Isn't this sweet?

We got this letter in the mail today from Otterboy's school.

"Dear Mr and Mrs ***,
Re: Otterboy's absence from school 

I am writing in reply to your letter requesting that Otterboy be absent from school from the 5th December onwards. Under the terms of the Education act students are legally required to attend school when it is open for instruction for that year level. Therefore, Otterboy's absence will be recorded as an explained unjustified absence. 

I am disappointed that you are not allowing Otterboy to remain at school and participate in activities week. This week is still part of the school year and Otterboy should be at school or on an activity until Thursday 8th December the last day of the school year. 

Staff and students value this week as it is a time where students can undertake new experiences and learn new skills  in an enjoyable end to the year. 

Yours sincerely
PH Keenan, Principal"

(All lack of punctuation is in the original letter)

Doesn't that sound so very concerned and caring?! 

Well, this is the same man that sent Otterboy home four hours after an incident because he thought Otterboy might do something to another boy at lunch. In reality, if he had bothered to talk to Otterboy before his being sent home, he would have known that both boys had forgotten about the incident and gone on with life. This isn't teaching students how to deal with conflict if they don't actually deal with it. So they learn to never confront any situation and then expect the world to right itself, I guess.

This is the same man that had Otterboy sent home because a teacher "thought he looked angry". What 15 year old boy doesn't look angry! 

This is the same school that showed 'R' rated movies to 14 and 15 year olds last year during 'activities week' without any parental consent.  Apparently, we don't have the right to know what they are showing our kids at school, but they sure better show up!

Activities week, in my opinion, is just another week that is wasted by the school. They are only 'in school'  because the school requires to have the kids in class. That's why Otterboy didn't want to go, and we certainly couldn't blame him. And that's why he's not in school. So sue us. At least, we know where he is and what he's watching.

Is communication a lost art?

A few weeks ago, Otterboy bounded home with a paper from his 10th year French class. He was excited about it because it was a form to house an exchange student from New Caledonia, an island north of New Zealand, for a week.

Seeing his eagerness to be a part of the yearly exchange of students, we gladly filled out the paperwork and he was the first one to turn his in the next day.

Last week we got an email with the details of the exchange students' itinerary and were happy to be one step closer to being a part of this project. We just assumed that everything was on course.

This week, Otterboy came home to say that the French teacher had put us on the 'reserve' list for the kids. He didn't really know what that meant, so I advised that he go to school the next day and ask the French teacher to explain.  He didn't get to see her the next day but was going to be sure to find her the next day.

Before he could go the next day, the French teacher called. And after the conversation she had with Hubby, I was not a happy camper. It seems that they pair the students up by age, which seems fair enough. The bad news was that most of the students are almost always from year 12 and 13.

Since Otterboy is only in year 10, there was no one his age to come to our house. But, they don't tell the students this because then 'they would have no homes for any younger students' who, by some strange quirk, got to come. Needless to say, Otterboy was shattered and Hubby and I were disappointed.

But it seems that it's about par for Stratford High School and their utter lack of communication and compassion and just plain good manners.

I mean, I don't think I would have really minded so much if the teacher had explained this to Otterboy when he turned in his form. That would have been understandable and would have softened the blow a little, I think.

I don't think it's asking too much to actually know what's going on at the school, but they just don't seem to care.

I do hope that we get to move to anywhere else before the next school year starts. If not, then I will just have to vent here, but I will warn you and you can just skip those posts :)

Stratford High School is not impressive.

Stratford High School Sucks

I have tried really hard to adjust to things here in NZ. I have put in a special effort to accept things that I don't find quite right and have tried to let everybody be who they are--ok, I call noise control on my neighbor, but he is stomping on my rights when his music invades my house, so that part of 'who he is' is just a red-neck trailer-park jerk....but I digress.

I know schools have changed a lot in the many, many, many years since I attended, but common sense should still prevail, even here in NZ.

The local Stratford High School doesn't have enough lockers for all the students, so most of them have to lug all their books to every class every day. That wouldn't be quite so bad if schedules were regular, but each student has 6 classes in a 5-class school day. That means that each day is totally different than the day before or the day after. And now that I think about it, it means that each class doesn't get a whole 'term' worth of study.

Otterboy got into a bit of stuff the other day in first period, about 9:30AM. After filling out incident reports at the moment (when they all were still a bit angry), those involved went on to other classes before the principal called me at 1 PM to say he was sending Otterboy home because he was afraid our son would seek out revenge at lunch time because of what he wrote on the incident report--over 3 hours earlier. By that time it was all forgotten and the principal didn't even bother to talk to Otterboy before sending him home. Of course, the others involved weren't sent home. Couldn't he have simply separated them for the lunch period? I think that would have taught them both a lot more than 'solving it all' by sending Otterboy away.

In the 'incident', Otterboy's phone was taken from his pocket and totally stripped while he was otherwise occupied. Not just dropping on the ground and the battery falling out, but the sim card and the memory card, too. Now, the memory card is hard to get out, so I know it was done deliberately. 

The principal's view of this was that phones are 'not allowed' in school. How much bull pucky is that? Otterboy (and I'm sure many other kids with parents who care or work) needs his phone so that we know where he is since it's quite a walk to and from school--it may not be a popular stance, but Hubby and I actually care where, when, and with whom he goes. And we want to know when to expect him home.

I can understand phones not being used in class and the teachers needing to enforce a bit of discipline, but not at school at all? How utterly out-of-touch. Would it not be actual teaching to make the students pay attention in class? Perish the though in Stratford.

I don't socialize a lot, but the few times I have discussed Stratford High School with other people, I have found that graduates from Stratford who go on to university have all had to work very hard to catch up the first year--even those at the top of the class. That does not make for a good school reputation.

We have no solutions. Both primary and high school principals have spend all their time defending what they do when we go in to talk. I just hope it's not this bad all over.