Had a lovely chat with the gym teacher today. Her explanation: When kids forget their sneakers she has them write a note "to remind themselves" (ahem) to wear sneakers on gym day. This takes place during the warm-up exercises in the gym, where kids really can't play in street shoes. So that's what Summer was doing. Then, they all went outside, where they were going to play on the grass, which should have been fine in Summer's shoes. But the sixth graders were having some sort of cider press demonstration on the grass, so Summer's class had to do P.E. on the blacktop.
Not sure why they couldn't use some other patch of grass on the multi-acre school grounds.
Anyway, Summer did fine, and at the very end, the teacher said "Stop," and everyone stopped, including Summer, but then apparently Summer lost her balance and fell on her knee.
A semi satisfactory conclusion.
Thank yous go out to my friends for helping me work out what to say and how to say it, particularly Dr. Allison, whose magic words, should you ever need them, are:
"Help me understand."
As in, "Help me understand, Ms. Gym Teacher, how my kid got hurt in gym if she was not allowed to participate in gym per the nasty little note in her backpack."
But we're moving on. We're letting it go. This was Summer's advice from the beginning. I had asked her if she thought I should talk to Ms. Gym Teacher, and she said, "Mom, sometimes you just have to let things go." Then she told me the following story:
Summer: "In our math journal there was a problem about a made-up class of kids who voted on their favorite season, and summer got the most votes. So I said "Hey my name got the most votes!" and then Frank said--"
Me: "Frank?"
Summer: "Yes, Frank. Frank said 'That's kind of bragging, and anyway, Summer isn't a very nice name. And then Julia said 'I think Summer is a very nice name' and then Veronika said 'Yes, I think so too.' So I just decided to let it go with Frank."
Me: "First of all, I probably should not be saying this, because I am a grownup, but FRANK made fun of your name? Second of all, it's nice that you have friends that stick up for you."
Summer: "Yes. Anyway, sometimes you've just got to let things go."
I'm beginning to think that Summer is going to turn out alright.