School Registration and Heartbreak...........

Getting my kids registered in school here has been quite the ordeal. I'm not sure why is, either. I expected Myshe's registration to be a hum-dinger (I'll get into that later), but not the others. I went to register McKaylie for school and they sent me to the school superintendance office. I had to see which elementary school they wanted her to go to. I didn't even know there was more than one elementary school in Topsham. I guess I overlooked that one. So, if there's 2 schools shouldn't there be specific boundaries? Nope, I guess not. They have some boundaries, but aparently the base housing is pretty much down the middle so they just divide the kids there evenly. McKaylie will be going to Williams-Cone, that's not the school I first went to. This is fine, except for the fact that most of the other parents I've talked to in housing, have their kids going to the other school. I'm hoping McKaylie won't be the only kid in the neighborhood that they've sent to Williams-Cone.

Vance's school doesn't seem to have anyone working there for some reason. The first time we went, there was only the assistant principal, who didn't know anything about registration. He gave us the name and number of the secretary that was in charge of that. I called the number and only got a message saying that no one was in the office at that time. I finally got a different message last week that said she'd be back in the office the week of August 6th. Since I had a migraine the beginning of the week, I decided that I'd just go and register Vance the same day that we had an appointment at Myshel's school. We stopped in and there was one one there. The school was open. The office was open, but no one was to be found. I decided to try back again about an hour or so later. We found the principal there. She doesn't know much about registration either. WHAT???? She explained that her secretary just came back this week, but then took 2 days off again before the weekend..........she gave us the registration packet and the name and number of the same lady we got before and told us to give her a call next week, if that's not too much trouble. Uh, yeah, like I have a choice. So, maybe next week we'll get Vance reigstered.

Getting the paperwork and appointment set for Myshel was the easiest of the three. It's the actual appointment and class placement that we knew would be a pain. Because of the middle school that Myshel went to in Norfolk, she earned 6 high school credits, which makes her more than a Freshman, but not quite a Sophmore. Also Myshel was suppose to be put in honors courses, but they don't have those kinds of classes here. They only have the regular academedic classes and the AP (advanced placement) classes, which they wouldn't put her in because they require summer program work. And that's how the appointment went, they called her old middle school in Norfolk, they called the English advisor, they called the vice principal and on and on. They were actually quite nice about it and I think we all wanted to accomplish the same goal, which is go get Myshel in the right classes for her.

During all that, the question was raised to me, "do I want Myshel to graduate in 3 years?", which means she'd basically skip a year and start as a sophmore. I have to admit that my heart was saying--- NO, NO WAY, could we just go back to grade school and start over from there. This is my baby and I wasn't even thrilled about her starting high school in the first place and now they're asking me if I want her to skip a grade and leave my house even sooner????---

My heart and my head weren't on the same page, though, and luckily, my head won out. What came out of my mouth was, "Yes, we want Myshel to finish in 3 years if she can. We're here definitely for 3 years. We want her to finish before we leave." I think my heart broke a little just saying it outloud. We discussed her age, too. They were worried that skipping a year would make her the youngest in her class, which actually isn't the case. Myshel has a November birthday which means that she missed the deadline when she started school. She actually one of the oldest kids in her grade right now and skipping a year would put her with kids that are actually closer to her own age group. We finished up, planned her classes, which are mostly sophmore classes and a basically one freshman class. We were told that they'd have to decide about whether to consider her a freshman, or a sophmore and as soon as they knew, they'd call and let us know.

When we got home there was a voicemail message waiting. They're officially considering Myshel a sophmore and they have a plan laid out for her so that she can graduate in 3 years. We got what we asked for. I smiled when I told Myshel, but my heart was quite sad! 3 years is such a short time. I can't believe that my baby will be done with high school and ready to start college and be on her own in 3 short years. Why did I ask for that?!? Being a mom just kind of sucks, sometimes!