in charge. Of course, she was not in but oh did she get a message. That message also went to the assistant principal. To steal a line from South Park:
DON'T. FUCK. WITH. MIAMI. SHYNER.
I am not even joking when I say that if I do not get a phone call tomorrow, there will be hell to pay. They may think that they can speak to me in that manner, but they are about to get schooled in their own school. If I have to go into that school, they will wish that hurricane Ike had hit them rather than hurricane Black Girl.
Man, I hope your phone rings.
You tell 'em, girl! I so wish I had you with me when the NYC Board of Education had me running around like a fool trying to transfer my daughter to a new school this week.
You would think that it wouldn't be so difficult just to get some education into a child! Ugh, the red tape and lies.
You aren't making me look forward to high school. Lucky I've got years before I need to worry. I just hope by then I've got this school thing down because it still kicks my ass every year.
I think as long as you stay out of the Miami school districts, you'll be fine. There's just too much drama with teachers being paid crap while the superintendent rakes in the bucks and sends the district $66 million into the hole.