School Issues

One of the things we are learning first hand is that a major issue for missionaries with school age kids, is the school issues.

When we first came down, the idea we had was to homeschool. That worked out OK at first, but we found ourselves wondering how they were going to learn Spanish if they were with us all day, and how we were going to learn Spanish if we spent the majority of our time homeschooling. There were also some issues with the material that wasn't appropriate for where our kids were at.

So now we have the kids in the public school system. Lots of Problems have come with that. Caleb was set back a grade and Elijah is struggling in every area. Believe it or not, the Mexican school system is further ahead than the Saskatchewan one, at least in mathematics. Elijah is having trouble learning the concepts because he's almost missed 1/2 a year of foundational stuff that would have been taught last year in Mexico. that and he can't understand the instructions. So all of the other classes he has are suffering terribly because he can't understand Spanish. We knew there would be struggles like this for the boys, but we were willing to go through them until Christmas holidays in order for them to get a good grasp of the Language.

They are still lost in Spanish. Really lost. We have a tutor coming over now to help out, but that is a longer term project.

So are kids are in school, not learning much, not advancing at all in Spanish. We have spent a lot of tears over the school situation. I'm afraid that learning is becoming a curse to them.

So I've been doing a bit of investigating. There is a private school about 5 minutes drive from our house. We saw it today and they have small classes ( 15 or so in primary, only 5 in Jacob's kindergarten). they have gym, computers, art as well as the regular subjects. They are a bilingual school so ALL of the students will speak at least some English and understand lots. They have 2 hours of instruction in English each day, and they have teachers aids for their English-only students ( they have about 5, our guys would make 8) and they have extra instruction with the aid one on one for 1 hour each day.

When I think of private school I think "fancy". This is not that at all. The classes are rudimentary, the "library" has about 200 books. The playground is small with older equipment, and it is in a working class neighbourhood. This is not a school for the rich, it is a middle class school whose facilities would not pass the grade in Canada. The difference is the teachers are paid better (Elijah's current teacher drives taxi after school to supplement his income) they are better educated, they have smaller classes (15 as opposed to 35) they have individualized attention and they have a bilingual goal.

Would you please pray for us that we would have wisdom to know if this is the place to go.

If we do , we'd need to raise an additional $450.00/ month for all 3 kids to go. We are praying that God would raise up the partners needed to do that, if it's his will.
Please pray with us!

Thank you for partnering with us!

We appreciate you!

Mike for the McDonald's