rachelward11

Seriously what is Wrong with this School!?

At this point my son’s school has lost my son and then his lunch box, but I’ve been able to work through these things. And yet here we are again dealing with another mess up from the school.

If you’ve been following along up until this point you might remember that we moved to a new state, 3 weeks after school started in our new school district. School hadn’t started in our old state, and we couldn’t move up our moving day, because we hadn’t bought the house yet 😉

So by moving in 3 weeks late we missed school picture day. Not a big deal, there is a re-take picture day right? On one of my many trips to the front office of my kids school, I had asked when re-take day was, if there was a packet to fill out, and if there was a class picture print out or year book to buy. I didn’t want to miss any deadlines and have my kids sad at the end of the year because for some stupid reason this school doesn’t have a pre-made packet of papers for families that move in mid-school year.

Here is our first home 🥳

The front office secretary told me not to worry about an order form, she gave me the date for the make up day, told me to just have my kids show up on picture re-take day and it would be fine. This new secretary also told me that she didn’t know if there was a yearbook, but if there was one she would email me about it. If I didn’t get an email to assume there wasn’t one and to not worry about it. How naïve I was…

The night before retake day I reminded my kids of picture day and asked if they wanted to pick out a specific shirt or anything. Mr. L picked out his Godzilla shirt and Mr. C made sure his hair was on point the next day.

In fact Mr. C made such a big deal about his hair looking just right that Mr. L became concerned that his headphones were going to mess up his hair… But I told him not to worry, because I would message his teacher and have her make sure his hair looked great for his picture too. He was comforted by this and happily got in the car for school.

The second I got home I messaged Mr. L’s teacher through the app that she said was the best way to reach her quickly. I let her know of my son’s hair concern and asked if she could just reassure him for a good pic.

This is a better pic of his hair then what the teacher managed

Unfortunately a few HOURS later, while shopping for groceries with my daughter I got a response from Mr. L’s teacher saying she didn’t realize we wanted my son’s picture taken or put in the year book.

What the actual? Why wouldn’t I want his school picture taken!? I wasn’t even informed there was a yearbook! I was told to assume there wasn’t a year book or class picture print out. What on God’s green earth would make this lady, who knew my son missed the first 3 weeks of school and missed the first picture day wouldn’t want his picture taken on re-take day.

So many questions!? I called the front office and asked what could be done. The front office secretary told me it was the responsibility of the student to tell their teacher that they needed their picture re-taken. I asked the lady on the phone, “It is school policy that my son who has a speech delay and cognitive delays to TELL his teacher that he needs his PICTURE taken!?” And she said, yep. Sorry about that.

I call BS. That’s discrimination that they won’t help a child who can’t always talk unless he talks? Nope. They actually trust kindergartners? First graders? Any graders to get their picture re-taken? Yeah right.

Now I was wondering did Mr. C even bring up getting his picture taken!?

I called Mr. L’s teacher to ask why she would assume my special needs child didn’t need his picture in the year book. She told me that she assumed I didn’t want it because I didn’t email her, but that it was ok because she would take a picture on her phone, like that’s the same thing? I hang my kid’s school picture on my wall. I told his teacher that I wanted my children to have similar backgrounds for their picture on my wall, I didn’t want the brick of the hallway of their school for one and a professional background for the other. She told me that made sense and sorry 🙄

I took our pics Last year when we homeschooled. Maybe I’ll do it again this year too.

I told her I had talked with the front office weeks ago and they told me I didn’t have to fill anything out and to just send my kid in and that I had messaged her THAT morning about class pictures and his hair. She told me it was fine and that she would email something to the front office. I asked for the pic of what she took on her phone and this is what she sent me.

This is what his teacher was going to put in the year book 😤

He doesn’t look relaxed or happy here, he looks stressed to the max and no one attempted to help him with his sound canceling, headphone, smashed hair here.

I did my do-diligence to make sure this wouldn’t have happened. Instead of taking 5-7 min of her day to walk my son down the hall for his pic and telling him his hair looked great, now I have to use HOURS of my life to fix this.

Both my boys should have had their picture taken that day, not just my neurotypical Mr. C. Both my sons should be in the year book. Both my children should be given a decent picture to put on their wall at home. I call discrimination and I’m livid.

I called the school district. They called the school. They called me back and said some time next month I can get Mr. L’s picture re-taken at another elementary school and they will “email it over to the right school” and it will “be put in the year book”.

Does anyone else trust this will go smoothly? That neither school will mess this up? Yeah me neither. Idiots. This is the best program they can offer my son? What a joke.

I will be making many more calls and follow ups until this is fixed. Yay me.

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25 comments

  2. Oh jeez, this is so beyond frustrating. And the Laissez-faire attitude of the teacher certainly doesn’t help! I don’t trust the workaround will go smoothly. Your son is going to end up in another school yearbook. How utterly frustrating. They couldn’t even try to comb his hair before she took the picture with her phone?! I’m so sorry. You have every right to be mad.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Thank you, this is very validating to hear. Dealing with this makes me question if I’m making too big of a deal out of this. But who doesn’t want their child included right?

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  4. I loved his skeptical expression although you say he looks stressed, so don’t anymore.

    But yeah I had a friend who worked at his Mum’s playgroup for 10 years. He got fed up and stopped because of how people in management in meetings would just make stuff up like these secretaries do. Makes no sense…🤦‍♂️

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. I’m sorry this keeps happening. Stay strong, you are an awesome mom. I love your kids. I’ll even go to bat for you. I can make posters, phone calls or whatever you need.

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  6. Oh Rachel. So frustrating. It reminds me of a situation that occurred to my son when he was in year two. He’s now 47 years old. I’ll never forget. We don’t. This school needs to lift its game. I’m sorry that you’re the one that’s going to have to make them do it.

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  7. This is so sad. I know exactly what you are writing about here. Here in Arizona, the district we were apart of was so bad, with both my son and daughter, that we pulled them both out to home school them when they were 6-7 years old. They were attending school from the time they were two years old. The school was so bad with their “Professional” photos and the price was so expensive for their packages that I never bought from the school anyway. Yearbook was always a group photo and that was always taken in the classroom or against a brick wall with all the kids bunched together, looked terrible. I would take my kids to Walmart or Sears to get their packages every year which were so much better and so many pretty backgrounds to choose from, and was 3 times cheaper then the boring school packages they sold here in Arizona. Their photos at our kid’s school reminded me of mug shots or driver’s licenses. None of the teachers in the public schools ever seemed to care how the kids looked.

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    • That is all terrible but I resonate with all of it. I don’t feel like the staff cares like they should for choosing a career that is surrounded by children.
      I’m sure higher ups have ruined a lot of the joy of teaching, but they can still do better then asking us to buy glorified mug shots.
      We homeschool last year, my children flourished academically, and I loved doing it.
      But last year we had rented a farm house with no neighbors and Covid made making friends basically impossible.
      So I’m putting up with public school this year so my kids can find friends…

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  8. I do hope your son’s picture gets into the right yearbook. I love this picture. I understand you frustration with the teacher not combing it, but he is a good looking young man just like he is. I rather prefer it to one that looks “styled” for. Rest east; he is a cutie. Forty years from now when the yearbook is really important, you are going love it. 😀

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