As I approach the final few months until my son is able to legally take his GED and I no longer have to worry about the all female employees (Honestly in over 10 years I have never spoken with or met a male employee of this government agency) of social services crawling up my ass and looking over my home school records, I feel I can finally begin speaking out against the local public schools.
I should give some credit though to a woman who finally made it possible for my son to come and live with me. After three years of being a latch key child, being in constant trouble with the local schools, moved to three different school zones, and finally ending up a ward of the court, not to mention some physical abuse by my Ex's husband of the time. This woman blew off the lies thrown at me by my Ex: namely that I was a dead-beat dad and had no interest in my son's life, and managed to award me custody of my son.
Something thousands of dollars in lawyer fees was never able to do no matter how much trouble my son got into; she was able to do because she had no other options but to place him in a detention center or with me on house arrest.
Well it paid off for her as in four years my son has not been in trouble once.... Not one time mind you. His reading levels and history are well within the college level. Yes we are lagging somewhat in science and math but with the work I had to do to even achieve a C in college algebra that doesn't surprise me much. I have made arrangements for a special tutor for him in this area.
The issues were apparent to me long before I got the chance to prove my "plan" for keeping my son out of trouble.
In the first grade he was arrested, taken to the county jail and placed in a waiting room. His crime? Well he pushed a girl. Not hit a girl, not pushed a girl down, he pushed her away from him. He pushed this girl away from him as she tried to kiss him, a game all the little girls played with the boys. When I asked what room the little girl was being held in since she was guilty of sexual assault I was informed that she had done nothing wrong. As you can imagine the argument that ensued was a bit heated and I was eventually asked to leave and invited never to come back.
In the third grade my son was again arrested. This time because he had made a comment about how he was tired of always being in trouble and should kill himself. Somehow this was also twisted into him wanting to kill his entire class. The school had him arrested for assault.
Again in the discussion that followed I asked the wrong questions like when I asked his teacher if she ever felt in danger of my son which she couldn't say yes to no matter how hard she tried, or when I pointed out that perhaps the poster with the saying that "boys are weird, you should throw rocks at them." was out of line hanging in her classroom maybe added to my son's feelings of worthlessness. Again I was asked to leave and never come back.
By the fifth grade my son was labeled a complete troublemaker, one female principal even told me that she expected to see my son on the news as a mass killer in a Macdonald’s somewhere.
Luckily soon after that he was taken away from my Ex's abusive and neglectful home and placed with me and it has been smooth sailing since that time. A year of weekly meetings with his juvenile officer, checking his weekly work and taking a test now and again. After that he was removed as a ward of the court and placed fully in my custody. Interestingly enough his mother never showed to a court hearing and was eventually arrested for not paying her share of the fines.
It helps that I have a teaching certificate for secondary level education and a degree. Armed with these (which have never helped me professionally I might add) I was able to avoid a large number of inspections and take a little more freedom in how I chose to educate my son.
The anti-male sentiments and the demands to place my son on ridlin (sp?) left me with no choice but to home school. The penalty for failure which would have been immediate placement of my son in a state facility also left me with no options and also pressured me into being a bit less strict with him at first and using a more isolationist approach in regards to social interaction. In short I kept him on my farm in a work program, which was better than a state facility I think.
The road has been long and hard in time restraints however but he has passed all his pre-tests and we are looking forward to his passing the GED and getting above the age where it is a constant worry for us of being investigated. After this hurdle is passed I have promised him a year or so off then its to the local community college where he needs at least 15 credit hours to be considered a high school graduate.
The public schools failed my son horribly. In most respects everything he did would have been laughed at when I was his age yet today our schools cater to young girls and force the young boys to be constantly in trouble. I remember one morning I was at the school for a "social" thing and noticed two boys (not my son thankfully) turn two pieces of bread into handguns and start shooting at each other in play. These boys were swiftly separated and placed in corners of the large cafeteria yet no one cared as the girls brought out a cornucopia of small items from their bags and proceeded to play dress up even forcing a boy or two to join them.
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