Today my daughter is home from school, with a sore right forearm. I don't yet know why it's sore. I know she's ten, which means that growing pains are more a rule than an exception. I know that it started after we hit some tennis balls around two nights ago - something we virtually never do - and that it's likely that she pulled, twisted, or bumped something while contorting into positions heretofore unknown in efforts to hit balls over the net. I know that she is sound in every other way and should be at school learning, interacting, and socializing.
I don't take my child to the doctor every time she has an ache or pain. I take her when pain is persistent and unrelenting. I take her when she has a high fever for several days. I take her when congestion doesn't go away with medicine and rest. I take her for her annual checkups to make sure she is exactly as she should be. When I was a child, I twisted a wrist badly enough that it was tender to the touch. My mother tied a neatly cut swath of white bed sheet around my neck, nestled my mildly tormented arm inside it, and sent me off to school. No harm, no foul. No phone calls to come and pick me up. I was precisely where I was supposed to be - at school, learning. I sat out PE that day, and likely recess as well. And somehow all was well in the world. No one fussed. No one lost.
What now begins is the search for information. It is not the first rule to stymie me in my child's six years of elementary school. It may, however, be the one that broke the camel's back. I understand that attendance is one of the district's prime directives. The annual book of student rules sent home decries absences and tardiness, threatening to brand our children as truants. Attendance is everything, for only by being present can a child learn. Yet today they sent her home, excluded her from learning, because her right arm was a little sore. I do not expect to change this rule....or any other for that matter. I do expect that understanding them with clarity will enable me to have intelligent conversations about them. And I fully intend to have conversations about them. My child's education is of paramount importance to me. So when rules prevent her from this objective, you can expect that I'll rattle a window or two.
The legal eagles have ruined public schools everywhere. Public schools are so over-legislated that most funding is channeled toward developing programs to meet legal requirements. Your experience is an example of the school fearing litigation. Strict and obviously ridiculous guidelines are set, and your school's administration has no choice but to follow those guidelines to shield the school from litigation and potential financial ruin. Trust me...the teachers and administrators share your frustration. Why can't school be strictly about teaching? Educators would love that, but instead they spend a huge part of their day identifying potential litigious threats, filling out CYA paperwork, and worrying that the content of their lessons will be deemed inappropriate. And of course wondering if they'll be the next teacher to lose their position as the ever-shrinking budget is spent on litigation rather than teacher salaries. But that is another topic entirely!
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