Anonymous

Question: What if my child wants to change schools?

My first grade daughter currently attends a charter school. It is a good school with high scores and is really hard to get into (300+ lottery/wait list). She is doing well here good grades, has friends, basically no problems. She is asking to switch to our neighborhood school. Her reasons seem very superficial to me; she wants to ride the bus, meet new friends, and go to the same school that her sister will go to. Her sister will go to the neighborhood school in 1 year. Her sister has special needs and the neighborhood school can address them better then the charter. My question is do I let her make this huge decision and let her switch schools even though she is doing so well where she is at? Also once we leave the charter school it would be practically impossible to get back in to it if she decides she hates the neighborhood school. I just don't know what to do.

Answers:

Advice from Schoolfamily

LiviaMcCoy writes:
Children this age are not ready to make decisions of this magnitude. You should do what you think is best for her and try to help her understand the reasons. Perhaps she could have a friend or two over from her school to start building strong friendships there. Since she is doing so well academically, she should begin to like it better there.

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Community Advice

Blondie71 writes:
What if your child is 14 and has several friends from another school and the kids from the other school are drama free.. My daughter is not getting the best grades where she is at, there is drama between the girls, she called dumb on a daily basis and insulted and called names on a regular basis... Do I let her switch schools?

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Advice from Schoolfamily

LiviaMcCoy writes:
I've been teaching in a grades 6-12 school for a long, long time and I've never seen drama-free adolescents. I imagine that drama exists in the other school, too. It would be good to find out why your daughter is having academic problems. I would recommend meeting with her teachers to find out what is causing it. I would definitely get to the roots of the bullying activity against your daughter. That needs to stop and will probably need to involve school authorities to help her. She also needs to learn techniques for managing bullies. Often, this type of bullying can be stopped if the child being bullied is taught what to say and how to handle it. I am not saying that she needs to stay where she is. But, I will say that you are the parent and in the position to help your daughter make the best decision for herself. Changing from one school to another does not guarantee that she will make better grades and not be bullied. If her school has a counselor, make an appointment to talk with that person right away.