Another update on Big J.

We had our meeting before the school board yesterday and it went as we expected (maybe even a little better).  

Big J. will be suspended for the remainder of the 2009-2010 school year (instead of the 365 days we originally thought he was going to get) and will be able, if we feel he is ready, to begin public school again next year.  They recommended a credit recovery program that they have at one of the high schools here and we think that we will be taking advantage of that FREE program.  The classes for the credit recovery are from 3:30-5:00 every week day and are a self-paced computer-based program.  We will also be doing online high school homeschooling (does that make sense?) for some of his classes.  We will be doing the homeschooling on top of the credit recovery because he will need something to do during the day and it will ensure that he ends up with his full 6 classes needed to move up to a sophomore next year.

Big J.'s counselor is recommending that he has complete social isolation right now since he has shown repeatedly that he cannot act in a "normal" way in social situations away from us.  We agree.  We will eventually be getting him into some programs for social interaction, but that is in the future and it dependent on him.  We are looking into Boy Scouts, church youth groups and some other things around our area for kids his age.  Trying to find groups that will have a positive influence on him and maybe help him see that you don't have to be part of the "bad crowd" to have fun.

We still have not heard from the fire marshall about the fireworks stuff.  Don't know if we will.  That could have been just a scare tactic to scare Big J. into thinking he not only messed up his life, but his father's as well.  The PO (parole officer) told us that B. most likely will not get cited for anything since Big J. was already cited for it and that would constitute a sort of double jeopardy thing.  But we are just waiting.  We don't want to get too comfortable and then BAM! something blind-side us that we had dismissed as not going to happen.

Oh, and Big J. will be going tomorrow to do some community service with his life skills counselor.  He will be helping at a community fair.  He is going to be helping his counselor teach others how to juggle.  We are hoping this is going to be a positive experience for him and that he may just have a little fun while he is at it!

Well, that is an update on Big J. and all the mess surrounding him now.

***Hoping to have another update soon...non-Big J. related of course***