High School or Homeschool?

I know, I know. It's been since April 1st that I've blogged last. And so much has gone on!!!

First, let's start with school. Because Celina is such a bad district, Colbey was given the choice of continuing his education at home or seeing if we could get him into the next town overs High School. (Can you believe he's in High School already?!?!?!) Colbey decided he would rather go to Prosper High School.

So at the beginning of May, I called the Prosper District to see what I needed to do to not only transfer from another district, but enter as a homeschooler. The gal that I spoke with (I gave her a nick name later that I think you'll enjoy) made it sound like it was going to be nearly impossible and that I would need to escalate my request up to the Superintendent of Prosper. I left a message but didn't hear back before I left the country.

Once I got back in mid June, I again picked up where I had left off. That's not quite true. Instead of dealing with people over the phone, I figured I would get a better response/help in person so I went down to the High School. The gal there, Mrs. Tate, was a dream! She made it sound like all would be well and of course there would be no problem because they had students come in from homeschooling all the time. All I needed to do was get District approval for the transfer and then it was a first-come-first-serve at registration day on July 20th.

Simple, huh? I thought so. In fact, I went straight from the High School to the district office and was directed to ... let's just call her Mrs. Grumpy-Pants. She informed me that because Colbey had been homeschooled, he would need to be tested to make sure he was going into the right grade. However, the person in charge of the testing was on vacation and wouldn't return until the district let out for two weeks due to the 4th of July.

I'm thinking, "OK, we still have a week and a half to get the testing done and then go before the district meeting to get approval before we need to be first in line to register." She said to be looking for a phone call the week of July 12th.

Monday, July 12th came and went. Tuesday slithered past and on Wednesday, after the two younger kiddos and I were leaving VBS, I drove straight to the district offices again. Mrs. Grumpy-Pants was again my source of information but you could tell she was not happy to be. Immediately, she started madly dialing someone,... anyone ... to take me off her hands. (I was being nice the whole time, I promise!!!) Then an angel came to my rescue! Mrs. Sent-From-Heaven came and spoke with me and Mrs. Grumpy-Pants. Mrs. Grumpy-Pants said that Colbey would need to be tested because he was homeschooled and that I didn't have any of his previous transcripts which of course they couldn't request because then they would HAVE to accept him into the district but without them they couldn't even attempt to accept hem. A vicious circle!!! At that moment, I looked at Mrs. Sent-From-Heaven and asked if I could request a copy of his transcripts myself to help the process along. She smiled and said that would be very helpful. So I did just that. I immediately went to the Celina Middle School, where last Colbey attended, and got a copy which I then took straight back to the Prosper Administration building. I left them in an envelope underneath Mrs. Sent-From-Heaven's office, knowing I would be lovingly taken care of.

The rest of that week went on without a call and by Friday, I was frantic! The Board of Educators only met on Monday's which meant that Colbey needed to be tested before the meeting in three days to be approved so that we could be first in line July 20th. So I headed, once again, to the District Building. When I got there, around 12:30, no one was there except two tech people. They let me in and I explained my situation and asked what I should do. As we were talking, another man walked in and paused to listen. They told me the only thing they could recommend was for me to call Monday morning, as soon as they opened, to talk with someone.

They weren't sure what time the meeting was, but maybe he could be tested in the morning and the meeting wouldn't be until the afternoon or evening. So I ask for the phone number, which brought blank expressions from the two tech people.

It's then that the man listening to us spoke up. He gave me the phone number and then asked what it was exactly that I was hoping to do. I explain once more and he asked, "But isn't (he used her real name but I can't remember it) Mrs. Grumpy-Pants here?" The techs said her car wasn't in the parking lot and they didn't think anyone was there except them. He told me to hold on a moment while he checked.

I could tell she was there by the murmured conversation I couldn't quite hear. I don't know who he was or what he said, but Mrs. Grumpy-Pants came walking down the hallway just moments later and handed me some paper work and said that Colbey had been approved.

We didn't have to do any testing, nor wait for the district to approve us. I began to cry and thanked her and told her that this meant so much to us.

Can you tell how stressed I had gotten? So starting at the beginning of May, it took until July 16th to be approved for Colbey to go to Prosper High School.

We were indeed the first in line at the High School the next Tuesday to register (we took camp chairs and sat at the door starting at 5:30am). At 8am, he officially became a Prosper Eagle.