School Begins

Today was the first day of school for the boys at their new school here in Thailand, The Regent's School of Pattaya. The boys were understandably somewhat apprehensive this morning. Regent's is about 3X larger than the American International School in this area and it's a British school. After much, much prayer and research we decided to switch the boys over this year. We felt like it would be better for our guys for several reasons:

1. It's close in proximity to our home, they no longer have to endure a 40-50 minute bus ride. Ethan never felt comfortable on the bus with a driver that speaks no English and refused to ride it unless his brothers were onboard, that sometimes entailed him waiting an extra 1-2 hours for them to be done with after school activities. I am now their school bus driver as the start time conflicts with when Marko needs to be at the refinery! I will make the 10 minute drive both morning and afternoon to transport them. Exxon had offered to buy us a second vehicle for use here. This summer we purchased a used SUV from a teacher that was leaving Thailand and now I'm putting my Thai license to good use. I can get to the new school without using any major roads only navigating the back roads.





2. This school has approximately 1000 students, grades K-12 compared to the dropping enrollment at ISE of about 300 students. This year would have been a transition year for all of them anyway with Dustin and Nathan entering High School and Ethan beginning Jr. High, we felt like it would be a good time to make the change feeling that Dustin and Nathan would probably both benefit with some distance between them within the school environment, plus the larger student body enables more opportunities-more resources...

3. Dustin and Nathan were frustrated that ISE only had a marching band, music teacher and were impressed that Regents has 11 full-time music teachers vs. 2 at the American campus. They feel they will have more musical opportunities.

4. We have several really dear, Christian friends already at Regent's and were excited they could attend school with them.

5. We had some slightly disturbing things happen at ISE last year. Most of you will remember the boy/girl week field-trip? (Regent's separates the girls and boys for their overnight trips.) when Dustin and Nathan had to break up a fight? Nathan also had to break up a fight in the cafeteria last year and was threatened by the offender that he would bring a gun to school and take out Nathan. We felt the incident was poorly handled. Nathan was called into the office and asked, "What would you like us to do to the student?"

6. Most of you also know about the boys' sex education class too. We were given no warning the class was going to be taught and they didn't separate boys and girls. They discussed very explicit material in a mixed gender class including taking anonymous questions. We were told we were the first parents that had ever complained about the class contents being taught to a mixed class?! I would be way too embarrassed to even type out some of the questions that were discussed in this class. So disheartening.

7. Finally, we didn't feel the boys were challenged academically last year and are looking for a higher standard of knowledge. I compared IB test results, college offers and interviewed several previous ISE students that had transferred in previous years.

Taking all of that into consideration we felt that it would be best to transfer the students. The first day went okay-the food in the cafeteria is a lot better, already a good sign in the boys' eyes!!

I'm including pictures of the boys in their new school uniforms and our school bus!