The Preschooler Formerly Known as Busy Baby goes to a school where there is more than one program in the building. The newest one is actually affiliated with the school he will be going to for kindergarten next year.

We didn't sign him up for it at the beginning of the year because we thought it wouldn't work with our schedule, but, it turned out that it would have.

We chose to leave him where he was, which was fine, but, I kept having this nagging feeling we should have tried to get him in, but, we just never did. We were even praised for not moving him because a lot of people did move to the new program, and, it was just kind of awkward all around.

We dearly love his current program and overall, have no problems, he even has some of the same teachers Busy Girl had. However, lately, there have been some classroom management issues and I had some curriculum-tyoe questions, so I talked to the director.

During the talk, I mentioned that we might consider moving The Preschooler Formerly Known as Busy Baby to another school. It wasn't meant to be a threat or anything, it was a hard conversation to have, we love the teachers and have been there since Busy Girl was an infant, but, that we needed to do what's best for him.

While I was talking to her, it occured to me that I should probably put his name on the waiting list of the other program in the building, so I asked her to do that after our talk was over.

We likely would have done that even if I didn't have some concerns about the current situation. So, putting him on the waiting list for the other program was kind of, yet, kind of not related to our talk.

As she should have, the director told me to speak with the teacher, and, I did.

The teacher, whom we have known for many years, and, is from another country, took it personally (which is the last thing I wanted and went to great lengths to try to keep it focused on the situation) even though I told her that one of my biggest concerns was the behavior of a child in the room that clearly takes up one person's time for most of the day.

I told her I felt like she wasn't able to do her job fully somewhat because of this child who, by the way, happens to be from a very disadvantaged background. (This child is not the only issue, there's a couple of other things, but, my, this post is getting wordy...)

Anyway, I felt that I should also be the one to tell her that we put The Preschooler Formerly Known as Busy Baby on the waiting list for the other program so she wouldn't hear it elsewhere.

I emphasized that it is affiliated with the school he will be going to for kindergarten next year, and that that was a big factor. She still seemed hurt, and I could tell that she still thought I blamed her for something, but, the talk ended fairly well.

Did I mention that the other program happens to be less socioeconomically diverse? Hang onto that thought for a minute...

So, I pointed out some things to the director, asked her to put us on the list (which again, we probably would have done, anyway because it's part of school he will go to next year) and she gives a stern "talking to" to all the teachers with my points and they all know I was the one with the "issues". Lovely.

Well, guess what?

A spot in the other program came open later that day and he is moving next week. I am confident it had nothing to do with our talk, you just have to trust me on that.

But now, around school, the whole thing has kind of morphed into, "the Busy's are unhappy with the teacher from a different country and they want to get away from the poor kids so the school opened up a spot in this new program for them. We thought they were better than that."

Arrrrghhh!

(Disclaimer: it's possible that someone affiliated with the school is reading this, please know it will all work out and we aren't unhappy with anyone, we just want some things different for the kids and the teachers in that room)

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