Just an update since my last post

Well, it's been a while since my last post, so I'm going to give some updates on the past couple of weeks.  First I will start off by saying that I landed a new position and I'm loving it and seem to be doing pretty well and getting along with the crew which is a good sign.  That's about all for that.  Last weekend we did a few things that were fun, on Friday night we went to the homecoming game for our school and on Saturday there was a shooting seminar that David participated in.  During the football game we ran into a few of my former teachers and an old coach.  My former 8th grade Reading/English teacher was the ticket taker.  I have ran into her a few other times since high school and she always made it a point to say hi to me and tell me that she still uses my work as examples for her present classes.  During this meeting prior to the game she told me that she seen what I did with the whole baseball situation and thought that it was handled very well and was proud to say that I was her student.  Of course that made me feel good and gave a little more reinforcement of doing the right thing.  Throughout the game I also ran into a few more teachers and friends and talked briefly with them, then close to the end of the first half I ran into a former coach, who was also one of my seventh grade teachers and we talked for a little bit.  He asked about my days in the Navy and what I was up to now.  He is still teaching seventh and eight grade and now coaching the junior high team since stepping down from the varsity squad.  I then had to go to the restroom and my wife told me that after I left he was talking to the people next to us about me as a student, she said it was all good stuff.  We ended up losing that game by a margin of 28-21, but we still had fun attending the game.  On Saturday, there was a shooting seminar that was put on by the Trumbull County 4H club that I took David to.  He was most excited about the archery part and even took his own re-curve bow and got a lot of recognition for it, he then also used one of their compound bows.  At this even he also shot a .22 rifle, black powder rifle, black powder pistol, .20 shotgun, a revolver and a 9mm.  This was his first time ever handling a gun and he did great with the rifle and the shotgun, with the pistols he was a little off target but pretty close, but he seemed a lot more comfortable with the rifles and nailed the targets.  After the event he was presented with a certificate of completion and also given some literature about the club that they have, and he has requested to join the club so we are going to see what we have to do to make that happen.  I am glad that he has taken an interest in the gun safety and shooting, along with maintaining the interest of archery.  Finally I'm going to end with something that has been bothering us since the start of school.  In the second week of school we have noticed that David was in a language arts class that was behind the other class and we have expressed our concern with the teacher, trying to move him into the other class.  The teacher said that they would arrange and IEP meeting and go from there to see what is best for David.  David has been coming home every day for the past month saying "It's so boring, why are we doing third grade work in the fourth grade?"  We let a couple more weeks go by expecting to hear back from the school about a meeting, however nothing was ever set up.  My wife called the school on Wednesday to ask about it and requested the IEP meeting so they were quick and wanted to schedule it for the next day, which conflicted with our schedule so we set it for Monday (tomorrow).  On Friday the teacher sent home a paper to the entire Language Arts class one class stating along the lines of "Your child is performing below grade level" Then there was a section that they wanted us to sign stating "I acknowledge that my child is performing below grade level"  in which we did not sign however we wrote a note stating that we know our child is not performing below grade level, and prior testing proves it.  We have been trying to get him into the other class since the start of the year because we know that if he stays in the class that is so far behind he will get extremely bored and shut down and they will lose him, failing to do their part in educating him.  He is getting all A's at this point with his lowest grade being a 94% so if we acknowledge him performing below grade level that also entitles us to acknowledge that the teacher is not doing her job because she is teaching below grade level.  Our IEP meeting is set for tomorrow morning and hopefully we can get all of this resolved, I will keep you posted on what happens however I believe that I know my child and his potential a lot more than they do, and his teachers from his former school would agree.