Opting Out
My son had a horrendous experience in the third grade. It's a long, heart-breaking story, complicated by the fact that I was a teacher in the same district, but in the end we
dragged him through the school year, beaten down and--no other word for it--miserable. One of the options we considered was homeschooling him in 4th grade--getting him out of a toxic atmosphere and investing a year in his emotional and academic well-being.
For a number of reasons (including prospective loss of income), we ended up sending him back to 4th grade in the same school. The good news is that he had a warm, understanding teacher who helped rebuild his self-esteem and recapture learning he missed in his lost year--and even excel. Knowing how stressed he was, she
