Benjamin Goes to Kindergarten

And my little guys took off for Kindergarten a short 9 weeks ago.

And immediately, like the first day, they were bringing home warning notes--yellow, red, "W" on the calendar.  We became quickly acquainted.

 But Ben's didn't relent. 

And the notes said things like, "Ben is twirling in line."

And after about the third, baddest of the bad red notes saying Ben twirled in line, I started to ignore them. 

But then they started to say that Ben twirled in line AND he put the teacher's aide in danger with his twirling and it was "witnessed".

When that happened, well, then it got interesting.

 I responded in the daily note home, or was it the "Behavior Documentation Chart," or maybe it was straight on the red note, perhaps the weekly report, that Ben would now have strict consequences at home for these notes, so please help us know what is being done to help him stop the blasted twirling in line.

So the teacher called the principal.
And I started meetings with the principal.
And the principal seemed quite normal.

And then the neighbor girl started giving us daily reports on how awful Benjamin was.

And so we had parent/teacher conferences, which were really parent/teacher/principal conferences.
And I expressed that I hoped the smiles Ben had that week on his daily report didn't have to do with this conference coming.
And we expressed that we didn't appreciate getting reports on Ben from the other students.
And we expressed that the whole note system made no sense, and was over the top.
And we expressed that until she gave us an indication that there was anything said to help Ben get better, I would continue to tell him how to get better, and I would continue to write her a note every day telling her my expectations for Ben since none were being provided that we could back up.
And we expressed that the "Behavior Documentation Chart" that she didn't tell Patric about in orientation should have been explained to Ben's father when he asked about it.  That was just a lie.
And as the egg timer beat down its 15 minutes, we got in our last words.
And we expressed all sorts of things in a very calm way.

And he seems to be coming to an understanding with the teacher, which is good, becauseI don't think putting him a different class would be an option.

And yesterday, Ben brought home his very first report card.
He is failing 5 of  7 categories.

But, I feel encouraged because it turns out that the neighbor girl is failing all the same things.

And so I remain convinced that this is not all a Ben problem.
Maybe Ben and neighbor girl and our girls will all go to Kindergarten together next year.

Oddly enough, I have every intention of siding with the teachers throughout my children's education.  But I also learned quickly that sometimes the quivering chin and the huge tears over twirling in line are worth taking a stand for.