Matthew's last day of CAVA

and geez, they made sure I was happy to be leaving. We had to signs tons of new paperwork for both Matthew and Jonathan and none of which had anything to do with Matthew's disenrolling. The dates the computer gave the teacher for start of new classes were totally off but of course, the computer knows all and I know nothing even tho I was PHYSICALLY PRESENT! *insert serious eyeroll here* I finally put my finger on why I'm so happy to be leaving them and that's because in the time I've been with them I've seen more emphasis put on testing, testing, and still more testing (and not always state or federal stuff either). There is more paperwork constantly, more rules and regulations about what is acceptable and all of it is limiting things further and further. All options have been pretty much done away with and now we are left with the only differences between it and public school are the teacher, oh excuse me, "learning coach" (which would be ME the person that is actually with them 24hrs a day actually TEACHING THEM!), the number of students, and that this is a richer curriculum but it's still a lot of the dry, boring, activities and after a while it chaffes. It's tons of reading and little hands on stuff.

So Matthew is officially done there. We are taking a bit of time off from heavy academics to refocus and work on our relationship and his work ethic. He'll still have some schoolwork each day but nothing that should take more than 2-3hrs so there will be no reason for him to not be getting it done. One of the things I told him he had to do was come up with a list of 20 things that he wanted to learn more about by the end of the week. (I know, I'm a mean mommy LOL) Little booger totally rolled his eyes at me and started telling me how he couldn't possibly do it so I threw out a couple of ideas at him to get him started and in 10min we had a list of 25. I think there is probably more out there but it's a good start and many things Jonathan was saying he wanted to learn too so that's even better. I'm really very hopeful that the change in direction and letting things be more about the fun and excitement of learning rather than worrying about our "progress" or testing or passing assessments will be much better for all of us.