Zachary's Schooling

While I was looking into enrolling Zachary into TXVA (virtual public school) I discovered that there was another virtual public school in Texas. This one is called Connections Academy and is offered through the Houston ISD to all students in the state of Texas.

After reading more about CA (Connections Academy) they offered more in the way of gifted education. They have a gifted Math, Science and Language Arts course. The school is for 3-8 grades. I contacted them and they said they would except Zachary is they thought his course of study this year was equal to 2nd grade. Well, I knew he would get in. I started gathering all the paper work. One of the papers they needed to enroll Zachary was a letter signed by my local school district superintendent.

I took the letter to get signed. I called to see if he had signed it and he wanted to talk to me. He said that he needed to let his legal team look at it before he signed it because it was a blanket statement that covered all students in his district. I told him it wasn't and it was only for Zachary. He said he would call me back.

He called back and told me about another virtual school program that was really good and I should check into that for Zachary. I did check into it and it is for High School students. I told him this and he said "Oh, I didn't know". Then why did he suggest it for my 7 year old son? UGH!

So, he called me back a few times. We exchanged words as to me saying that the public school didn't do anything for Zachary's academic needs and him saying they did. He doesn't know what really happened in Kindergarten. He called me back and said he wasn't going to be signing that paper. That he didn't want any kid in his district to be going to another school that was out of his district. That the schools here offered an excellent education. However he did say that the district didn't have the funds needed to provide the gifted classes that this virtual school offered. His other concerned was over the funding. If Zachary goes to CA then Houston ISD getting the funding for Zachary and not the local school district. He didn't want his funding money to go to another district. I told him that right now he wasn't getting any funding for Zachary anyway and that he was more concern about the money then my son's education. At first he said he wasn't but then he agreed he was. It all came down to MONEY.

So, without his signature Zachary can not attend CA. So, I completed the enrollment for TXVA. Zachary is currently set up to attend TXVA next year. He will also be in 3rd grade. We have gotten a one year grade skip for Zachary, however I don't think that will be enough for Math. I am going to try to get him into 4th grade math.

I am not happy with the way the current superintendent has delt with this issue. To put MONEY ahead of a child's education is not right. My child may not be attending the local school district right now but may be in the future. It will be with my voting that I will change my local school district.