pulling the plug
After numerous attempts to patiently wait for the school to actually do their jobs and provide David with a challenging education, we reached our limit about 2 weeks ago. A homework assignment was sent home as a family project to create a scarecrow from a paper cutout, with the instructions to "be creative". Denise & David spent a large chunk of time working on it, it came out really nicely, and David was really proud & excited. When David brought it into school, his teacher basically scolded him for not following the instructions (which briefly mentioned that the scarecrow needed to be glued onto a larger piece of paper). David had no clue what this was about, and was upset that he didn't make the scarecrow correctly. So basically, according to his teacher it was more important to follow the narrow guidelines, than to think creatively.
Denise was rightfully furious. While searching the school district website for any information on home-schooling requirements she stumbled across this brief blurb about an independent study program. As it turns out, the school district actually runs a program for parents who wish to home-school their children. This program provides all of the supplies (curriculum, books, etc) for a complete education, as well as bi-weekly in school supplemental activities (arts & crafts, projects, music, etc). On paper it seemed amazing, and exactly what we wanted. Denise made an appointment the same day to meet with the staff who run the program (out of a different school in the same district), and she came back even more excited. Not only was it everything that was documented on the website, but the curriculum could be fully tailored to meet each child's needs (pacing, material, etc). The teacher also did a basic assessment of David, and determined that he was basically late Kindergarten reading level, and mid 1st grade math (so much for his original teacher's continuous doubts over whether he was ready to read or do math at all). After some very brief deliberations over that weekend, we were sold, and Denise registered David, and picked up his initial supplies on Monday of last week. His last day at the 'old' school was Oct 31, and he started home schooling last Thursday. He's been flying through the material (which is great), and had his first in-school session today. He came home having completed two projects (one art focusing on Thanksgiving, another science focusing on insects & spiders). His teacher also said that he did very well, and David was also very happy (because he had *two* recess sessions). So things are going really well, and we've found what seems to be a great solution.