Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

I know it's not my day to blog, but I really feel the need to think something through by writing about it. Two years ago, my son began having a very difficult time at the small Catholic school he was attending. In the end, I took him out of that school with only seven weeks of the school year remaining and put him in the public school. When all of this drama was playing out, one of my son's teachers who I considered a really good friend became very angry with me, offended that I didn't go to her. For the past two years now, she has made it clear she does not want to talk to me, does not want to carry on a friendship with me. Initially, I was very hurt by the loss of this friendship. I truly agonized over it. Because my youngest was still attending the Catholic school and had her as a teacher, and was also friends with her son, we had to interact occasionally. She remained very distant, very cool. I thought maybe after some time had passed, we could let bygones be bygones,...

In March my middle child experienced a situation at the school he was then attending, which resulted in him being disciplined. He wasn't allowed to participate with the track team, and he was given a written disciplinary notice that went into his file. The situation happened during a field trip, and after much discussion between the parents of some students involved as well as some of the teachers involved, I was convinced the teachers were more at fault than any of the students. It seemed the teachers were not supervising the rather large group of students carefully, which resulted in some of the students behaving badly. My son, though he did not actually participate in the bad behavior, was deemed guilty by association. Needless to say, I was furious with how the teachers as well as the administration of the school handled the discipline. This was the beginning of the end for my son attending this school. The end of his attending this particular school came after two teachers inv...