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PrisonerSix
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23 Jan 2009, 1:48 pm

I was wondering if anyone has experienced the student mobility I did growing up.

Basically, even though I lived in the same community all my childhood, I went to a total of 7 different schools in 12 years.

The first change was in second grade, my teacher wasn't very good and the school didn't care, so my parents moved me to another school. In the middle of 4th grade, they moved me to another school for reasons I don't understand, and I stayed there until the end of 5th grade. 6th grade was Catholic School for a year, 7th grade was another private school, 8th grade was public school, and grades 9-12 were another Christian school. I wish I could have left that last schoool as well, but my parents wouldn't transfer me in spite of there being schools available.

I was reading up on this topic recently and wondered if I was alone here in having experienced this.


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Last edited by PrisonerSix on 23 Jan 2009, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ValMikeSmith
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23 Jan 2009, 4:20 pm

I went to 5 different schools in 12 years.

For me I preferred it that way because it was always a fresh start and a new opportunity to try to make friends before they started ignoring or bothering me because I was weird. School #4 was a "special school" so it was the only one where I got along socially with almost everyone and actually had some social improvement in school.



JerryHatake
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23 Jan 2009, 4:36 pm

I remember going to 3 schools in six years, (finding the best program for me was the deal). Also this was all elementary schools.


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demeus
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23 Jan 2009, 5:18 pm

I changed elementary schools once every 2 years.



PrisonerSix
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23 Jan 2009, 5:25 pm

ValMikeSmith wrote:
I went to 5 different schools in 12 years.

For me I preferred it that way because it was always a fresh start and a new opportunity to try to make friends before they started ignoring or bothering me because I was weird. School #4 was a "special school" so it was the only one where I got along socially with almost everyone and actually had some social improvement in school.


The first time I transferred, I was glad to, because the teacher was horrible to me. In spite of the complaints by my parents and my refusing to go to school, they wouldn't do anything about it.

The second time I transferred I didn't really want to. I was doing well where I was and kids didn't really pick on me much, which was nice. For some reason, my parents all of a sudden decided they wanted me out NOW so they kept at me until I gave in, promising me everything would be better, that I wouldn't have alot of homework, etc. It wasn't better and the fact my sister was there, she often got others to pick on me and my parents of course did nothing about it. They moved both of us out of there when they realized the place cared more about sports than academics.

6th grade was a Catholic school where I didn't fit in. A few picked on me, but most just shunned me and treated me like an outsider. The school was also very biased in favor of certain kids, mainly the kids of old money families, political figures, etc., of which I was not, so I left a year later.

7th grade I was in a school that took kids other schools wouldn't and as a result I was in a class of future criminals. I was treated badly there as well, again thanks partially to my sister who transferred there before I did and got others to mistreat me as well. What bothered me the most about that was she never denied doing it, yet our parents wouldn't say a word to her about it since they didn't believe in punishing girls.

8th grade was public school hell, my absolute worst school year. A bunch of kids started picking on me because I had a deep voice and it mushroomed out of control. My parents wouldn't help me they just told me to ignore it and even blamed me for it. 8th grade was the highest grade that school went to so I was only there a year.

Grade 9-12 was chrisitan high school hell. My parents promised me since everyone in my class was new, they wouldn't pick on me for being new, which made sense to me. All of the kids in my class came from a few elementary schools or churches, so alot of them had known each other for years, and of course, I was branded an outsider. In addition, I refused to participate in degrading, humiliating, hazing week rituals, so I was pushed even farther to the fringe, constantly picked on by everyone. Of course, my parents made me stay there.

I got close to getting out during grade 11, when my parents finally realized what that place was and considered sending me back to the school they dragged me out of in 4th grade, but then decided against it. They then forced me to take chemistry, with a teacher who I had before who was terrible. They realized a month into school they should have listened to me and actually talked about transferring me to another school if they wouldn't let me out of chemistry. They didn't let me out of chemistry, and I had to stay in the school.

When another student said they were dropping at midterm, my parents said she was lying because the principal said nobody was dropping chemistry. Midterm comes along and this girl and 4 others dropped, and of course when I asked to drop, I was told no. Finally, when I was turned down for membership in the school's honors society, my math teacher apologized to my parents for that and told them the school was very biased and one sided towards one little group of kids(who got into the honors society) and that finally lit a fire under my parents to try and get me out. When they threatened to send me to another school the next year, the principal offered to let me drop chemistry if I wanted to and I did. I still would have rather gone to another school, but getting into another private school as a senior is often hard.

I always had hope when I left a school too, I'd tell myself it'll get better, but it never did. By grade 9, I'd been in 7 schools, and I still wanted to move on to another. I don't know if another school would have been better, but there would have been hope.


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