One Hour....

That is how long it took my son to have his cell phone confiscated on his first full day on-site at a school that has the most liberal and forgiving cell phone policy in the school district.

Yesterday, Kyle and the other sophomores spent the day at Lipscomb University, a private, coeducational liberal arts institution associated with the Church of Christ. This was basically an all-day orientation session to introduce the students to the Gateway to Senior Institute program they will be working on this year. In a nutshell, these students spent their freshman year exploring and learning who they are so that this year they can begin to "ramp it up" (Principal Ralph's words) this year as they aim for "College and Beyond" (part of the Big Picture motto).

Last night, the parents were invited to the school for a "mandatory" meeting to introduce us to this year's programming. I say "mandatory" because like other "mandatory" meetings I have attended throughout my children's schooling and through church, only about 33% of the group actually attended. But that is another soap box for another day...

At this meeting we started off with a talk from Principal Ralph before splitting into groups by advisors (aka teachers) and attending four small group presentations. In our very first group meeting, Kyle's advisor Mr. Wayne discussed some of the new policies for the school this year. Most of these policies are a result of people taking advantage of the lax atmosphere around Big Picture last year. One of the biggees, one that Mr. Wayne discussed for several minutes, was the crack down on misuse of the... yep, you guessed it... cell phones. Basically the students need to get their advisors' permission before making phone calls or texting.

The most aggravating part of Kyle's phone being confiscated? Last night he was whining about how boring it was having to sit through all this information a second time because they listened to everything, in much longer in-depth presentations, earlier in the day. As I told him on the way home today, evidently sitting through the presentations twice was not sufficient as he did not assimilate the information.... It is going to be a long year, folks!

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N