Brilliant … But Bouncy

Dylan First Needs To Be Enrolled.

Since September, when I first started calling the nice folks at our local public high school – only a full year before it was time for Dylan to start 9th grade – the counselor has said, “You need to call us at the end of February to enroll him.”

The counselor and I met twice – once with the special ed coordinator, and once with Dylan in tow. Both times he told me to call the office in late February. He said it with a big smile, although I had no idea why I was waiting until the end of February to call – especially since our second meeting was in early February.

“They’ll get Dylan enrolled,” they said.

I mistakenly assumed that this meant that we would be choosing his classes for 9th grade.

Since January, I have been patiently perusing course choices, studying up on the IB programs and AP options, staying connected through the school’s email and checking out options in the music program. I am really, really ready to enroll Dylan in 9th grade.

I am now learning the difference between the words enroll and register.

I finally called – and was told that they can meet with me next week to enroll Dylan in public school.

“Should I bring his class choices?” I asked excitedly, feeling prepared and somewhat proud – even though Dylan will be taking the classes, not me.

“You need to enroll him,” said the woman on the phone.

“I don’t understand what that means,” I said with my proud self.

In order to be registered for classes, Dylan first needs to be enrolled.

That’s because he is NOT enrolled currently. He is in private school which, apparently, is the equivalent of dropping him off the face of the earth. POOF! Dylan is gone! He no longer exists in the database, even though I made sure that he is in there somewhere, so that we are ready to get him a specialized learning plan.

So we have to put him back into the database. He has to exist again on someone’s radar.

“You will need to bring his birth certificate, social security number, and a recent property tax bill,” the woman said.

“Does it matter that he went to public school for two of his three years of middle school?”

“No,” she said, “because we don’t know if you’ve moved or not. We need the proof that you still live there.”

“So when do I bring his list of classes?”

“Well first, you have to bring his 8th grade transcript,” she said, as if I might have that lying around.

“Do we need to wait until the end of the year?”

“No,” she said, “just something that shows what classes he’s taking and that he’s passing his classes.” Our non-traditional Quaker school never sent a report card.

“I can do that,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “See you next week.”

And all of my good intentions and planning got tossed right to the back burner, while I started digging for all the necessary legal documents to get Dylan re-enrolled in public school.

Who knew?