Fostering independence is not an excuse for being irresponsible.

He hadn't even gotten his shoes off and gone downstairs yet.

So.  Ash came home from school today, making it official — he only has 2½ days left of 1st Grade.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I’m not done screaming, no.

See, as soon as he got home, he checked the folder in his backpack JUST IN CASE they decided to send home any homework, after all. This is despite the fact that they haven’t sent any since two weeks ago, and he read on the class notes that they didn’t intend to.  But of course, at the start of the school day — with all that fresh, sensory chaos around him — he’s usually too distracted to remember to check his folder for things he’s supposed to hand in, unless one of the staff asks him if he’s done it yet.

There’s a time-sensitive form for the summer program that made it home to us last week, which we were asked to return ASAP. We did, but it sat in his folder for days. I pointed that out today, and the response was that it’s Ash’s job to take things from his folder.

Look, I know it’s a skill they’ve been working on with him. I know that, when it came to his homework, they knew I always had him do it and were more interested in seeing if he focused enough to hand it in on time, than they were in actually getting it on time.  But if they KNOW there’s a time-sensitive form we’re returning, don’t you think it would make sense to check for it themselves, and not rely on him to do something they KNOW he can’t yet be relied upon to do by himself?

Sheesh.