School is hard, yo

We've had 12 weeks of school so far, that should be enough to get in a groove, right?? No, most definitely not. It feels like every other week there's a new issue we're trying to come to grips with. First it was math, the math teacher assigned a ton of homework, and didn't do a great job explaining new concepts. Aloha would get so frustrated and worked up, her brain would just freeze up, and she couldn't do simple addition or subtraction. After attacking that problem from multiple angles, her teacher up and quit. So now we're transitioning to a new teacher, who also happens to be the school principal. Things are going well so far, but my guess is there's going to be another transition to another teacher coming down the road.

That brings us to our issue du jour - homework. Why is there so much of it? I know Aloha works at a slow pace, and is easily distracted, but, 2 hours of homework on a weeknight? Poor girl is just wiped out. Aloha is in aftercare at school until about 5 each day, and in theory she's doing some of her homework there. So maybe 30 minutes of homework at aftercare plus at least 2 hours at home. And that's not all, here's the laundry list:

• She's having a hard time keeping track of what's due when
• She routinely forgets at least one book/notebook that she needs to do her homework
• She'll bring home homework and have no idea how to do it. Last night she brought home a history assignment that asked what the significance was of the Sand Creek Massacre. She didn't know what a massacre was, and didn't appear to have any other worksheets or docs that referenced it. Maybe she had something else that she left at school? I don't know!
• She just hits a wall, where she's done with homework. She doesn't push through. And I can't figure out the core underlying reason, because when I ask I get hit with all the excuses. Is it because she doesn't care? Is it because she's afraid to try and fail? Does she just hate the 5th grade so much she's hoping it'll all go away? Does she think she's stupid? So do I push her to do more, or do I tell her it's ok not to do all of her work? I don't know.

We're doing all the right things. We've had meetings with the teacher, meetings with the resource specialist and therapist at school, we're starting math tutoring. We have a routine where every day we sit down together and look at her planner to go over all the homework she has. We have dedicated homework time at home and are there to help. We've talked to her therapist. Her therapist actually suggested educational testing, but the district won't pay for it, because her grades are still OK. So we're working with the adminstrators at school so we at least have a track record to say - ok, we had these meetings, tried these interventions. Then maybe we can get them to do testing.

And we're still going. We helped Aloha write down topics to talk to her teacher about, so her teacher can help her directly. Then we emailed the teacher to make sure they can connect. If that doesn't work, our next idea is to have a meeting with us, the teacher, and Aloha. We're also setting up a meeting with her therapist to talk to her again. We're going to float the idea of hiring a nanny to pick her up from school and take her home to do her homework. She'd miss social time at aftercare, but have more focus time for school. Is that a good trade off? I don't know... Do we think about an alternate school that's more self paced? That really feels like defeat, but I don't know that it actually is, it just feels like it.

It just feels like it's not sustainable. Aloha is exhausted, we are exhausted. But in the grand scheme of things... she's still on track in math, and she's above average in reading. So she's not failing. But I'd really like to help her before she fails spectacularly and really wants to throw in the towel.