That's how the principal of Justin's school started her phone call to me re. Justin's earliness issues last week. She apologized for what had happened, and said she'd gone over proper procedure with her office staff re. how to talk to the kids who arrive early - or who do anything that may have to do with simply not knowing the rules, or following instructions from their parents, who also don't know the rules. She assured me that they are not supposed to go in with guns blazing, and that she hoped Justin wasn't too put off by what happened. She then explained, again, the reasoning behind the "no kids on school grounds before 8:15." Which, OK, I still think is silly, but what the heck, they're an institution. Silly comes with the territory.

I think one of the things that pissed me off last week was that this is the same school the boys went to before home schooling, and it was a great school. Other home schooling parents had horror stories to tell of their kids' experiences in public school; except for one teacher who taught Daniel for three months and told us to cut his hair, we had almost nothing but good memories of the place. Everyone else was friendly, courteous, and professional. We did not home school our kids because we wanted to take them out of school; we did so because we wanted the teach them at home. And because Daniel was not a good fit for public schooling, no matter how wonderful the public school.

So having reminded both boys of all of this throughout the summer, reminding them that they liked school, reassuring them that it would take a bit of adjustment but they'd be OK... and then having some twit throw all of that out the window in the first week, was a little crazy-making.

I expected the boys to have to deal with administrivia-related idiocy. I expected them to deal with unfairness. I even expected them to get into trouble. Just not on the second day.

Anyway, I'm glad the principal called back :)