My six-year-old made it through three days of school.
Before school started, when I could see that he wanted to go, I asked the school to test him, so the school would be very aware of how far ahead he is. For example, he tested at the end of second grade for math.
On his first day of school, the math he did was circling two balls, and writing the number two. Stuff like that. He brought it home. I said nothing. Although I noticed that after a page of this sort of math, he started making mistakes like writing there is one shoe instead of two shoes.
On the third day of school, I found him in his bed, crying. He said, “I was so excited to go to school and now I’m not excited anymore.”
He said the playground is too scary because there are third and fourth graders and the first graders can’t do anything. He said his best friend got beaten up and no teachers saw.
“What? Beaten up? Like how?”
“His skin got peeled off. Really. I’m not kidding.”
I don’t know about the skin. I’m sure he’s scared, though. The school playground reminds me of Lord of the Flies but without starvation to keep kids focused on the serious issue of hunger.
I called the school to say I am taking him out of school until he gets a differentiated math curriculum.
The school said they thought the math he was doing was okay for him.
So I told them to forget it. He’s not coming back.