A bullying incident happened to Micah the other day at the Homecoming Parade, and after a lot of going to the school, picking out the bullies, talking to the administrators (who are doing what they can, I guess), and more, I have come to the conclusion that if something does not change immediately, we are going to do something drastic. That is, if the bullies do not stop with this. Police reports have been filed. Some of the teachers do not seem to be supportive, either. This is getting so out of hand that we are now considering...........just considering for now........

PRIVATE SCHOOL.

There are 3 right in the neighborhood. Well for reasons I won't go into right now, Steve nixed the Catholic ones (2 of them)which left another private Christian school, Central Baptist Academy. I stopped by there the other day and got info. Their Christian methods and credo go with what I believe and know and Micah was very agreeable, too. There are openings, the tuition is really not bad at all, and it's right at the end of our street. Of course there is more we are going to have to do. I will not make a decision like this lightly. Steve and I have to be unified on this. I want to investigate their credentials, etc. But I did like what I saw. It also goes K-12, not K-8 like the two Catholic ones. They teach Christian values and precepts...and in a private school one doesn't have to be afraid to say the word "God" while being able to say anything else. Anyway, we have to really be sure about this. The bullying at the other school is out of hand. I am really sad about it, because we've been with Finneytown schools for so many years. They have a winning band which I'm proud to have Nathanael be a part of. Nathanael's in a good group of kids and he survived the bullying when he was 12 or so. He is strong enough, too, not to get engaged in too much of the political correctness that public schools dish out. He's earned the respect of the school and he's taking academically weighted classes.
To be honest, there were 4 kids who helped Micah when a group of bullies knocked him over and stole his candy, damaged his bike, and roughed him up. The bullies were bigger than he is (though when I saw as Micah ID'd them at school in the lunchroom the next day, most of them looked like a bunch of ragtag little scrawny white punks except for one fat black kid who helped himself to Micah's homecoming candy, same height as Micah but over twice as big, sure had no need of more candy).
The 4 who helped were a football player named Buddy Stallworth, and three kids dressed as goths for Halloween who saw him later and swore to take revenge on behalf of Nathanael's little brother. So to those kids I'm grateful.
I am hopeful the kids (it's a racially mixed bunch too so there's no race card being played here, thank goodness, even though some grown MAN called him a scrawny white SOB later as some kids in the back of the truck the man was in rode by and teased Micah while he was riding his damaged bike home). Gawsh I really hate race cards and I'm so glad the ones who helped him were also black and white. We did have a racial incident before when some kids at school a couple of years ago were calling him "cracker" and getting into a racial mess is a time-consuming waste.

Anyway, if we switch to the private school it is also a racial mix, about half b and half w, so it would leave no bad preconceptions in Micah's mind either about either black or white people. (Hey Micah's white himself but anyway...)

My comment on the racial thing is, genetically there's not even a foundation for separating people into categories like this...it is purely a cultural thing.

But I digress. I want Micah to be SAFE, both physically and emotionally. This is taking an emotional toll on him. His grades, despite frantic efforts to make up missing homework, are not good. It's been a rocky start to middle school. When I see the kids they just appear out of control. Is it Finneytown? What is it? This is not the first time for bullying, either. The school has such an anti-bullying policy, supposedly they had bullying workshops...what good has it done? It's out of control. OUT OF CONTROL. The administrators agree and sympathize with me and promise itwill be fixed and this won't happen again. In the meantime how can I be sure my kid is safe at school? Can he even learn there? This used to be an award-winning school,recognized by the state. Let's not let the secret out that it's really slipping because I don't want to take a loss on my house when I sell it.