decisions, decisions....

Rock and a hard place....

School troubles for daughter #2, not in the conventional sense, but more of a "group" thing.
Daughter #1 liked her elementary school (and her group of friends) so when things started going south a few years back, we stepped up to the plate and helped take some action that has (immensely) improved an already good school. The school has improved vastly with the current administration that we helped put in (and just renewed for another 4 years). The Mrs. does the school newsletter, and I'm on the LSC (local school council). It's something we're very proud of, but all of it can be rendered meaningless for daughter #2 because of something outside our control...her peers.
Daughter #2 is a very bright, outgoing, attentive, and rule following little girl. She's the kind of kid teachers LOVE (they've told us so many times). She's not a teachers pet, more of what you'd think of when you think of a typical "good" 4th grader....but from 1958...
you know....friends of the Cleavers, watches Davy and Goliath (and doesn't get that it's religious).

While this gets her in good with the teachers , at school, it does not endear her to others in her age group. In her outside activities (dance, swim, CCD, and piano), she gets along wonderfully with other (different) kids, but at school in her particular age bracket there are a lot of what I like to call "friendship bullies". This is usually a girl-only phenomenon, and is the earliest stages of what will become cliques.

Daughter #1 had gobs of kids who wanted to be academically at the top of the class, and it was mostly friendly competition. There was some teasing of "nerds" and "brains" but since there were more of them than the nay-sayers, it never amounted to much.

Daughter #2 has the reverse, while many of the kids are decent students, most of them shun the "appearance" of being a good student, she and those like her (boys and girls), are constantly teased. We've always told the girls not to change how they are for anyone if they feel what they are doing is right, but in daughter #2's group, that has been harder then for #1.

Daughter #2 is so concerned with getting along with everyone and trying to find the good in everyone that she gets hurt emotionally by others behavior (the same kids again and again) when she is nothing but nice to them. Unlike daughter #1, she won't just ignore someone who teasers her (or others), she wants to convert them to a better person, one that makes school a better place to be. I wouldn't say her self image is suffering, more like her image of others her age is suffering. She just doesn't want them to stop friendship bullying her, she wants it to stop completely, for everyone.
I know 4th grade is where this stuff starts, but there are so few kids like her at our school in her grade that she can truly identify with. I can't help but wonder if another school might not be better for her. She shadowed last week at our parish school, in a class with only 21 kids in it which included one of her best friends (from across the street). She came home beaming and wanted to start there the next day. She had no qualms about leaving the only school she's known for the last 6 years (since pre-K) behind, and her feelings haven't changed since the shadow day (even though she had a good day at her school today). Academically it's almost a wash; our parish school has a better computer lab/program, science lab, and English program, but our public school has a better Math and Social studies program. The school day is longer at the parish school, and she already has good friends (like herself) there from the neighborhood.
The Mrs. is convinced that she would be happier there, and while I'm leaning that way as well, I'd like to talk to her current teachers some more to see what they can do with this "difficult" group of fourth graders. It's one group of 4 graders that needs more religion....oh the irony that Daughter #2 is likely the one who will be getting religion every day.