Flower Parts

Claire has this teacher that has labeled her as "behind" because I homeschooled her last year. I know she has a hard time with phonics and learning how to read. Kinda why I looked into a school. I was clear with that. She is having a hard time consistently understanding how sounds go together. One day she gets it, one day she cannot remember what "a" or "e" or some blend sounds like.

I felt a "professional" can help me teach her skills to "get" it consistently. Instead, I get that she is a "failure". That is Claire's term. I am constantly trying to come up with things to show her she is not a failure and that she is a smart girl, a beautiful girl and that all of the things about Claire are unique and special.

She is not stupid and I cannot say I did anything of a disservice to her. When I tried all I could with my resources, I enrolled her in school. Now that this has happened, I've found more resources and am getting results at home with her. The teacher prefers to send her home with assessments that have a failing mark and tell me that she is not capable of learning because I homeschooled her... Can it be that Claire does not hear the teacher, or understand her or get a certain accent? Can it be something about a student distracting her? I don't know, I am trying to keep a business and household together here, not there...

Claire is excellent in math and science though.

This is a scan of a drawing she did of the parts of a flower. The key is she did of the parts of a flower. Yah, she has two of them spelled wrong, but it comes out of a college text book that she and I found when she asked me what the stamen and other flower parts were called. Now,tell me she is dumb or behind? I don't get why she is able to do the work here and will not for the teacher there? The whole point of first, second and third grade is to seek improvement and completion of the basics of learning, not develop test anxiety.

I am dissapointed with this whole "school" process and I have no idea what to do. The thing is that if we leave, we are letting this teacher win too. She gets to keep the students that will succeed in her program. Woohoo. I am learning that 100% pass of tests has less to do with encouraging a full learning experience and more to do with pushing kids out of a program that does not fit into a mold. The irony is that she can and is still trying to blame it on me...

My instinct is to pull her out and homeschool again. Dave, to enroll her in the podunk local elementary school that caused a lot of the problems in the first place.