MPUSD

Just got a notice home from K's school today. Since the budgets here in CA are so messed up, the school district of MasterPlanistan, in its infinite and all knowing wisdom, has decided it is necessary to have four furlough days. Now I am not really super happy about that, but it gets worse. Instead of maybe just ending the school year four days early, they have decided that there will be no school on June 7-8 and 14-15. The last day of school was scheduled for June 17.

Now why the hell couldn't they have moved the last day to June 11 and just been done with it. As it is our school district is the latest in the area to start back, and consequently the latest to let out for summer break. This Monday and Tuesday furlough thing only makes things more complicated for the parents, who, by the way, pay the property taxes which pay for the schools in the first place. As it is, the kids are only in the classroom just a little over 25 hours per week. And anything that they cannot get to in such a short amount of time ends up falling to the parents to cover, by way of an excessive homework load. No kind of work/school/life balance for our darling snowflakes here in MasterPlanistan. And then the expectation is, that because we live in MasterPlanistan, that our children are better, brighter, and more athletic than children from, say, Santa Ana. The arrogance and level of competition here frustrates me.

I would prefer to have K get out the four days early than this crap. Another better alternative to the current furlough days, would be to have one furlough day in both April and May and then get out two days earlier in June. Makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than what they did. I am really angry about this. And the fact that they send home a notice in March regarding this, when they had to have known back at the beginning of the school year that things were this grim, kind of tells me that the powers that be are not really all that on the ball.

Things are run so differently here than in Minnesota. The PTA/PTOs in Minnesota do their share of fundraising, but the funds raised actually go to educational enrichment (which is where the money SHOULD be going), not facility upgrades that the school district should be paying for.

Cookies

Our lives have been completely co-opted by the Girl Scout Cookies. We have canvassed the neighborhood, brought the order form to church, pestered and annoyed all of our friends and done three booth sales. We have one more booth sale to go. Final tally for K is 508 boxes of cookies. She has earned the temporary tattoos, four different patches, the rolling stamper, the friendship bracelet, the frog carabiner, the peace sign necklace, the stuffed plush frog, the sig bottle, the plaid hat, the t-shirt, the peace sign bracelet, the fleece blanket, the pullover hoodie, the eco journal, the messenger bag, and the girls night out (which consists of an overnight p.j. party including galaxy bowling, food, another patch, and prizes).

Her troop gets an initial $0.68 per box, plus council will mail a check for an additional $0.05 per box. K has earned $365.00 toward troop funds. We are really excited about that.