Why I Hate Our Public School - A Rant

When our kids were heading into school 5 years ago we decided to get them situated in a school that was in the top 100 in our state. It was just down the road and we felt blessed that in our low-income neighborhood we had such a "good" school. In this top 100 school, our kids have not thrived, they have retreated into themselves and it has been painful to watch.

Here are my 3 younger kiddos with their Poppi. (Our 2 older kids go to a different school because their mom has control over their schooling)

In this school

• Our kids have been repeatedly forced to pee themselves numerous times because they asked to go to the bathroom at the wrong time.
  Let me say this again: my children were forced to wet themselves because they had to pee at an inconvenient time
• Our son was severely reprimanded for taking a multi-tool to school at 5 years old (because he wanted to fix the playground equipment), a cheap one that didn't actually do anything. When I went to the school to talk to the principal they kept telling me that it was a knife. I said I wouldn't sign their decree of guilt with the word knife on it. The principal at this point took the tool and brought out the "knife" and said, "ma'am it is a knife, see?" I asked if I could see it and attempted to cut myself with it, it didn't cut. I attempted to stab myself in the stomach with it, it didn't stab. This was not a crazy flurry of attempted self-injury, I knew that this "knife" would not hurt me because I wouldn't give my 5 year old a knife he could hurt himself with. This tool was made for kids and couldn't hurt a fly, this was not a knife. The principal (mostly in an attempt to get me out of her office I think) crossed out the word knife and wrote "unauthorized item". I signed the paper and left. Our son was suspended for 2 days and we moved on with life. I will add that I understand that the multi-tool wasn't allowed in the school, but I could not sign an official document saying he had a knife because that would set him up for abuse by the system later on in his school career.
• Our daughter (9) does 3 hours of homework a night 3 hours
• They hold write-ups over our son's (7) head. according to the student handbook, students are only allowed 3 write-ups a semester... however, he has received quite a few (one of which was a write-up for making an angry face... no joke). The explanation we got from the principal is that "as long as he continues to work on his problems he won't be expelled.". So our 7 year old has an expulsion sitting over his head if he doesn't comply with their crazy face rules...
• Our youngest daughter (4) was not accepted for preschool because she knew too much. she knows her ABC's, colors, and can count to 100. Knowing these things disqualified her from learning how to read, how to write, and how to do simple math (which is what they learn in preschool here). As annoying as this was I am grateful.

Why am I grateful?
Because this was the straw that broke the camel's back. We are now working very hard at learning how to homeschool/unschool and our goal is to have our older kids out of that hell hole this coming year.

Our children will no longer be subject to that school's insanity.