First World Problems: Virtual school!
6 kids (1 with special needs, 1 new kindergartener, 1 brainiac & three immigrants),
3 school districts, 4 different schools…
Anyone want to know how our first few weeks of school have been? We have six kids, ages range from 3 to 15. Our household is a part of four different schools in three different school systems. The three middles started in-person school on August 17th, the two bigs started virtual school August 31st and Mia (the baby) started in-person preschool and virtual speech therapy this week. Luckily, Matt works a pretty flexible job or else this would be a logistical nightmare! Mia is at Hope preschool and they pretty much follow Germantown School District. Levi, Charlee and Israel are in Collierville School District and Ashley and Isaac are virtual in the Shelby County School District. We have three district rules to follow, four different schedules, four different ways of going about this Covid stuff and a bazillion teacher emails coming at us…telling us how to use Seesaw, Prodigy, Powerschool, Teams, etc!
The Bigs
The Middles
The Baby
I want to say, we are so very thankful for all our teachers and all the hard work they are putting into this school year. We see you and appreciate you! When I get frustrated at home, I have to stop and remind myself to pray for you all because I can’t imagine the frustration you are feeling. I know none of our struggles are intentional and I know we are just one family out of many. I acknowledge that, but if I don’t advocate for my kiddos then who will?
I have walked by Ashley’s computer to hear at least three of her teachers saying something like, “I have no idea what I am doing!” or “We are all learning as we go.” Everyday we are getting text alerts saying one of the virtual kids was absent from a class…almost everything in our house runs off internet and we live in the country!!! Most of my time spent with them is troubleshooting their connection.
For those of you who do not know our story, we started an adoption process in May of 2017. The day before Thanksgiving 2019, we brought Ashley (15), Isaac (13) and Israel (11) home from Belize. You can only imagine the schools in a third world country and trying to figure out what grade level they were on was very difficult. Sycamore said let’s just get Israel in and go from there. We were first going to homeschool Isaac and Ashley so they didn’t even really start school until after the holidays. The reason we are in three different school districts is a whole different story.
You want to hear it? OK, glad you asked. So Matt and I moved from our 1100 square foot home in Bartlett/Memphis area off Sycamore View in 2016 while I was pregnant with our third biological child. We spent four months living with my parents until we finally found a house we loved in Eads. We fell in love with this home and land so we decided to take our chances with schools in the future. God was seen all in our house hunting process. We do believe finding this home was a huge blessing. God obviously knew in the future we’d be expanding because this house has plenty of room to do so. A house like this in Germantown or Collierville we would never be able to afford. When Charlee started Kindergarten, luckily Collierville Schools were accepting transfer students. The area we live in is consider “Collierville Reserve” and from our understanding this area has a higher priority on the transfer list than the rest of Shelby Country not in the district. We barely got her in. The following year, they shut the district to transfer students (unless you were a current transfer or had a sibling in already). We had no idea when the three from Belize were coming home, but I went ahead and applied for a transfer for Israel to attend the 2019-2020 school year at Sycamore Elementary School, which was granted! The elementary schools in Collierville were the only ones open at the time for ANY transfers. The middle and high schools didn’t even accept transfers with siblings. That left us with a decision to make for Ashley and Isaac. We went back and forth on homeschool (which we spent over a thousand dollars to get a spot in a program) and public schools. At the time, we both had full-time jobs and were rounding up a support system to help us with homeschool. Once they came home, we very much realized how much we needed the support of the public school system. Matt and I are not trained to catch them up! We will be their biggest advocates, but trained…no. Our youngest has Mosaic Down syndrome so we have a little (and still only a little) understanding of how IEP’s and SPED works. Knowing the school system provides extra help to those who need it, we felt that was the right direction to go.
So back to these past few weeks! Keep in mind, the two that started virtual only had less than three months in school before Covid hit. A, I & I are trying to navigate a new country, culture, way of doing school, a new home and family, new friends…basically everything! I tried setting up meetings for IEP’s, but from what I have heard the schools are more receptive to offer support if they are the ones to identify the needs. Long story, short…we did not get any set up and all were passed on to the next grade(??). Mind you, Ashley had a failing grade of 10 in math! The week before virtual school starts and we find out Ashley is enrolled in French, ROTC, an upper level elective for science, algebra 1 and apparently was placed in 4 honors classes at Germantown High School. Our kids are learning to use a computer, type with 1 finger and are learning to speak correct English – let allow FRENCH! WHAT THE WHAT????!!! After a couple phone call attempts and unanswered voicemails to the person we thought was the 9th grade counselor, I got pretty fed up last night after reading Ashley’s All About Me assignment. Side note: so apparently last spring they had the 8th grade students sign up for high school classes. Ashley signed up for French, ROTC and multiple honors classes! She has never picked classes before in her life, has no idea what ROTC is and yet they still let her in those. The counselor said today that her grades do not even qualify her for these classes she was placed in. What if we hadn’t said anything? Would she have just been left and passed on again?
I am going to show you what she wrote for her All About Me. This is not to shame her, but so you have an idea of how dire the situation is to get her in the right classes with the help she needs! Yes, it is very sweet, but no where near a 9th grade level, surely not HONORS 9th grade level.
“My name is Ashley Hanna Portillo. I am 15 years old. My favorite color is blue, and I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers, their names are Mia, Charlee, Levi ,Isreal , Isaac. Charlee is 7 years old,Mia is 3 years old, Levi is 5 years old,Isreal is 11 years old, Isaac is 13 years old and I have a dog name bow, my dog is a golden retriever. I live in a big house. I have friends and they are kind to me and to my family too.my MOM and DAD loves me so much, they are kind to me and to my brothers, sisters too. We also spent time together on every Friday and we watch movies together, we eat popcorn, rice, bean, chicken, brownies and ice cream. We laugh together and my family is so much fun. We have a lake behind our house. we swim in it. A family of 8 people in a house is fun to have. Each of us have own bedroom in the house. The tubinis family. We also watch harry patter on Saturdays, we eat rice,bean,chicken. On Thursday we eat pasta, we watch tag, we do iPad time 7:30 to 9:00. We also garden with vegetables in it, beautiful flowers in it too. My mom loves flowers so much. if you came to house you see flowers everywhere, inside and outside.”
After helping her submit this assignment, I immediately emailed her teacher and the Germantown High School principal. This morning, Matt finally spoke to the person he had been calling and he pointed us in the right direction. I got a great response from Ashley’s teacher who sent us to the ESL teachers and to the correct counselor. Matt and I finally felt a sense of relief today after two weeks of school. Now sweet, sweet Isaac. He is so quiet and smart. We know he is behind, but not as far as Ashley. We will tackle his help next.
The three SyCamore-ians are doing awesome. Israel is in ESL, he has great teachers and loves his school. Levi being the sweet new Kindergartener comes home and throws a fit everyday after school, although he LOVES school, he is still just adjusting to everyday, all day school.
Charlee is a straight A student who needs very little guidance. We were spoiled these last few years with her. Now, we see how much time and energy raising school-aged kids can be!
Mia loves her 3’s class and teacher. This morning, she had her first virtual speech session with Ms. Erin at Macon Hall. It went pretty well; however, Mia is still learning to speak to a screen (while also trying to eat her breakfast). I do not believe this will give Ms. Erin an accurate guide on how well she is doing with her speech; therefore, her goals won’t indicate her progress and her updated goals will not be challenging enough for her.
Guys, I am 100% sure this is God’s plan for me…to be at home so that I can try my best to navigate this crazy life!
I would be lost without Matt and thank God everyday for him! I cannot imagine all the kids in school right now who do not have advocates behind them. They are getting lost in the system, passed on in grades and falling behind very fast! I know we are all just surviving, but our kid’s education should not be taking the brunt of all this! I will continue to strive everyday to speak up for my kids and for education globally! Yes, we chose this path. Yes, we knew it would be hard. Yes, some may think we are not smart. BUT GUYS! Even after all my complaining and all the problems we are seeing in our country right now the education, wellness and life here in the States, I DO BELIEVE, is much better than where they came from. We don’t want them to forget Belize and their previous life, but we do want them to know they were created for MORE!
Love you, friends!
Kristina
