Sometimes "The Man" Pushes Harder

Last year, after many hours of discussion, The Chef and I decided to pull Butter out of the traditional brick and mortar school and we enrolled him into an online charter school. For a while it was great. Things were more rigid than what the school had led me to believe I expected, but overall it wasn't that bad. That is until we hit the Earth Science unit. It wasn't coming easy to him like the other units were, and the only cool experiment was completed and filed away Long story short, he struggled... completely bombed a test and ultimately ended up with a 67%. According to the school that was a "failing" grade, and the school expelled him.

So, I went ahead and put together a traditional homeschooling plan (because there wasn't any I could justify sending Butter back to an environment where his teachers considered him a bother and other kids thought he was a punching bag) and submitted it to my local school district. In talking to other homeschooling parents in my area, they said it wasn't uncommon for it to take weeks for any sort of notification to come back to the parent. 


3 weeks after he was expelled (and 1 week after I had mailed out my notification letter to the district) I received a letter from the district's truancy office asking me why Butter wasn't at school. I call the officer and told him that I am homeschooling, etc. and he says "Great. Just wait for your notification."

Then everything imploded.

Yeah, kinda like that

The truancy officer started to call almost daily saying that the district never received my intent letter (my 
mistake was not sending the thing certified). He demanded that I gave him our address because he had stopped by the old house (Oh yeah, we moved across town) to do a home inspection. Our conversations consisted of him speaking down to me, telling me what a horrible parent I was because Butter wasn't in a brick and mortar school, I in turn, would talk to him as if I were trying to explain something to Pineapple. 

**Pop Quiz**

Because I was being a pain in the ass difficult, and wouldn't give into the bully, he called.... 

1. The Chef (cell and work Numbers were school contact numbers)
2. My Mom (emergency contact for school)
3. My Mother-in-Law (emergency contact for the school)

If you answered "The Chef" you are completely wrong. He thought tattling talking to my mom was the best course of action. It didn't take long for him understand that he was going to get even less from her, no matter how nice/sweet/faux caring he tried to be. This got his panties even more in a twist and he started calling me again, but this time, he started to email me as well. Because the condensation that he unsuccessfully used before didn't get the desired response, he turned into flat out intimidation.  

I'm just going to leave this gem of an email here:

"Contact me immediately with [Butter]'s current enrollment status, and updated residency information. Failure to enroll [Butter] into school will result in the arrest of the parent/guardian."

"I'm going to have you arrested. Give me your address."

ha ha ha... right on top of that buddy
In all seriousness, all he had to do was a reverse look up of my phone number. We took it with us.

The Chef and I had MANY a... conversation.... about this. He kept telling me this wasn't the hill I was supposed to die on... and while I understood what he was saying, the thought of sending Butter back there was making me sick. 

I *knew* we were going to have to enroll him back into the brick and mortar school. I just waited until we absolutely had too. When I finally did, there was just over a month left. 

-o-o-o-

A week or so after school lets out for summer,  my mom calls me and tells me that I was served with a summons. I was being charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a minor, and Failure to Send. Both are First Degree misdemeanors (in my state). The max. penalty was $1500, 6 months jail time, and 500 hours of community service. 

HOLY CRAP! I was getting charged...