The Day after.....

An update from yesterday.....

All through my life I have heard that the Lord will answer your prayers and pick up the slack, after all you can do. Yesterday was a good example of that.

I had prepared. I had knowledgeable people coming to speak.

I had prayed and fasted and even gone to the temple for this situation.

(I cleaned and sterilized my freezer even!)

That was all I could do.

As I passed the packets about Garrett's life around to the other 10 women sitting there, I knew I had done all I could do. The last silent prayer went to heaven and we started the meeting.

It was amazing.

I had Garrett's Learning Center Specialist and his tutor come to speak about him and the struggles he faces academically. They were so professional and so well-versed.

They were also prepared with paperwork and samples and knew what words to say to convince the panel he needed more testing before he started at his new school.

Maybe I should back up a little bit.....

We are not going back to Flint Hill, the school where my children have been attending and where my husband has taught for 10 years. The school that we moved our lives and family for and have bled Flint Hill blood through hours of service and other things. The school we planned our life around to make our family life less stressful. The life we had created for our children that was working and working well, or so we thought.

It's been a long and painful, very frustrating year for us.

We were called in six weeks into school to be told Garrett was failing fourth grade. I looked at his teacher and asked why she hadn't said something (because she knew and I knew we had had several meetings about him and I specifically asked her to let me know if there was a problem!)

They had concerns. They were sorry they didn't talk to us about this sooner.

We were told their mistakes were all water under the bridge.

We were told that they should have done more, but didn't and now we need to deal with it.

Well, long story short, they don't want to work with him. They were very nice, but very calculated in their process. We asked for writing samples and benchmarks and nothing was ever presented until it was too late. And even then, those efforts were pathetic.

I was disappointed over and over again.

There are other children at the school who struggle academically. Actually, quite a few. But we were targeted for some reason.

In the end, after meetings and fasting and prayers and tears almost everyday, Jason announced to the Lower School director that we would not be coming back. Our hands were tied and they knew it. They got what they wanted and it made me very sad to see the lack of effort on their part.

It is the right decision.

We will no longer have to fight every day for Garrett to succeed in a school that doesn't want to help him. He will be successful and he will make it.

Because......

Yesterday at the meeting they approved more testing for him to qualify for services. He will get what he needs and though the fight to help him is not over, he will make it in a school that cares about him.

So, thanks to the Learning Center Specialist and his tutor, we will move forward.

The school was so impressed with our organization and our thoroughness, that they commented on it several times. The woman in charge told me that in ten years she has never had a mother pass out packets and bring such qualified people to speak on behalf of her child.

She told me that she could tell we would work with them on whatever they needed.

I assured her we would.

We created Team Garrett yesterday.

He is going to make it.

My heart is aching to leave Flint Hill, but the Lord will help us out.

After all we can do......