Parents Getting support from your child's school

[HangingOn]

We are meeting with my dd's school next week to see if they might allow dd to leave early 3+ days a week. They do not offer this now, although the school athletic teams do leave for soccer or volleyball, etc. I need advice on what to ask for during this meeting. How much do I share about our dd's success, if at all? My first instinct is to cut gym and maybe art or music but I am wondering if anyone else has been through something similar?
thamks!

 

[SignHere]

Not art or music!!!

 

[Committed]

how old is she? Middle or high school? For next year?
I would definitely ask for a PE credit instead .... with an elective as a secondary.

 

[txgymfan]

I would bring a note from the coach with information about training hours and types of conditioning. Having outside verification may help.

 

[aussiebug]

We have amazing support from our school for DD yo leave early for gym. We didn't need evidence. I just spoke to the principal at the beginning of the year and explained that she is on the team and that she has set training hours each week and she must be there if she is to succeed.

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[HangingOn]

She is going to be in 7th grade, training level 9. The issue is getting home late and staying up til 10:30 on homework. It seems the norm in our area is to have the kids do an online math or science course but those are her best subjects so I want her in the classroom. Art or music seem like a good choice but I'm worried the school will have the same reaction as Hickory. How did your dd handle missed classes Kaities_mum?

 

[aussiebug]

My daughter is only 8 at the moment so missing class isn't an issue yet. I imagine it might be when she's in high school, however we are in Australia, generally kids missing school for a sport isn't a big deal.

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[Gymmom495]

Is homeschool an option for you? Many girls at our gym are doing this and if they are not already in the homeschool program once they hit middle school they start looking into it. I don't know how some of these girls and boys do it, going to school all day, gym all night, rushing home, showers, eat, homework, getting to bed late to do it all over the next day.

 

[JBS]

If your daughter gets good grades...it's just going to come down to the school. Some schools are easy to work with and some have zero tolerance for this. Just be truthful with them.

 

[Gymdaddio]

We are in that discussion with our school. First to go was advisory (study hall with teacher) because it was at the end of the day, then PE for obvious reasons, and if needed the next would be her elective. You have to have a very accommodating school to pull it off. Good luck. Go straight to the principal or vice-principal to discuss.

 

[bookworm]

I would try to work with the school...at my daughter's school, they knew what time she left every day so the teachers adjusted the day schedule accordingly so she wasn't missing the same thing every day. It helped that she was an excellent student and was always proactive about her homework and projects. It was also a small private school (but we've had friends with kids in private schools where they wouldn't budge on dismissing or requirements so private is no guarantee either..) . She didn't take gym because as the principal said to me "isn't she at gym for 20+ hours a week already?" and wasn't really in the art "class" but did do the projects. The school my kids were at from grades K-8 was a total Godsend that I'm thankful for everyday....

 

[iwannacoach]

The bottom line is you can tell them she's your child and you know what she needs. When you think about it...... the schools are in the business of helping kids enrich their lives, and the school officials should be able to understand that education is not the *only* way a child can grow into a complete adult.

The gymnastics experience your daughter hopes to have will give her a view of herself, her peers, and the adults around her that few children, or educators, can hope for. She'll experience travel and learn how to conduct herself responsibly in the absence of her parents, and get a sneak peek into her future as an adult while still enjoying herself as a child.

The thought of her taking an online science course is an interesting one, as is your position about it. Gymnastics provides her daily with a living lab experience in physics, and I would think she could easily learn more online in that subject than her peers in the classroom. She's likely to be more inclined toward independent study in biology, anatomy, and physiology because, just like gymnastics, they're all about how our bodies work...... well, except for the botanical side of biology, although I have seen some coaches approach a vegetative state from time to time.

Problem solving is a common, complimentary, link between education and higher level gymnastics, and as gymnastics is her passion she'll develop that skill to greater depths in the gym than she would in a classroom. This expanded ability will enhance her classroom activities and make her a better student. Who, in the field of education, wouldn't want that for a child, as that is the best step anybody can take to become a lifelong learner..... isn't that the real goal?

Another thought is there must be others like yourself who's children are working through the system to rearrange schedules to make training longer hours possible. I would find those people out, chat with them about their experiences with the school officials and how the schedule accommodations worked for their children. I know this can work from my experiences with kids I've coached who've succeeded in college and professional careers, and am left wondering if the experience enabled their success beyond what they may have otherwise realized.

 

[cbifoja]

I like IWCs attitude, but unfortunately, depending on the circumstances, you can get into truancy issues with schools.

I don't know the answer. My daughter's elementary school won't excuse ANYTHING for gym. Even if she has a meet and has to leave early, no excused tardy or absence. And yet, the middle school which is right next door, excuses our middle schoolers with no questions asked. When I talked to the principal at the elementary school, she told me that they had never had to deal with this issue for elementary kids but this is what SHE decided.

She then proceeded to tell me to just lie. Just say my daughter was sick that day. Okay, GREAT lesson! And secondly, you are going to be dealing with this for a few more years and I don't want to LIE every time my kid has a meet.

Next year, I am going to ask the superintendent to review the policy to include elementary students at least being excused for missing a day. I think trying to get a schedule rearranged to miss an hour or so everyday would fly like a bad of hammers. :-(

So some schools are extremely inflexible and it can just be because ONE person decides to be unreasonable.

 

[B&M's mom]

Good luck! When I talked to the middle school about shortening the day, I was referred to the District office where I was told that if she isn't there for the required amount of time, they didn't get state aid so she couldn't go for a shortened day. They recommended homeschooling her for the afternoon session. So she goes for the morning session and the administration has worked with me to get her core classes into that session. She's always missing one, this year math, so we homeschool her in that subject. The school has been great about giving us the textbooks for that missing class so we simply follow the curriculum for that class. She doesn't do any electives or p.e. It works but she still has a lot of homework.

I'm hoping that the high school is easier!

 

[wallinbl]

The next county over lets girls skip PE and get out early. Our county doesn't cooperate at all.

 

[HangingOn]

I think I will just print your response out IWC and hand it to them! Seriously, your perspective is just what I needed to hear and it will be helpful for my meeting.

 

[MaryA]

Are there other online classes available? I know that at our gym some of our high school girls take their "electives" on line... Health, PE (which ends up being an "independent contract"), etc. Also, some of them take classes over the summer. Right now DD goes to a charter middle school that is very good about working with her schedule and also isn't big on "homework for the sake of homework"', but as I look ahead to high school, assuming she is still in gym, that is what I am thinking about doing. Even if all it does is give her an extra study hall or two in the day, that can make a lot of difference. I remember study hall as a place to daydream and write notes to my friends, but DD is already very good at making use of every spare moment in the school day.

 

[iwannacoach]

I think I will just print your response out IWC and hand it to them! Seriously, your perspective is just what I needed to hear and it will be helpful for my meeting.

I'm flattered, but hope you do your "homework" by tracking down successful examples of accommodations that are in place in your school district.

There is a requirement for a "minimum day" to receive funding. In our state the big deal is they need to be there for lunch, but I'm not sure if that's from morning attendance taking until lunch, or can be from lunch to afternoon dismissal. In any case the funding issue seems a bit peculiar, as we're likely talking about shortening a school day on the order of 90 minutes?

I had a kid who's parents were turned down "cold" by her school's principle, and again by the big cheese at district office, but didn't give up. They ended up presenting their request a the next school board meeting, and were happy to hear one of the school board members say..... geez, what's the big deal... or something like that. The board voted on the issue and all but one member approved.

 

[bookworm]

I think I will just print your response out IWC and hand it to them! Seriously, your perspective is just what I needed to hear and it will be helpful for my meeting.

Be careful with that though....you might want to feel out how your school is going to respond before you hand them your plans. You don't want to show your hand if it's not going well...

 

[Gymmom495]

I have brought this up before, if there are so many issues and road blocks that you are finding with the schools on this, and to me it sounds like a huge headache because it sounds like most districts are not very accommodating why not look into the possibility of homeschooling?
I know for a lot of people the sound of homeschool is scary, or I hear from people that they are afraid that their child will not listen to them and do their work. When I started seeing what a physical toll gym and school was taking on my daughter I contacted the school and the district with no luck on any help from them.
I knew other families from gym were homeschooling so I spent time talking to them along with doing research on the Internet. After getting all of the information I felt I needed we switched our daughter from public school to homeschool. It was the best thing I could have ever done for her.
People ask me all the time about social interaction or keeping up with state standards. She actually has to do all of her state testing at a facility like any other school child. She has to keep up with or surpass the state standards for every core subject but the thing is I can teach her above what she's required to learn if she is excelled in a certain area, plus we can apply what we are learning to practical application (field trips, hands on science experiments etc) things most of the schools have had to cut due to funding issues.
As for the social part, she keeps in touch with her friends from school, she socializes at gym, and she has lots of friends from the families of her brothers travel baseball team. She is for sure not lacking in the social department.
I would just suggest that maybe you take a minute or two and research the homeschool programs available to you or they also have programs where they go to school 2 or 3 days then off the other days. Just an idea.