Agreeing to Disagree

I should have known back in August that public school and I weren't going to have an easy time together. Well, actually I did know, but I was certain that we could work out a mutual relationship. Which we have. But, after five months, the first Price child ever to enter into public school...will be leaving.

It started last summer. Jacker-the-head cracker saw a Kids Bop song video that said, 'Let's pack up and move to California'. He loved the song and even more so, he loved the school desks where these very pretty children sat. He decided that he wanted to go to school. As the elementary school is only five minutes from our house (the junior high and high school are half an hour), and given that it would give me more time to homeschool the older boys in the afternoon, and given that Jack really wanted to go, we decided it was worth a shot.

The first day of school, all five of us took Jack into school. He had his little backpack on and was the coolest looking kid, all nonchalant and all. The hallway was packed with two kindergarten classes, all the parents, and all of the teachers. We were just standing around waiting for the big goodbye. The school nurse made her way through the throng of parents and proceeded to tell me that they will allow Jack to go to school the first day, but he will not be allowed to come back to school unless he gets his varicella immunization. Chicken pox vaccine. I told her that we had this all taken care of and that we had let them know early on that he would not be getting all of his vaccinations.

Apparently we did not have this all taken care of.

I was very sweet, very demure, very quiet - it was a beautiful and rare thing. The nurse went to the principal and explained my thoughts. He said that if I really didn't want to get the vaccine, Jack could go to school in Kentucky as he is pretty sure they don't mind there...
So, in front of all the parents, all my children, and all the teachers, she presses on. Finally I explained it in a way that she apparently understood: My understanding is that only 3% of children that get chicken pox (before the vaccine began) have complications that require hospitalization. Of those, nearly 2% are severely impoverished and have poor hygiene, leading to infections in sores. That leaves 1% of the general population to require hospitalization. And that was before every child started getting the immunization. So, if every child there has the shot except Jack and Jack gets the virus, what does it matter?

She started to say something and then I came up with this doozy. 'So, if you're saying that every child here should be forced to have an immunization against a virus because of a 1% chance that complications could arise, then every woman standing here should have both of her breasts removed because she has a 30% chance of getting some degree of breast cancer in her lifetime. And every man has a 10% chance of getting some sort of penile cancer. So let's force every woman to get her breasts cut off, and every man to get his penis removed and then my son can get immunized.

Jon's just looked around like he didn't know me and then he simply commented that the suicide rate would surely skyrocket if that happened. And no, I definitely do not always have this kind of comeback. Usually afterwards, I think of good things to say.

But the school and I have had a good relationship. It's just not the best situation for our family. Please don't think I dislike all school institutions. This one just isn't working for us. And Jack hates it. It is a battle everyday and I feel like a liar telling him how much fun he will have. He doesn't have fun. They sit at their desks all afternoon and are 'too busy' to take recess. Its Kindergarten for pete's sake. So, this is one of those decisions that although is tough to make in some regards (no more afternoons of just the older boys and I wading through math), it is a simple decision to make in others. God has given us these children. We have to do what we feel God has laid on our hearts. We feel that to live a life of huge quantities of time with our children develops into those quick, fleeting, unpredictable moments of quality time. To us, you can't have quality time without quantity time.
So, if I'm not on as much in the next few months, you'll understand why. I'll be with all three of my boys again...