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Some children learn better outside walls

Anne Grogan

What in blazes is going on in our schools?

The majority of people polled after the Littleton, Colo., shooting said they believed lack of parental involvement was the foremost contributing factor to such violent events.

Maybe.



But if these children are suffering so terribly because of their parents, why are they going berserk at school?

I think violence at school is violence toward school.



And I think I understand some of its reasons.

Violence occurs at schools because cement walls are ugly. Because some children require more attention to become engaged than a 20 to 1 ratio allows. Because state mandated curricula don’t address the needs of children who learn by touching and moving and because 40 minutes is not long enough to undertake some in-depth projects.

Because some children learn best at night. Some learn slowly. Some learn quickly.

Because some parents must work every night or weekend or around the clock at times.

Parents are not entirely blameless nor should they be held entirely accountable for their children’s behavior. After all, parents are required by law to educate their children.

Monday through Friday, for six hours each day, children across the United States shuffle every 40 minutes from one subject to another. They spend more time talking about the environment than they spend walking in the environment. They can’t identify the birds that fly freely past the windows.

School is probably the second most influential element in the development of the child.

My child attends the Prosser Creek Charter School because I believe in the charter school’s absolute potential. Charter schools have the potential to change the way America thinks by changing the way Americans think about education.

Truckee’s best kept secret is that school is great at Prosser Creek Charter School. And enrollment is open to all.

When the Prosser Creek Charter School first became a possibility, then a probability, and finally a reality, I knew that all those prayers for my son’s educational well-being had been answered. I knew that my son’s potential and the school’s potential are perfectly and profoundly matched. Though I was worried about my ability to home-school my child, to fully engage and educate my child, I enrolled him at Prosser Creek Charter School before the charter had been officially granted. I wasn’t taking any chances that I might not get him in.

And each day I am thankful for the good school my son attends.

I’m sorry about all the hoopla surrounding the TTUSD and Prosser Creek Charter School, though. I think it’s made quite an enigma of the charter school, and a lot of people don’t know what’s really going on out there.

I enrolled my son at Prosser Creek Charter School with the intention of home-schooling him.

I had more confidence in myself than in the public school system, but less confidence than I would have liked.


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