Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Back to School

Hailey is back at school...she is going to a school at Chaparral in El Cajon. It is not hard to get there...further but really an easier drive. Though I have to drive through the construction zone on Hwy 67. El Cap traffic is a nightmare.

Hailey has a lot to make up. She is a smart kid but angry I think at her dad. He was gone so much of her life. Last year when he came back he treated her like she was a little girl not the fourteen year old she was. Now she is fifteen and he still can't seem to see that things need to be different. He gets angry and she is angry at him. He thinks she is too quiet. Hailey is a nice quiet girl and a little shy. She is who she is. He thinks that she needs to be a more in your face type of personality. He teases her in public and she gets embarrassed.

Since he didn't see her grow up he thinks that I held her back somehow to make her the quiet girl she is. Hailey was in counseling though middle school and turned her grades around. She was failing sixth grade. She was in choir, dance, and then in Show Choir. She enjoyed performing but was happiest in the back row. I tried to get her to try out for choir at El Cap but she wouldn't. It might have made a difference. Now she has a whole year of credits to catch up with. Hopefully she can do that at Chap and go back to El Cap in a couple of years to graduate with her class.

Some people do well under pressure. Hailey isn't one of them. I think her time at the new school will help her a lot. The students get a lot of help and progress at their own speed. I sure had a difficult time getting her transferred. I had to sign her out of El Cap in early July, and they sent her records to Chap. Then nothing happened. So I called them last month. They told me that the counselors there would have to decide if she could go there or not. That I would get a call. Didn't happen. As it was getting close to the start of school, I called them again. Her file was lost on some one's desk. After a couple of calls and making it very clear that Hailey needed to be there, I told them that if something wasn't done she would quit school when she was sixteen in February. They agreed that she could go there. The day we went to sign her in we sat for two hours waiting for a counselor. Part of that time was they were looking for her file again! URF

They get a lot of kids that get expelled from other district schools at Chap...and kids on court supervision and stuff. And that is another problem for John. He doesn't want Hailey at Chap. I would like her to not be there too but I don't want her failing out of school either. And I have a lot more faith in Hailey's character than her father does.

So far she likes it there...she did meet a girl that she went to middle school with...the girl has face piercings. Wonder why people think things hanging out of their faces make them look good. I've seen some at restaurants and had to avoid looking at them or barf my dinner!

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