My posting for the rest of today/tonight and likely tomorrow day will be very limited as I am "over-scheduled" in commitments ~ I need to learn/practice how to say "sorry, no" ~

Sooz

Didn't you learn anything from Nancy Reagan, Sooz?

I'm apparently a slow learner, John ~

Leaving shortly for a very long day at school ~ our lottery is today at 4pm, and there is a boatload of work to be done before then ~ we have almost triple the number of applications than we have open seats for the next school year ~ we give 1st priority to applicants with a sibling already enrolled ~ everyone else is subject to "luck of the draw" ~ we're bracing for a lot of happiness and a lot of tears ~

Sooz

That must be SO hard to do! I'd be right along side the children, crying with them.

It would be so easy for the public schools to look into what your school is doing right and what they're doing wrong... but it ain't gonna happen.
They'd have to admit to having screwed up in the first place.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, oskar ~

It was a VERY busy day, complicated by sticky databases ~ but we got everything done ~ and the lottery itself went well ~ there were several families who attended ~ we heard cheering when the names of some of the kidlets were read, and groans from a few when we moved on to the openings in the next grade ~

The sad news I got is about my last year's tutoree, Jalissa ~ she's repeating 4th grade this year but is not doing well ~ school has offered her mom good advice: what she needs, desperately, is a full-time spec ed environment, which we don't have ~ you might remember last year I questioned if her mom was the biggest of this child's problems, and we now know the answer to that is YES ~ the mom refuses to face the reality of this child's problems, going so far as to reject school's pleas for advanced testing ~ I spent a few minutes with her teacher this year [who I know well and is one of my faves], and she told me Jalissa is totally lost in class ~ I also talked with her paraprofessional [who I was so impressed with last year and has worked with her this year] ~ she said she doesn't see any improvement and now is also very angry with the mom for mom's refusal to face reality and do what's best for her child ~ school will likely not accept her back next year ~ the whole story just makes me sad ~

Sooz