TSS. What hurts the most...

That's The Susquehanna School, not Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Just found out that the building of our beloved, erstwhile school (blog post about it here) was recently sold. At a bargain basement price, of course, so as predicted parents like me who prepaid thousands of dollars of tuition are &#*+ out of luck. Not that I ever expected to see a red cent. Still, now that it's official, it does not feel good. But that's not what hurts the most.

To add insult to injury... When the school closed one month into the 2007 school year, in a very sudden and dramatic and awful way, leaving students and teachers completely high and dry, some of us were going to try to start a new school; we asked if we could take some of the books and supplies with us. We were told by the Board that we were not to remove ANYTHING from the building--not one crayon--because the contents were part of the school's assets and would be auctioned off to help pay its debts once the school was sold. It felt like a cruel proclamation at the time; we already felt so screwed over by the Board (who by then we figured out had blatantly lied to us about the state of things at a meeting only a few weeks before, and also had encouraged us to pay our tuition in advance for the year--they were not trying to defraud us, but we were furious at all the secrets and lies).

It seemed like the least they could do was to let us have part of what we were owed in the form of supplies that could have been tremendously useful to us as we embarked on starting a new school that we hoped would rise from the ashes of this complete and utter disaster. Nonetheless, as we tried to forge ahead through all the shock and devastation, we tried to look forward to the day the things would be auctioned off, figuring we'd probably bid on at least some of the things that we could use for our awesome new school that we were going to build. Well, if you've read my blog or if you know me, you know that the new school thing didn't really work out, but that's (sort of) another story. What is kind of burning me up right now is that I just heard that the new owners of the building didn't want any of the stuff in there and it was all going to be hauled off to the land fill. WHAT??

Granted, I am not involved in any school now, so a lot of the things inside the school (chairs, tables, chalk boards) are no longer of any interest to me, though of course as a homeschooler there are plenty of things in there that I could put to great use (globes, books, supplies, etc.). But in any case, wow, it's the principle of the thing.

You'd think (at least, I'd think) I'd be done being hurt by the undoing of that school--so very many principles were grossly violated, in my view; what's one more? And yet, it does hurt. UGH.

Fortunately, some of the stuff was salvaged by a parent who rented a van and hauled off whatever she could to her garage. She has invited former TSS parents to come help themselves to it next weekend. I'm grateful to her (and her husband, who was actually on the dastardly board but was a brand new member and did not seem to have had anything to do with the shenanigans). But boy, has it stirred up hurt and anger in me that I thought I had let go of already. I guess letting go is a process, and I should know that, and shouldn't be surprised.

But honestly, when you get down to it, while it's partly about the money I'll never get, and it's partly about the possessions of the school that might have been of some value to unpaid creditors (parents; me), it's probably more that I'm just still mourning the loss of a school I loved so much, of a school that finally felt like home for my son. And it does still burn me up when I think that there were so very many mistakes made along the way that led to that loss. Of course we can never know if the school could have been saved had things been handled differently. But it can still torment me a bit to ponder it.

So, I'm taking deep breaths. I'm reminding myself how well the homeschooling is going, how much I love getting to spend so much time with my amazing, kind, loving, funny, brilliant child. How I'm becoming more and more at home in the homeschool community, building friendships that are beginning to be quite important to me. How some of the homeschool activities (I'm thinking in particular of the Shakespeare class last spring, but there have been other things as well) have been extraordinary, definitely as good as anything he would have done at TSS. How I'm really quite happy with my life and hardly ever look back, even though balancing everything can be crazy hard sometimes. But when something like this comes up, it feels like it's all right there again, slamming right into me head on. The anger and the hurt are right back. All the hopes... the incredible relief I felt to have found this place for George that fit him like a glove... Ok, deep breaths. Homeschooling is also fitting him like a glove, and he's thriving. He truly is. And that's what it really has to come down to.

Deep breaths. Letting go. Again.