[TearsFromTheMoon]

Has anyone here home schooled their kid?
I took Shonna out of school for the rest of the year. Lots of problems. She does not like this one girl, and called her skanky to some kid, who told the other girl, that girls mom is like one of those Lifetime movie moms, you know, the one who kills someone else's kid bc they didn't like her kid. So she goes up to the school trying to press charges on Shonna for calling her daughter a skank. They told her she couldn't, so she demanded Shonna be suspended. They sd no. So for 2 weeks, her daughter did everything possible to get Shonna in trouble. Her mom even went thru the trouble to fake some FB logs from Shonna. The Dean even sd that they weren't from FB bc he knows how FB PM's and chats look. I'm not joking when I say that woman was up at the school at least 3 times a week saying Shonna called my daughter this, Shonna called my daughter that. Even they told her to stop coming up there and complaining, and if Shonna is saying that, then to let her daughter ignore her. oh and no, Shonna wasn't saying anything after the first time.
So everything was quiet for a week, bc the Dean told Shonna and that girl and the girls bff, that if any of them end up in his office again for stupid stuff like this, then they are all suspended.
This week, on Tuesday...Some boy came up to Shonna and sd "hey i stole Kelly and Alex's bff book from Kelly's book bag, do you want it?" well, Shonna sd NO...I was even there, i was picking her up from school...i told Shonna to stop BSing and get in the car. I saw her hand the book back to the boy after he gave it to her, and she got in the car. Well guess what, the book disappeared.
The next day, yesterday, that girls mom was up at the school again. This time i went up. She tried to say that Shonna took her daughters book bag, emptied it out all over the ground and thru it in the trash, taking the book.
What she didn't know is that I was there, and know she didn't do any of that. What she also didn't know, is the boy already went to the Dean that morning, and told him what happened....and that Kelly told him to give Shonna the book so she can say she stole it from her. When Shonna wouldn't take it, they destroyed it to make it look as tho it was gone.
However, Shonna and the girl got suspended, bc of the warning the Dean already gave them.
I was HOT...she did nothing, he was told it was a set up...and still suspended Shonna. I don't care if Kelly was suspended too, she rightfully shouldn't been.
3 months ago, a boy threatened to rape Shonna 3 times in a week. nothing was done to him except he had to attend a class on being a bully and why not to....Shonna gets harassed at school...and gets suspended.
Ive had nothing but problems with this bitch and her kid for 4 months now. Her daughter and Shonna were friends at the beginning of the school yr. But Kelly is so self centered and annoying, Shonna stopped being her friend. When Kelly asked her why, Shonna told her the truth. The next night, Kelly went on FB and cussed Shonna out for 15 mins on her profile. The next day Shonna went to school and asked Kelly what her prob was and why she did that. Kelly told her she didn't, that it was her mom and her mom was laughing about it that morning when she told her what she sd to Shonna on FB.
When I confronted her psycho mom about this, she went wacko on me. And since then, she has been harassing Shonna.
So today I took her out of that hell school, and enrolled her into the Florida Virtual School home school program. Its a 50/50 thing. Her class work and tests are done online, so the school board can track it...and the teaching is done half by an online class, and half by me. Shes not happy with me...but she only has 3.5 months left of 8th grade. I want her to pass...all of this crap that has been going on has had her so stressed out, she has been not wanting to go to school, afraid of being ripped out of class for something she didn't do... and shes been sick a lot. I just thought it was the safest thing to do. Not just for Shonna but for that Kelly brat. I mean Shonna was reaching her breaking point, and was close to hurting that girl. I knew that, and eliminated the problem. Now, bc tonight Kelly and her mom drove passed our house, flicking us off...i will be pressing charges on the mom in the morning for harassment on a minor.
How is it, a grown woman, with a job and a disabled younger daughter, has more time than I do, to act like this???
She works at Build a Bear...and I take Josh in there twice a yr...that should be interesting.

[mox]

I didn't read most of the post, choosing only to address your contemplation of home-schooling because I think your kids deserve better. Basically, unless you have current teaching credentials, you are going to do your child a HUGE disservice by home-schooling them. There's a reason teachers go to four years of University, followed by continuous education for the rest of their careers. The actual skill of teaching a person is an art in and of itself. Then there's the subject matter. How well do you know chemistry? Trig or pre-calculus? English history? If you assigned your daughter to write a critique of, say, Macbeth, would you be qualified to actually grade that paper with any accuracy? (and lemme tell ya something, I'm a *huge* Shakespeare nut, and there's no way I'd be qualified to grade even a middle school paper.) High school kids don't have just one teacher, because even the best high school teachers are unqualified to teach more than one or two related subjects. As someone with no teaching credentials, you are woefully under-qualified to take on even a single subject, let alone a whole course load.

If your kid needs to be removed from the school, then that's one issue. Find another school, even if it's out of district--if you have time to home school, you have time to drive them. Study after study after study has shown that home-schooled kids are less prepared to enter the workforce, less prepared for college, have lower test scores, and are an at overall disadvantage when compared even to kids who went to low-scoring public schools. And the reason is simply that most parents are not qualified to give their kids a quality education. If your children had a disease, you would take them to a Doctor instead of trying to cure them yourself. If your kids were in serious trouble with the law, you'd hire a lawyer instead of defending them yourself. Education is no different.

[TearsFromTheMoon]

I get what you are saying. I do have a teaching degree, I wanted to be a World History teacher. And its only for the last 3.5 months left of school. She will go to HS. The virtual Florida homeschooling is mostly done online. She has a teacher for each subject, most of the work is done online including tests. Everything is credited through the school board. For her FCAT, the yearly exam, she will go back to her school for. Basically I help her with stuff she has trouble with. But I so get your point. I never thought of home schooling for that reason, and the fact our kids need social skills, and wont really get that through home school. The main reason I took her out of her middle school is because of the way it is ran. On the day I took her out, 6 other students were leaving as well for home school. The Guidance manager looked at me and said "wow, we have 7 leaving this week, 3 left last week, and 3 more within the next 2 weeks for home school". I basically told her maybe they need to reevaluate how their school is ran. She agreed.