Visit went well.

The home visit by the alternative school representative seemed to go well. I was in a meeting at work at the time, but she came by at 3pm and talked with V, M and T. They were working on some crafts and V said the kids were very well behaved and chatted with the representative. So, we are awaiting the final decision from the alternative school. Also, some people did some calling around for me 'from the top down' to put some pressure on the principal and teacher, and we found out some more information about the school systems here. It turns out that once they are enrolled in one elementary school that the school can indeed legally block transfers to another school within the same system; so their refusal to allow T to transfer to the other public school in town carries some weight. However, they cannot block transfers to a private school like the alternative school we have applied to. So their blocking the representative from observing T and M may have been their only recourse to prevent a transfer. Also, teachers here are appointed for life and there is no significant role for parents or parent groups in the school system (in stark contrast to the US), which of course leads to a different attitude that they do not have to answer to or consider parents descisions about child education. The main consideration on the teachers end is for promotion within the system, and a transfer of a student to a different school 'looks bad' in their hierarchy. A next step is a meeting next Tuesday with a psycologist that the school asked to talk to T to identify the 'problem'. According to the psycologist, whom I talked with over the phone to arrange the meeting, (and my best guess at our mixed German and English conversation) it is just us meeting with them, but we are expecting an ambush like last time with the director/teacher present. I wonder what the psycologist will say when I bring up how T's teacher tries to get his attention by slapping her hand on his desk and yelling, drawing X's on the back of his hand to punish him, and (I just found this out) taking money out of his wallet ... and how this might affect how the other kids in the class act toward T. There is a two week break coming up and we are pulling T out of school, legal or not, until then.