Soooo, Thursday I picked up my grandson after school, fed him and got him started on homework.  Suddenly, he said, “You know what the worst part of today was?  When a lady from CPS took me out of math class and made me talk to her.”  Yep.  The school called CPS for reasons not yet clear, but probably related to his response to the ongoing religious persecution he’s experienced in his classroom.  The class is comprised of kids who have almost all been together going on 5 years.  Teacher is a fundamentalist Christian, and at least one girl in the class has a father who is a protestant minister.  We’ve dodged issues of paper topics throughout the year, including one in which a discussion of the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance was deemed too controversial.  Interestingly, the teacher delivering anonymous Christmas cards to each child’s mailbox was not so controversial.

So, grandson is pushing limits hard and has had kids whisper to him that he’s going to hell and that he must love Satan because at this point in his lengthy 10-year-old life, he’s pronounced himself an atheist.  Wonder if Grade 5 has helped push him that way?  No matter.  He did something inappropriate (wrote on his hand) in class in response and the next thing we know, we’ve got the school psychologist talking to him (without family present), the Vice Principal, School Counselor and someone else then doing the same.  Friday culminated in the visit by CPS (without family present).  Of course, this gal claims she asked for an appointment and was ignored (she mailed it on Feb 3, it arrived afternoon of Feb 5 – appointment was for 8am Feb 5).  Long story short, there has been fear, confusion, a wake-up call for my grandson’s mother, and another long hard look at the public school system.  We’ve got a meeting on Monday with the Principal who still denies that the school called.  Cowards.  Talk about violating a sacred trust.  This kid is in no danger.  How do we send him back to school knowing they will do this on a moment’s notice?

For the record, I was raised Southern Baptist, went through my own agnostic, New Age  hippie, try on a bunch of churches period.  I am now a semi-practicing Episcopalian.  I like this group of people because they respect the origins of liturgy, but are actually rationalists.

I do, however, rabidly believe in the separation of church and state.  At this point I want to demand that the school start recognizing Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, Ba’hai and ISIS holidays and whatever else anyone can think of.  I would really like to see the kids who’ve been whispering “You’re going to burn in hell” to have a psych eval because,well, that sounds like bullying to me.

Work continues to be on a bit of a roller coaster and hubby and I had it out yesterday morning because of his sheer moodiness and taking it out on me.  I really just need a week/month without drama.  I’m thinking that might be too much to ask, but I’m still setting my intentions on making it happen.