LeAventure:DivaLea

First the bike-riding and the LJ stuff, then the latest in the idjit clown fuckdown rodeo that is the Northside Independent School District and some ninny at John Marshall High School.

Biking: 4.5 mile ride today. I went from the bike shop to home, and would’ve been door-to-door in 45 minutes, but my chain popped and I stopped a good long while making sure it was okay. Tomorrow: Round trip, 3.8 miles each way. Hell, yeah.

The guys in the bike shop spend about forever putting on a pair of fenders I was pretty sure were too damn small, based on how they struggled. They eventually came to that realization for themselves and installed the correct fenders. I also had a basket installed on the back for my bag, and for groceries.

LJ: People have reported back that comments in crossposts from here to LJ are disabled. They’re not supposed to be! I’ll look into it.

Yet another damn school problem:

I was told last fall that Summer could not re-enter school no way, no how, without a birth certificate in her hot little hands. No matter what other ID we possessed. I was told this by the admissions lady at John Marshall High School in San Antonio, Texas. Even though the certificate was being ordered, no sir.

This is important.

We sent off, via the Internet, for Summer’s birth certificate through VitalChek, since California has human hands touch as little as possible. I called today, and there’s no order. I called because I found out today, when checking my order, that no info is kept online after 60 days.

I decide to call the district to see if I can get Summer in without the certificate if I can show it’s on order.

Which is when I find out Summer could’ve gone back to school last fall. Why? Because there is a 30-day grace period to get documents. We likely would’ve gone past that, but because public schools are loathe to kick out warm, get-state-money bodies, she’d have been fine.

I told the not-nice admin lady That that was not what I’d been told. She never outright said I was wrong, but she was mighty impatient when I asked what I should do if the school pulled the no way no how again. She said they wouldn’t. “But what if they do?” “Then call administration,” she said and hung up the phone.

It’s not her fault she has no idea who I am, so she has no clue why I’d be cynical and mistrusting.

I burst into tears of frustration. Summer has been home, depressed and out of her mind, waiting five months to return to school FOR NO GODDAM REASON. I am furious, and if I knew a lawyer who would put us in court pro bono, I’d fucking be there. Northside has been failing my children since Summer was in second grade. It’s goddam criminal.

So many teachers complain parents aren’t involved, and so many people believe this is true. I wonder how many parents have been trained not to be involved. They’re told everything’s good, even though it’s not, but they believe the school people because they have no idea how much school people lie, how much keeping their jobs requires lying, how many spiteful martinets reside in admin, and they believe it and never ask again. Or they simply exhaust parents, and their parents give up.

I don’t know how it is elsewhere (and fucking spare me to-be-fairs and stories about how awesome your school(s) is/are), but here, if you are involved, you are punished. You are treated as a troublemaker, overbearing, nosy, unwelcome, interfering. You are treated the same as a student who dares to ask “Why?”

Luckily, this shit doesn’t work on me, I’m far past the age where I can be terrified by a pissant who has his or her shoes on a desk behind the door with “principal” on it. This is bullying, diminishing, demeaning, and it just pisses me off.

I will make people miserable because my daughter has been at home FIVE FUCKING MONTHS when she could have been where she wanted to be: with her friends, socializing, being a teenager.

Every single failure of Northside ISD has been because of bullies, louts and idiots, mean little people doing their mean little jobs, and teachers scared shitless they’ll be fired if they tell a parent the school owes their child an education.

I will be writing a letter that will cover this latest fiasco and reach back in time to the first time NISD fucked up and lead back to the present day, and it will be going from the top down to the principal at John Marshall. There was absolutely no excuse for me not to be told about the 30 day’s grace period, and I am furious because my daughter, once again, could’ve been spared so much misery.

Ask yourself, the next time a parent seems to not care, if they just don’t know their fucking rights, or they believed someone they’re supposed to be able to believe in but who has done nothing to have the privilege of that trust.

After I had my stormy but brief howl, I wiped my eyes and said, “Summer’s going to school on Monday.” Knowing we have a grace period, and I can lay that on the table if some clown tries to say otherwise, means they will fold.

Now off to draw before this firey mad wears off.

SCHOOL

Tomorrow is the day we march into the local high school and re-admit Summer to public school life, armed with the knowledge that we have 30 days to get her birth certificate, and that they HAVE to let her in. I’m okay with her returning to public school because it’s her choice. She’s better emotionally than when I pulled her from middle school two years ago, and we’re now clear of the problems of middle school as well. (Mainly that the principal, S.Z., was a huge, inappropriate douchebag.) I know she misses her middle school friends, and I think she wants to be like her friend who is now in a (private) high school.

Summer and I spent the afternoon getting her ready: new understuff, pants, shirts from my dresser, shoes, hair. She looks really cute and pulled-together.

I’m stoked for her, and stoked about having my day free again to work without guilty conflicts over work and schooling.

We played our last-for-now evening RPG, and I read to her. (We read to each other. Try it, it’s fun!) She is snoozing, and I am on the verge of a stomachache from nerves!
What will they throw at us? Where’s your work? What are her grades? Why did you homeschool? (That one’s easy, and I can even answer it without saying “Because the junior high principal is a douchebag.”)

Well, they can’t eat us.

What I feel right now isn’t “sad” as such, just an awareness of how time has passed, but proud of my kid and myself, and a bit in awe that my baby has grown into a young lady. A young lady who always laughs at the F word.

BAD SANDWICH! BAD!

Just minutes ago, stb-ex King brought me a bag from what used to be our closet. In this nylon bag was the yellow plastic bag from last Summer’s San Diego Con. There was this weird translucent brown…stuff on the bag, and it smelled like hell. My guess was pee, and I said to toss it. Then I decided to pull out some rubber gloves and go through the bag in case there was something I was looking for and hadn’t found.

I pulled out flyers, some leave-behinds, a pack of Maple Story cards, a Magic deck and this flat, spongy-looking squishy thing in plastic. It looked like sourdough starter, a sick off-white. I turned it over, trying to figure out what the hell it was, and I found the label. Tomato and pesto sandwich, probably with ham.

A meat sandwich from last year. From six-and-a-half months ago. I bought it on the way home from San Diego and forgot it. I have already sorted my transport and sleep space for this year. (more…)

It only took five hours of waiting and paperwork! The waiting was most of it. After two hours, we were about to go into the head counselor’s office to get Summer’s schedule sorted, when something happened that required the campus cop and took two hours to sort. We alternately nodded off, and had punchy giggle fits over various people who wandered through the office. It was mostly painfully dull, with a few bright spots of people-watching. The last hour was working out a schedule with the head counselor.

Did I play the “Don’t give me any shit, we had a house fire” card? Why, yes. Yes I did. People Do Not Ask Questions because they Don’t Want To Know.

The first functionary did indeed ask for the birth certificate when we handed all the other ID over. I stood tall and said “We’re still waiting for it, we have to get it from California, and we have a grace period. District administration told me that.”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple times, trying to think of an argument because she is used to saying no,  and asked, finally, “Are you the biological parents?” “Yes.” She dropped it. HA.

The kid at the school pretty much wear sneakers, hoodies, jeans and tees. I had to make a side trip into the nurse’s office to get Summer’s sot record signed off on, and felt like I was wading through a smelly sea of JUNO extras. Sick, drippy, unegaged kids. The fourth period assistant was in (it was second period), carefully applying eye makeup. The second period assistant was slowly dying at the desk. I left and came back when both assistants gave me a Target Clerk Look and said, “I dunno.”

Summer will only get half-credits because she’s in school half-way through the year. We can send her to summer school to make up missed credits. Summer school (as in a summer semester) is no longer free. We have to pay $110. per 1/2 credit. With money socked  away in case financial aid falls through, we can manage this.

So far, we like everyone we’ve met. The office functionary was kind of bleh, but she is bypassable. Summer immediately found her middle school friends, and even has a class with one.  (So far, she only had two periods left by the time we were done.) She’s already made new friends. Her middle school buddy is taking her to the school anime club tomorrow. (They have an anime club! It’s like the mothership is calling her home!)

I’m so relieved! I have that great feeling of passing into another phase in life, a good one.  I’m so proud of Summer.