Tired and Teary

Emily is not going back to school.  Physically anyway.  She was assaulted again yesterday, a hot pie was thrown at her and she got minor burns on her arm.  I went and picked her up and she for some reason suddenly told me what had happened on my birthday when she came home with a graze on her forehead.  She had gone down the street and been pushed into a brick wall by a group of girls.  I drove right from school to the police station where we made a complaint about both assaults.  Out came the whole horrible story as she talked calmly and articulately to the police.  The daily verbal abuse, the continued, relentless abuse all day every day.  Many witnesses attested that she had been sitting alone quietly drawing when the pie incident happened, and hadn't even been interacting with anyone.  I laid awake all night thinking over everything and by morning had made my decision.  She is not safe at school and it would appear that a lot of her acting out and her refusal to go is because of the abuse, little of which we knew about because she just did not tell us, or lied so much about other things that we never knew what to believe or not.  No education, let alone the pathetic one given by schools in this state is worth her misery and her losing the will to live.  I vowed there had to be another way and that I would find it.  I phone the school this morning and told them what I had decided and the VP was really great and offered to have work sent home so she can continue to work and prepare for her exams on Monday week and I also asked if work experience, which is normal in year 10, could be organised to pad out the year.  I said that I did not want her even setting foot back in the school if possible and she suggested that an alternate venue could be found for her to sit her school certificate. 
We are in the process of filling out an application for work at a local store and will put out other feelers there, although it's very hard in a small town.  Once the exams are over and depending on what happens with the work experience, I am thinking of getting her to do some volunteer work at the nursing home or similar till the school year ends in December, as we research and decide what she will do next year.  I am now prepared to consider distance education if TAFE doesn't offer what she needs.
I think she is still in shock, she didn't see this coming, but my instinct as a mother just says she isn't safe at school.  There has to be a better way than how it's been and we will find it.  Why are girls so horrible? 
I took the kids out for dinner tonight at the Thai restaurant and we sat and talked about school the whole time, mostly the kids to each other.  Emily gave Josh some incredibly mature advice, she just floors me sometimes with her intelligence and insights.  I'm a bit of a teary mess tonight, I just wanted to come home and crawl into bed which is what I did.  I am questioning everything I have done for the past two years or so, every mistake, every decision.  Did I just get it so wrong?  Did I do the best with what I had?  I don't know.  I just know that my precious girl is safe now and she will have a bright future, it just won't be through the conventional methods.  I feel like I have let her down, but I am not beating myself up.  She does lie, she has behaved badly and done the wrong thing.  I honestly think she has learned from a lot of what has happened, she is not a stupid girl, she is not a bad girl.  She has many more lessons to learn and some things to work through but, as I always really knew deep down, she will be fine, better than fine.
What I want to know is do I get a medal when I've finished raising these two?  Do I??
My poor mother in law rang this morning, very distressed, she said she just needed someone to talk to.  I am surprised she chose me although she didn't know Phill was away.  I let her talk and just told her to go with the grief, not fight it and think she "should" be something or feel something.  I acknowledged to her that now is a hard time, when the drama of the last weeks of the illness and then Vonnie's death and funeral have passed, and everyone is back to their normal lives.  She seemed glad that I understood that.  I know that I too have lost a child, but in very different circumstances.  I can't imagine what she must be going through to lose her eldest at 64 when she herself is in her mid 80s.  As she said "it sucks".  And it really does.
Tonight my two youngest are healthy and happy and home with me.  In the end that is what matters.  Everything else can be worked out.