First Day of school! But this time in America!
H had a delayed start to school (more on that later), but the girls were both able to go ahead. No one was excited to start over at a new school this year, but I asked the girls what they were looking forward to about school. Their answers included:
- A/C in all the classrooms (their Indian school was open-air except for a few rooms)
- no uniforms (personally, I was ok with the uniforms)
- no school lunch (it was included in their school tuition in India so I made them eat school lunch most of the time and, yeah, it wasn't the best)
- huge library (I never understood why the library at their Indian school was so tiny)
- seeing what an American school is actually like (vs what they had seen on TV and movies)
I walked CJ to the elementary school (the same one that H went to when we lived here before!) and she was pretty nervous going into the classroom. At the open house the week before, we had met a girl in her class named Chloe. Her mom knew someone in our ward and told them to look out for us. And sweet Chloe moved her seat so that she would be next to CJ. So on the first day, there was Chloe, waiting for CJ and it made it easier for her to go into class. And I was so thankful for Chloe and her mom that helped CJ have an easier first day of school!
After taking CJ, I had time to come back home and walk E to the bus stop around the corner from our house. She had a couple of friends at the bus stop right before ours, so they said they'd save her a seat.
I'm happy to report that both girls seemed to have a great day! When the girls each got home, we had first day of school cookies together while they each told me about their day.
E also got her new bed while they were at school and after dinner CJ helped Brandon put it together. That meant that two out of the three kids were no longer sleeping on the floor! (CJ was using H's old bed from before we moved.)
And since there was no homework on the first day of school, we finished the day by watching the last episode of Dragon Prince.
But that was the girls. H starting school was a whole different story.
Let me just back up and say that as soon as we learned we were moving back to the US, we had a good idea what area we would move back to and so I knew what schools the kids would probably attend. I contacted the high school right away to explain the situation: we were moving back from India, the grades were different here, I wouldn't have his final grades until August when they released his IB test scores, this is what an IB exam is, this is why it's important, yada yada yada. They assured me that they had students transfer from international schools all the time and as soon as they got his complete transcripts, they would register him for classes. We even called them from India to double check if there was anything else we could do in the meantime. They seemed completely unphased.
So when we moved back and finally got his IB exam results in early August (he passed!) I immediately sent them to the school to tell them his transcripts were now complete. But then I didn't hear back. I called, multiple people, multiple times, H ad I showed up at freshman orientation (even though he wasn't registered yet) so I could talk to someone. The first day of school got closer and it was clear that the school didn't have a clue what to do with H.
School starred on a Wedesday; on the following Friday, I got an email that he could come register and start on Monday. Huzzah! We met with his school counselor, but it was clear from the get-go that they still didn't have a clue. Apparently they found someone who worked at the school that had also once worked at a school that had an IB program. And so they gave her H's grades and told her to make sense of them. But as far as I could tell, she just kinda made it up. I asked them how she came to the grades that she did, and the answer didn't really make sense to me, and definitely wasn't what they actually meant. And what's worse is that with this new interpretation, they thought that H had failed the majority of his classes! They even suggested registering H as a sophomore instead of a junior. H was close to tears.
The head counselor came in and she also tried to explain how they came up the grades they did, but I kept insisting that they weren't right. H was a good student. They suggested that he could test out of the classes that he 'failed' so he wouldn't have to repeat anything and he could register as a junior. This is the compromise we took, in order to get him into school, but I knew they were wrong. But as we tried to register him, we ran into another hiccup. Because they thought he was a struggling student, they wouldn't let him take the AP classes he wanted (except for History, because even with their messed up system, they acknowledged he had passed that one). I tried to explain how difficult his classes were overseas, the equivalent of everything being honors, and the IB exams at the end (which he passed!) being like an AP exam. No dice.
So we registered him as best we could in the classes we thought could work. They weren't what H wanted per se, but it was as good as we could get under the circumstances. I will say, his counselor was very nice about it, and very sympathetic, but she had to do what she was told. At the very least, H had started school! Four days late, but at least he was going!
As soon as I got home from our meeting, I went to work trying to fix things. I emailed his school in India so they could explain his grades. I looked up the district guidelines to see if anything there would help and--ta da!--there was an entire section about international students and what to do with grades that don't correlate. I emailed someone in the district to try to get their help. I emailed the head counselor and tried to explain what the grades meant, sent a link to a website about the IB program, and another to page 19 of their handbook.
But weeks went by and, despite what I'm sure were annoying emails to the school, nothing changed. And the school didn't seem in any hurry to get H to test out of his classes either. Finally, I crowd-sourced my local church's groupme (should've done that earlier) to see if anyone knew anyone who worked for the school district. Someone messaged someone else who got me the name of a person at the district that they thought could help. I called and left a message and, surprisingly fast, she called me back. She was flabbergasted: why had the school handled it that way? She told me not to worry, she would call the school and get back to me soon. And she did! And then his school called me, too! Amazing!
Since they didn't have a system for how to calculate his grades, the handbook said they would give all his previous classes either Pass or Fail. And just like that--boom! He passed all his classes, and his GPA started over. I was even able to get them to recognize all his previous classes as being at the honors level. There was just one sticky point: his school felt that certain math and science classes corresponded. And, in their opinion, H hadn't taken the requisite math class before taking physics. So they would count his old physics class as just a general science class 🙄, and he would have to take physics over again.
So we got it sorted, but it took way more time and effort than it should have. And, side note, on my call with the head counselor, she thanked me for the opportunity we had given them to learn the correct procedure for the future. 🙄
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