Portal?

Life of a mommy in a Norman Rockwell progressive type of town. Dealing with the school system with a sense of humor.

Everything is calming down in our Norman Rockwell of a town. The schools are open, for the parents are ecstatic.

The weather is wonderful for this time of the year.  There must have been some confusion because we are having the great weather that would have  befitting for the season named summer, not fall.   But I am not complaining, because our landscape will soon be that of the tundra.

My son, the baby of our family started Jr. High School.  Oh, be still my beating heart. He is growing like a weed, getting too old for me to cut his meat.  Which brings on this horrible side effect him getting older, that I too am getting older. No amount of eating well, face creams will cover this. Getting older is a whole other subject (thanks to my son being insistent on growing up) and no, I don't want to talk about me getting older. UGH!

Now back to the subject of school.  In our schools it is a standard to give the kids a laptop computer for schoolwork and homework.  Now, who are these people kidding?  What they are giving them is a school issued gaming device.

   

But the best part of this gift is that it links the school to the student to the parent.  So as the days go on, I can see my kids behavior, school work, homework and grades.  Sounds great doesn't it? Not so fast.

This is turning into a disaster.  Now, I fancy myself computer savvy, I can even change some computer programs, but this is a first class quagmire.  Just logging on is a challenge.  After numerous calls to the school data office. I was told that I needed to set up an account.  I don't want to sound unreasonable, but my son has been in this school system since he started school.  A reasonable person would think that an email with instructions on set up, sent to all parents would not be that difficult.  It seems that they know my email for fundraisers. Obviously, We can now see where their priorities lay.

Instead of dwelling on what is important and not so important for them, we will move on to the elusive school website which by the way is called the  "PORTAL".  This is just a fancy word for, "hey you silly parents, who are paying too high of school taxes, to make you feel special, we will give you normal items with fancy names". "And oh yes, this fancy named thing will cause you undo stress for the rest of the school year".  I open it up, it is a whole other world in there.  Lunch money accounts, no student should have to learn about money, when Mommy and Daddy can load their card.  Thus teaching them that credit cards are the way of their future. Great.

As I navigate through a world that looks as foreign as we do to the aliens from planet Chocolate (hey, I like chocolate).   I discover that there are many tabs that add new and exciting things to the school year, but where is the tab that has a straight yes or no answer for homework being completed.  I see tabs for the work assigned and when it is to be turned in or else will be late.  But once again no tab for the teachers to say they received or marked it.  Here comes the panic like a tidal wave, while talking my son.  Our conversation goes like this "the Portal says no mark on the said assignment, but the due date passed." My son obviously losing patience for the everyday constant conversation about the "Portal" with his Mom, "I handed that in".  In my head I am thinking -Okay if you handed it in a couple of days ago. What is she doing with the work and how come it isn't posted with a grade.  It is a know fact that she isn't teaching the students, because I now am known as Mommy/teacher at home for my son's "Core" math and everything else that isn't learned at school.  I am so thrilled about my new position, in fact so excited I want to stab myself in the forehead with a fork.

 This is the Portal to Stress.

 Because at my son's school I really feel like the parents are in school.  I get to explain the new math, to my son/student, which clearly other parents have to do also, which by the way I have no idea what new math that means.  What happened to the old math, it worked for me and everyone else.  Why fix something that isn't broken?  I am informed by my son in a strong tone, "Mom, we don't call it new math, we call it CORE math". There I am nodding my head up and down, thinking I want to break... into... little... pieces using  a hammer on the calculator of the person that invented this "CORE" math.

Okay, time for this Mommy to get with the program. No teacher is going to be smarter that this Mommy, oh, yea, no teacher, I rant. My sweet tiny dog looks at her Mommy as if I has gone off the deep end.  What is a mom to do, but go on line, YouTube and every other site to learn core math. Starting at full steam I can do this,  I can do this, turns into I can't, I just can't do this. After an afternoon of frustration, I now want use my laptop as a medieval weapon of destruction on the school. OK, the teacher is apparently smarter than me. I concede this time. But let me tell you, not happily.  This is when the papers for the parents come home to teach us about that "CORE" math and how to help your child complete it.  Alright, alright, I don't want to be mean but, what happened to the kids going to school and actually learning at school. I went to school and that old math is still working for me. I don't seem to be having any problems, or.... could I be having problems, and everyone is nice enough not to say anything. Oh God, here is another thing to be paranoid about.

After all this frantic, crazed Mom behavior, and many emails later.  Asking the teacher to sending home the same assignments again, my son pleading that he did do them and handed them in. I learn from a email from the teacher, "your son may not be missing any work, I might have misplaced the pile of those assignment and didn't mark them.

Really?  You will have to excuse me, I need to bang my head against the wall a few more times.

Author's Note

Please give me examples to improve, I am looking for a Garrison Keillor type of wit. Hoping to be able to use my writings in our weekly newspaper. I could use some real advice and help. Thank you