There are no ‘do overs’ in education
Hi all. It’s been a while and my daughter has been in her new school (Palmetto Prep) and she loves it. We had a bit of trouble last year with her school and what I learned from that is: Stay vigilant! There are no ‘do overs’ in education.
It all started two years ago when my wife and I went preschool shopping. We found two in our home town that were very well respected and after a couple of visits, interviews and research in the community; we settled on one and enrolled our daughter. The first year was great. Everyday I could see the growth in my daughter’s development and I was astounded. Her teacher was awesome and very loving. I’m sure my daughter will remember her forever.
Last year, she was promoted to the three year old class with a new teacher who, in retrospect, was way in over her head. She and her assistant had a class of mostly rambunctious boys and a few girls. As the year wore on the girls began to leave the class until there were only two and then the teaching stopped. …well I should say the pretension of teaching stopped because very little was actually going on. This lovely old school with a great reputation was letting this class turn into a glorified day care. To top it all off (and this is what woke me up to the problem) we started to have some behavior problems. My daughter became the only girl in a class of about 9 and the teachers (Tomboys themselves) let the class degrade into ciaos. My little girl who always said please and thank you was now just plain rude; not at ten years but at three!
A couple of months ago we started shopping for a new school and we found a great one. I won’t go into all of the accolades of Palmetto Prep in this post but I cannot be happier. She gets a hot meal, something that is a rarity in preschools around here; a computer class twice a day; a foreign language class every day, yea it’s Spanish right now but they split the year with French as well; they have three class pets; and most of all she has a teacher that is kind and loving with a world class curriculum.
The point I want to get across is: don’t turn your back for a second. I would give almost anything to have all of last year back for my daughter’s sake. That's a year that was not only wasted but a step backward for her. You do not get any ‘do overs’ when it comes to educating and raising your kids, stay vigilant for their sakes!