I found this in my kitchen this morning looking for brains.  It didn't find any.  Don't worry....I beat it to re-death with a soggy dish towel.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Just when I was about to give up art (yes, again) curiosity got the better of me when the organizer of the bottom line promised an interesting model for this morning.  I decided "what the heck" and went.

I accidentally tore a pastel picture I had put a lot of hours into, but wasn't liking, and my latest coloured pencil drawing is a disaster in the making.  Not a good art week.  But on the up side, we've had no death threats yet this week! 

This stunning creature in my drawings is my new favourite model. She's an extremely physically fit female (you probably noticed) that was graceful, and extremely professional.  She didn't move even the slightest amounts during her poses and had the loveliest chocolate coloured skin I've ever seen.

On the down side, when I went to pick up my work from the show that just finished, I noticed that it was damaged.  Both works had some damage on the frame and one with a scratch on the glass.  Disappointing considering the cost of the framing jobs.  The owner said she'd deal with the worst one (the other was not bad enough that I left it.)  We'll see.  I may have yet another fight on my hands.  I suspect once they removed the works from the walls after the Figureworks show to put up the new show they stored it incorrectly.  Sigh!

I now have a 16 year old with soon to be purple hair that can drive, albeit not very well. 

"But Mom.....I only hit one tree and it wasn't the actual trunk I hit." she said earlier this summer when practicing on our country property.

Thank goodness they don't allow them to get tatoos in the local parlours at that age, that's all I can say.

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Yesterday when my 14 year old was asked to open the window at school by her teacher she struggled until the teacher had to come over and show her how to work the mechanism.

"It's a good thing you're pretty." she told her;-)

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My 16 year old raised her hand in class yesterday and asked if the whole test they would be having today was going to be Multiplication.  This was in Law class;-0  She later told me they all laughed and she wasn't sure why until she realised she meant to say multiple choice.
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I learned at the last parents council meeting at our elementary school that cursive writing is no longer part of the curriculum and that they also don't plan on adding keyboarding lessons stating that the kids pick up their own method of keyboarding on their own.  We've started working with the little ones at home to assure that they can read and write cursive.  The schools feel that cursive writing is no longer necessary and is on it's way out.  We were also told that in the next few years kids would have "notebooks" in school and not need to write at all.  What are they supposed to do until then? one parent asked.  The Principal didn't have an answer.

God help us all.

Quiet Please

It's been a rollercoaster month.  Along with death threats and art shows came a flood which took out 3 rooms in our already small home and a case of head lice in one of the kids(only one bug and no nits.  Thank God!)  On the upside, the principal agreed to allow me to volunteer with White Mocha to go through the whole school with a fine tooth comb.  Literally.  This is something that has been bugging me for years and the school will finally allow us to at least perhaps reduce the problem a bit.  I very much doubt it will have a large impact, but at least maybe identify a few of the problem areas in some whos parents are willing to do something about it.

I will be picking up my art next week.  I did very well in the show.  I scored very high with two of the judges and good, but not excellent with a third.  She didn't like my use of hyper-realism mixed with an abstract background.  I'd like to say I've learned from it, but one of the pictures in the line-up for the next month is going to be done this way as well.  So far they didn't sell and I don't expect they will at this particular gallery.  Not the right demographic for the youth of the subject matter.  Also the high price of the piece will dissuade anyone interested.  The gallery gets 50% and out of my 50% comes the cost of framing and supplies so the price has to be hiked up to make it worth selling the work through a gallery.  In the case of "Handphibian" I will be making $3.75 an hour if it sells, even with the spiked price.  Hardly worth the effort.  If anyone is interested they are better off waiting to buy direct from the artists.  Not fair to the gallery and they have to make a living, but really, if you spend much time on a piece you're better off not trying to sell this way unless you are only trying to recoup the cost of the supplies.

Please God.....can we have some peace for now?  And I don't mean RIP kind of peace, just calm for a while.

Finally!

Looks like perserverance may have paid off.  The dad of one of the two kids who heard the knife threat against the 3 kids (included in the three is 4 of 4) is being taken seriously by the community police officer assigned to the school.  He had been away and the one replacing him didn't really look into the complaint too thouroughly, instead just taking the word of the principal that the complaint didn't really happen.

The officer (according to the dad) has agreed that the teacher had no legal right to dismiss the knife complaint on her own.  This should have been up to the police to look into.  Apparently, this father says, the police officer said that this paticular school board's rules sometimes don't mesh with the law.  The police officer stated the law is the law and they need to see that their school proceedures don't trump the law.

Now the officer can take an unbiased look at the complaint and get some help for the kid slinging threats need be.  She is relatively new to the school and nobody bothered to look into her history at past school(s) to see if there were any behavioural problems prior to this incident, and whether or not something is happening at home to trigger this type of aggression. 

The officer was said to be suprised to learn of the lack of follow up with regards to the consequences the child was to receive due to her actions.  (The ones the principal did agree occured.  The threat about the kids getting what was coming to them the next day, etc....)  Despite the threat she wasn't actually really kept on suspension as promised for two days following the incident and did go out for recess with the kids.  Once she was discovered, she was taken back into the school, but obviously they couldn't have been watching her that well!  She was supposed to be under the supervision of a teacher at all times for a full week and that didn't happen either.  We witnessed that ourselves.

All I want at this point is to know this kid is getting help if need be.  To make sure she realizes the weight of the threats she made to the best of the schools ability.  To make sure her parents/guardians are aware of the knife threat.  And finally that the Principal realizes that she is not God himself or above the law.  That's the biggie.  I have no faith in the ability of this woman to assure the safety of my child in this school any longer.  This isn't the first incident in which we gone to the school with safety concerns and they've just been dismissed outright.  Sometimes without even the courtesty of a call back from her.

....so why do I still feel like crying....  I suppose I don't look forward the the next time.....and I'm quite sure at some point there will be a next time.

Just ignore the problem and it will go away~that's the Canadian way

I got a call from the Principal last week after our 9 year old came home and told me about the death threat she and friends received stating that the issue had been dealt with.  The child in question would be monitored for a week.  The first two days she was not to be allowed to have recess in the school yard with the other children and would not be left unsupervised at any time.  Funny, I saw her walking down the hall alone with one other kid when I was volunteering at lunch on Friday.  Parents won't know any different so they apparently don't have to actually follow up with the consequences.  Since the identity of the child is protected we aren't supposed to know who it is even when our kids tell us.  I suppose we're supposed to pretend to not know.  In fact, in the past the kids have been told they aren't allowed to tell their parents when threats do occur in order to protect the identity of the accused.  That was the law.  Now they can tell us they've have had threats against them, but the school can't acknowledge where or from whom they came.  Only that they've been dealt with the the satisfaction of the school.

The Principal also assured me that the two children who claimed that there was a threat concerning a knife had since withdrawn their statements and said they didn't really know if she had said that after all.  That part of the incident was considered to not be true and accurate and therefore in no need of further action.  It was no longer considered as having had happened.  Only the use of cursing and "You'll pay for what you did tomorrow" would be taken seriously.  After all, cursing in a Catholic school is worse than a death threat that may or may not have occurred.

Furthermore, Mr. P. should speak with the counsellor about school procedure for his belief that said child should be searched each day before she is allowed to join the other kids at least for a couple of days.  The Principal told me that "This isn't New York City!" and "Thank God it's not!"  I told her I agreed with Mr. P.  The childs knapsack should be checked.  It's not like we're asking for a cavity search or anything!  Stick you're head in the sand give everyone a lollypop and hope the problem goes away.  It's the Canadian way.

The Principal questioned the two kids who heard the knife threat a second time.  She repeatedly kept asking them if they were sure they actually heard correctly.  Eventually she convinced them that they may not have actually heard what they thought they did. When at all possible manipulate children into you're way of thinking, it's the Canadian Educational Systems way.  Canadians aren't violent after all and do you seriously think that someone would threaten to bring a knife.  Let me repeat, this is Canada. Also, if you can make a problem disappear it means less paper work!

On top of all of this, the Principal said that the kid slinging threats said "4 of 4" wasn't nice to her.  The Principal needed to further look into this.  (Now it's my kids fault!)  I told the Principal I have no doubt the kid thinks this as I've told 4 in the past to go in the opposite direction when she sees her coming to avoid being bullied.  4 of 4 doesn't like this kid.  I always tell my kids to be polite but that they never have to take crap off a bully.  You don't have to be friends with everyone.  When at all possible turn the tables around to blame the children who are the victims.  It's definitely the Canadian way!

Tonight is the Parents Council Meeting.  I hope the Principal brings her Tylenol.  She's gonna need it. 

I think I'm too old for all of this.

911

I got a call from the police early yesterday afternoon.  There were 911 calls coming from 2 of 4's phone and the operator could hear arguing and screaming on the other end of the line.  The police wanted to know where my daughter was at that moment as they needed to get to her quickly.

I'm not a trusting person.  I refused to give out her location.  How did I know this was actually the police?  I checked it out and found it to be a legitimate call.

I called the school to make sure she was in class and alright.  Well, I tried to call the school, but my fingers wouldn't work properly and it took a few tries.  Once I got through the secretary said she'd check.  Normally at this point the secretary would come back on the line to deal with what ever we were talking about.  Instead it was the Vice Principal.  He started questioning me about who I was and what I wanted.  If I could I would have jumped through the phone and shaken him!  I'm glad they protect student privacy and he did the corrrect thing but I was in an acute state of distress.

Turns out she was at school.  When she got to the office he asked to see her phone and they checked it.  The cell was definintely off and no outgoing calls had been logged to 911.  (Maybe they don't register?)
I made sure that she and my other daughter hadn't mixed up their identical phones and that she too was in class.

When "Two" got home I asked if her phone indeed had accidentally made a butt call without her knowledge, what were they doing around the time of the calls that had sounded like a homicide in progress?


Singing a song from a musical in class.


I told her they must have been singing badly.


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Also yesterday, 4 of 4 came home to report that a fellow student had made death threats to her and her friends on the bus while also swearing up a blue streak.  These are 9 year olds.  Upon exiting the bus they were warned they would get what was coming to them tomorrow.  The disturbed child is under observation for the next week with a teacher not leaving her side just in case.

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A couple of weeks ago a lone man tried to get 3 of 4 into his car, promising a ride home from her bus stop.  I now meet the bus every afternoon.  It's a shame that a 12 year old can't walk a block without a problem.  I'd like to think it's just a kindly neighbour making a friendly offer, but now a days a lone middle aged male in a car alone should know better.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and she was close to home, no need to offer.  She didn't recognize the man as being from the area.

I think I need a Valium.