WE SURVIVED! Who-hoo!!! I now have a 1st grader
and a kindergartner (and of course an adorable little one year old, too)! This first year of public-school aka “all
day school” has been something I have dreaded since Sumner was about 2, and I
was able to start staying home with him and his new baby sister, Anna
Ruth. From that point on, as each year
passed, the dread became stronger. I
remember crying randomly while fixing them lunch thinking how much I would miss
eating lunch with him every day once he started “all day school.”
We made the decision to let Sumner repeat kindergarten since
he had a summer birthday and would be one of the youngest in his class. His first kindergarten teacher, Ms. Debbie,
at Northside Baptist Church, agreed with our decision and believed it would be
in his best interest in the long run.
This was a tough decision because Sumner is so bright, but we just all
knew in our guts that it would do him good to have another year to mature.
He started out at Omega Elementary School but half way
through the year (after Christmas break) we transferred him to Norman Park
Elementary School. I can’t really say
for sure why it didn’t work out at Omega, because Omega is a wonderful school,
except that it wasn’t where God wanted him to be. I prayed diligently for
several years asking God to please show us where He wanted Sumner to go to
school. We had two choices: Colquitt
County (Norman Park) or Tift County (Omega).
I really wanted him to go to Norman Park because that was the school I
taught at, so I knew so many of the people.
Plus, I had several very close friends who a taught there, as well as
their children. Basically, Norman Park
is home to me. I hope whenever I go back
to teaching I will be able to get a job there again. Matthew wanted him to stay in Tift County because
it was closer to home. Not than Norman
Park is much further than Omega, but the issue would present itself once Sumner
had to go to middle school. Moultrie is
too far to drive…
About a week and a half before school started, we made the
decision to put him at Omega. The first
day of school came, and I will be honest, I was a mess. I didn’t show it though… Not until after we
left the school anyway… That is when I
lost it. It is embarrassing how upset I
was. I am not going to go into much
detail except to say it was bad. That
day was a blur and I just counted down the minutes until I was able to pick him
up. He had been so brave, though. However, I could see in his eyes how nervous
he was…. When I look back at pictures of
that morning, I see so clearly the nervousness in his eyes, but he never once
spoke of it.
Sumner had always liked school. Let me take that back, he
had always LOVED school. But all that
changed after he started at Omega. Being
a boy, he isn’t one to just open up and talk about his feelings. I never could get much out of him when I
would ask about his day. All I knew was
that he complained every afternoon about not wanting to go back, and every
morning it was a struggle to get him up and out the door.
About a month into the year, the assistant principal called
me and told me she had been going over data and after discussing it with his
teacher, they thought he needed to be moved to the first grade. She spent about
10 minutes giving me all the reasons why she thought he needed to be moved to
first grade. I asked if she could give
me the weekend to decide, and she said that was fine. Over the weekend I prayed a lot. I reached out to veteran kindergarten
teachers, the former principal of the gifted school in Moultrie, and other
teacher friends. I also talked to moms
of older children who also chose to repeat kindergarten for the same reasons as
I had. Everyone I talked to gave the
same advice, to keep him in kindergarten.
Some of their reasons to repeat were: repeating would give him an
advantage, puberty would be when the younger age would show and possible cause
issues, and the age he would go to college could be a problem if we didn’t
repeat.
In the end, we decided to do what we felt in our heart
originally and that was to keep him in kindergarten. One thing that really stuck out to me as I
talked to parents was no one who chose to make their child repeat regretted the
decision later on. The only regret I
heard was from a parent who didn’t repeat, and now that their child is a
teenager, the mother can tell there is a difference between her son and the
other children in his grade level.
I e-mailed the assistant principal over the weekend and told
her our decision. She asked if Matthew and I could come to the school the next
morning to have a meeting with her and the principal. The next morning we met and they told us
since we chose to keep him in kindergarten, they would at least like to change
classrooms so he would be in a class with other students with a higher reading
level. We agreed.
Over the next few months his little personality started to
fade. His love for school had
disappeared and he didn’t want to go anymore.
Every morning was a struggle to get him ready and out the door. This was troubling to me because he always
loved school before. He started having
stomach issues and he even started having nervous ticks. It was terrible.
I did everything I could to be involved at the school and to
be involved in his class. One day his
grandparents and I were at his school for a special program, and Mrs. Latrelle
walked by his classroom and noticed he was sitting at a table all by
himself. She walked in because he looked
so sad and spoke to the teacher and asked why he was by himself, and the
teacher told her it was because Sumner was so much higher than the other
children, that she made him sit at a table alone, so he could do his own work
since it was different. When she told me
I felt like crying. I asked Sumner later
than afternoon about it and he told me he was by himself all day. He even did centers by himself while everyone
else had groups.
Over many conferences with his teacher and the assistant
principal (who is AWESOME by the way), Sumner still struggled. Unless you’ve ever been in the same position
as I was, you won’t understand how terrible it is to send your child to school
every day wondering if he was being treated nicely and fairly. I can’t count how many times I cried after he
left. I prayed constantly for him all day long and could not wait to pick him
up every afternoon. It was just awful.
Around Thanksgiving, something else happened in his class,
and Matthew and I decided to go ahead and transfer him to Norman Park. I took him to visit the school before they
got out for Thanksgiving break, so Sumner could see the kids and teachers. At first, we planned to switch him after the
break, but decided to wait until after the Christmas break instead. Sumner does good with structure. Without structure, he tends to act silly
resulting in behavior issues. I knew the
time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a fun time at school, resulting in a
lack of schedules and structure. I
worried if I sent him during that time he would start off on the wrong foot, so
we waited.
He started at Norman Park Elementary after the New Year and
he was in Mrs. Yvonne and Mrs. Donna’s class.
He had the BEST rest of the year.
He absolutely flourished at Norman Park.
My old Sumner was back. The one who loved school, couldn’t wait to go,
and talked about it happily every afternoon when I picked him up. What a
blessing!
I do not have much to say about Anna Ruth’s year in Pre-K
other than it was an amazing year. She
had two wonderful teachers, Mrs. Stacie and Mrs. Paige, who she absolutely
loved. She loved going to school every
day, and I never worried about her because I knew she was being loved while she
was away from me. The hardest part about
this year is the realization that she only has one year left at Northside. I never worried about her leaving Northside,
only Sumner, because I guess I felt like she had a long time before she’d be
done. Sadly, those years have flown by
and the end is near, and my heart cannot hardly think about it. Anna Ruth has been my sidekick since Day
1. Before they started “school” Sumner
would go and hang out with Matthew’s dad and Matthew some, but Anna Ruth always
stayed with me. When Sumner started
school in the Three Year Old room, Anna Ruth stayed with me. When Sumner started PreK and had to go every
day, I did let her go to the Two Year Old Class, and eventually to the Three
Year Old Class, but only twice a week, so she still stayed with me the other
three days. And this year when Sumner
was at school all day, I picked her up at lunch and we got to spend time
together until we picked Sumner up. It
is going to be hard not having her with me once she leaves Northside next year.
Time marches on, that is for sure. I pray regularly that God will help me to not
be so sad about them growing up, and just enjoy the present. I am so thankful to have three healthy
children that I get to see grow. I am
thankful for the job God has blessed me with that allows me to spend more time
with them than I would in a traditional school/teaching setting.
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