I came across an interesting discussion on Amazon of all places regarding homeschooling versus public school.  A person on there came across this topic on another forum and saw this statement:

“By the way I am a teacher ,I had to study years of child development and psyc ,as well as subject material ,how everyone now thinks they can home school is a joke.Even Judge Judy asks what university did you graduate from ?when someone says they home school.How do they feel so qualified!”

Now, Madison attends a private school, so this question doesn’t quite apply to me.  However, to each their own.  Seriously.  I’m not a fan of our public school whatsoever.  I lucked out that I did find a private school that we do like that Madison is excelling in.  I’d love to know your thoughts on this topic!

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Most of us know the sorry state of education funding whether we have kids in school or not.  I live in IL where the budget is calling for a 17% cut in education spending.  Our schools aren’t getting the money from the state like they are suppose to.  I won’t find out if Will will get preschool from the public school (even though he qualifies for it with his speech delay) till the middle of August!  Madison will be back into school most likely before I find out!  Education is in a sorry state in the country.

Bing’s Teacher Appreciation Website helps teachers help themselves. Here’s how it works: a teacher can log onto the DonorsChoose.org website to start a “classroom project” or donation request. Parents and students can then visit the Bing Teacher Appreciation site to leave a comment [up to 5 per visitor] about a teacher who has made a difference in their life, enabling them to receive a $5 giving code to donorschoose.org [one per comment]. Parents and students can then apply the $5 giving code to the “classroom project” of their choice. Classroom projects are created by teachers, so reach out to your childrens’ teachers and encourage them to submit their own projects!

Madison and I embarked on doing this.  The Bing site is super easy to use and $5 can add up quite quickly.  As my children have learned, every little bit counts.  I’ve also taught my children about giving back, so I let Madison choose what classroom project we were going to donate too.  I was given a $100 giving code to use.  Donorschoose.org is another awesome site (though I wish they would include private schools so my daughters school could benefit from this).  There is a classroom project for everyone!  Madison picked a classroom of kindergarteners like herself in Texas.  We were able to get a science kit for a class of 22 students.  What grabbed me was this statement in the description of the project:  ”Imagine a class full of little students walking around with a magnifying glass in the garden looking for bugs and looking for the grooves of a leaf.”  That is Madison to a tee, so I am very happy to help fund this class!

Make sure you check out the Bing’s Teacher Appreciation Website and write about your favorite teacher and help some kids in the process!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Bing and a $100 DonoseChoose.org giving code to facilitate my review. Mom Central also sent me a thank-you gift certificate.

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As I have written many times on here, my husband and I have been struggling to figure out what we should do about Madison’s schooling for next year.  For those of you who haven’t been along for the whole ride, let be give you the short story.

My school district for a lack of a better term sucks.  They have cut music, art, and all extracurriculars.  We have went to referendum 3 times to get more money for the schools, and it has failed 3 times.  Needless to say, it’s not going through.  The school has no teacher’s aides and trying to get the school to tell me how many kids they have in their kindergarden class has been like pulling teeth.  I have yet to get an answer from them besides they won’t let the class size get up to more than 30 kids.

The private school we are looking at has 18 kids in the kindergarden class with a teacher’s aide.  It will be all day.  It also has gym, computer, art, and music one day a week.  They have answered all of my questions, and I do like what we have been told.  I’ve visited the school twice, and Madison and I have been there together once.

We decided until our school district gets their rear in gear that the best place for Madison is the private school.  We’ve already enrolled her for the fall.  The rules seem a tad strict to me, but everybody keeps tell me that’s good.  I do think that has to do with the rebel in me.  LOL  Bill read through the handbook and found nothing wrong or restrictive.  Wish us luck and I hope kindergarden goes well!

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As I wrote in my other post, my cousin recently died.  My cousin was beautician and had been doing my mother’s hair for the last 33 years.  She really needed a perm, however, she was waiting for my cousin to get better.  Obviously, that did not happen.  My mom made an appointment at the same place that I had my hair done at for my wedding.  We had great service at that time, and she remembered that it seem like an older person place.  They put her with a wonderful woman named Michelle.

You know how you get to talking to the beautician doing your hair?  Well, my mom and Michelle started talking.  They talked about how they both grew up on farms — her in DePere, my mom in Suring (now Suring is an hour north of Green Bay and has about 500 people living there).  When my mom said Suring, Michelle was like I know somebody from there.  My mom was like “Oh really!  Who?”  Michelle said “Well her mom’s name started with a B.  I think it was Beulah.”  Well, Beulah was my aunt.  She died several years ago of ovarian cancer.  The person she knew was my cousin Carmen.  Carmen died 12 years ago.  She was 6 months pregnant and in the hospital for kidney infection.  She had a brain anerism and died instantly.  She was a first grade teacher at the time.  Honestly, it was the sadest funeral I have ever went too.  Not only was my family shook up, there were all these little kids there who understood to varying degrees what was going on.  Well, Michelle’s daughter had Carmen as a teacher.  The school put a memorial bench in Carmen’s honor.  Michelle was the one who collected the money to get that done.

Now, Green Bay isn’t a small town, so for my mom to run into this lady is just well odd.  I am glad she met her.  It was like it was meant to be.  When she was telling this story, I felt like I should be sitting in some home theater seating and eating popcorn, because this whole situation feels like it came out a movie.

Ever have something like this happen to you?

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If you follow me on twitter, you will know what this post is going to be about.  If you don’t, I’ll do a quick explanation of what’s going on.

I live in the Ridgeland School District 122.  We have had a school referendum fail twice.  After the last time it failed, my school district cut all of the music and art programs and supposedly the after school programs too.  After the last referendum failed, I had posted about it on my blog and had quite a response from both sides of the referendum.  However, here I sit, and Madison will go to kindergarten next year, and we have to decide where she is going to go.

I always said my kids would go to public school.  I went to public school and I turned out fine.  LOL  However, my class size was never higher than 25 kids and that was in high school too.  Since I have no experience with private school, I am reaching out to my readers to give me their opinion.

Here’s what I know for sure — there is no art class and no music class.  Instead it is being “facilitated in the classrooms” — whatever that means.  I had a huge concern regarding this “everyday math” I have been hearing about.  However, my public school is not teaching that.  Her class size would be 22 – 30 kids with only one teacher. In private school, she would have gym, music, art, and computer once a week.  Her class size would be around 15 – 19 kids with one teacher and a teachers aide.

Oh and let me add, the referendum is again destined to fail.  The administration gave them 10% raises over the summer!

If you were in my shoes, what would you do?  Public or private?

Edited to add:  Homeschooling is not an option.  Madison does way better learning when it isn’t me.  I can’t believe the amount of things she learned in preschool already.

Edited again 9/23:  The school principal will no longer answer my questions.  All my questions now have to go through the main district office.  According to the District 122 Ridgeland office, there is no music or art at all.  No classes will go over thirty.  However, they will not create another class unless there are 60 kids between 2 classes (I hope that makes sense), so it could happen that both classes could be 29 kids, and they would not make a new class.  They had no idea what the district was going to do if the referendum fails a third time.  In the past, it was threatened that one of the grade schools was to be closed and/or they would go to grade school centers.  When I asked about that, I was told that was up to the school board.

Also, the raise I talked about was given to the superintendent and the assistant superintendents.

Also the district was asked to put their finances online.  26 other local districts have.  Mine has refused and has publically stated that in a local newspaper.

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