The End of the Sloan Era

I haven't posted about this b/c I'm still too emotional about it, but I figure I should capture it for Riley's sake when he's reading these blogs about his life years from now! Yeah right! :) 

I'm struggling with how much I want to get into it, but for now we'll just say. Sloan quickly changed from the right place for Riley to the completely wrong place for Riley. I think a lot of how you see a school is directly related to the teacher your child has...and let's just say Ms. Ashley (Conley's Nanny) was Riley's teacher last year. This year we weren't so lucky! 

As a parent, I feel HORRIBLE that I left him there as long as I did. His acting out at school started Oct. 4th - 2 days after Conley was born. Then I was so sleep deprived and consumed with adjusting to life with 2 kids that I feel like I failed Riley by leaving him in that school and with this particular teacher for as long as I did. In the end, it went wheels off at record speed. But at least I got to speak my peace to both the husband and wife owners about how I felt about their approach, the teacher and their labeling of children. Ironically, speaking my mind to them doesn't make me feel any better about what Riley went through there though. 

Ms. Ashley of course stepped right up and said he could stay with her for the time being. 6 weeks before the end of the year isn't the best time to be looking for a new school. But I need to get on that soon - I'll have an entire new set of interview questions after our experience with Sloan. Of course, Ms. Ashley is taking Riley on daily adventures and doing all sorts of fun stuff so I better hurry or he may not EVER want to go back to school! :) 

The saddest part for me was him asking every day if he was going to school for a few weeks. I just said "No, you aren't going back there. We're going to find you a new school." To which is his first response was " A Star Wars school Mommy?!". Oh how I wish I could send him to Jedi school...he'd be the star pupil! And he would ask to see his best friend Liam almost every day, and that really tore my heart out! I know he'll make new friends and this will happen many more times, but hopefully under better circumstances in the future. A few weeks after he stopped going to Sloan, he all of the sudden said to me one night when we were lying in his bed after reading books - "I'm not going back to school b/c Ms. Amy & Mr. Darin were mean." We've never discussed this with him, so I feel like he was being honest based on his experience there. Which again - rips your heart out as a parent! But I digress! 

We'll find another school...that will be as good as the promise we thought Sloan had!