Busy week with the kids

Whew. Can't say I'm sorry to see this week done! It has alternately flown by and dragged on depending on the day and the time but it is over and hopefully this next week will be a little less hectic. The problems with my 2nd graders teacher continue to persist. He came home Friday and said he wasn't allowed to eat lunch. A little further prodding after a call to a parent of another child (I love my child and always want to think it's the whole truth but he is only 8, his version is not always the full version) in the class revealed that he wasn't allowed to go to lunch on time and there fore was unable to eat all of his lunch. Still not happy with the situation but significantly calmer than I was Friday night! When we thought our son had not been allowed to eat lunch my husband and I had decided our son would not be returning to that teachers class. Finding out that our son was held back from lunch to complete work and then not allowed to finish lunch before returning to do more class work rather than go out to recess we have decided we will request he is moved to a different teachers class. We have really reached the end of our rope when it comes to the school and this particular teacher, for what ever reason she does not appear to like our son and he is still young enough we have control over the situation. From allowing his "I am special" project to be hung in the hall with nothing on it, to repeatedly putting that he has behavior and homework completion problems on his midterm and final reports without any notice, in any form, that their is a problem before hand, to her continuing to hold him in from recess after it was agreed it would no longer happen... We are fed up. She is there to help him achieve his potential not drag him down. My 2 particular favorite instances were when he was punished because other children stated he ate part of another child's lunch - which he can't and wouldn't do because he has life threatening allergies that will send him into anaphalactic shock and could potentially kill him, which he knows. To the "Fix it Plan" that came home after he was surprised by another student and stepped on her foot. He apologized immediately and the "Fix it Plan" was for hurting her feelings, not her foot. The teacher felt he stepped on the other child on purpose which she stated in her e-mail to me. I disagreed and said that my son likes this child and considers her a friend he would not purposely step on her foot (what I didn't add was that if he had stepped on her on purpose we wouldn't have got a note saying he hurt her feelings, he would have hurt her foot.) The day I sent the e-mail disagreeing with the teacher is the day that he was only allowed a partial period to eat his lunch. (and it's only 20 minutes to begin with!) No wonders he was hungry! Friday night was concluded (while I was still under the impression he had not eaten at all) with a tour to one of the local police stations with our 1st graders cub scout den. Between the normal headaches of getting 4 kids 8 and younger out the door and the additional frustration of the very hungry 8 year old, (who I did get a snack for the car) we were late, and I am the main den leader. Not so great. It got better as I looked around the assembled parents and realized neither one of the other 2 den leaders were present. One I knew wouldn't be there, but I didn't see his wife who I was told would be, and the other I am assuming was still out of town on business- I just thought he would be back before then, but his wife was there with his boys. Now the first leaders wife who I thought would be there- she showed up about 5 minutes after me because her husband forgot to tell her the meeting had been moved up half an hour... which was somehow my fault and she chose to announce that quite loudly with all the other parents around. We were really doing well as den leaders that night! I tried to make her feel better by saying I had just gotten there myself but to no avail and at that point I ignored her and focused on my children (who thankfully behaved wonderfully) and the rest of the kids in the pack. The rest of the tour was interesting but thankfully uneventful behavior wise by all the children and we finished by thanking the staff on duty and taking a picture with the officer and all the kids as we left. Should be a great picture, the den leader who was out of town - his wife brought their VERY nice camera to take the picture and we will hopefully be able to get it in the local paper. Thank you to the editor who said that if we send in high resolution images and she has space she will publish it. Especially if we write a little blurb about it basically because then she has a story she didn't have to do any work for. Yay for us! We topped off the evening by the frustrated and hungry 8 year old throwing a complete and total fit because he really, really needed to use the bathroom and another boy beat him to it (and the single stall womens room was also in use) and with me not having my check card in my purse or any cash when we went to McDonald's for dinner. Thank you God for my friend who was with us that I will pay back on Monday! So if you've made it this far I certainly hope your week ended better than mine and that next week is better for both of us.