Simone shifted her weight from left to right, after we entered the Big Kid School. I had not seen that little dance. Ken signed her in, and I paid for all of her major school supplies for the 2010-11 school year. (Love this!) Then we made our way to the cafeteria. Simone wrote her name on a tag and received a "good job" from a teacher. She beamed as she walked around the cafeteria. "A happy one," another teacher said.
Simone and about 50 other rising kindergartners dined on doughnuts, grapes, strawberries and juice. Parents, meanwhile, received instruction in the finer points of child drop-off and pick-up. Don't park and let the child walk to the door of the school. (No problem.) Kindergarten parents must use the lane closest to the school for drop-off. (Will do.) Simone then reported her tummy hurt. I tickled her and said she had a few butterflies in there. A few kisses made them fly away.
Parents and their children toured the school in groups. Simone held our hands as we walked the halls of this strange land. We saw a few sixth-graders, and they looked so big in comparison to the children taking the tour. Simone stood on her tip toes and peered inside the computer lab, and she marveled at all of the books in the library. "You can take them to the table and read them," she told us. We also stopped in a kindergarten room. When the teacher told her class to gather around, Simone joined them. She returned to our sides when she realized she wasn't familiar with the book the children were reading. Our last stop was the multipurpose room.
There is no doubt in my mind. Simone is ready for kindergarten. As we were leaving, she called her current school the "old preschool."
Tag: school
The messenger came on foot. Simone. Clothes. Follow me. I quickly gave chase and found Simone lounging on the couch in an outfit I had not chosen for her an hour earlier.
"I want to wear this," she said, patting her hands on her chest for emphasis. I surveyed the outfit. Lavender princess T-shirt and purple skirt. It matched. Crisis averted.
Except it was nighttime, and the girls had closed their eyes an hour earlier. Or so I thought.
I walked into their room and found clothes scattered across the floor, hanging from the dresser drawers, sitting atop stuffed animals. I surveyed the mess and gave the final command for the evening. The house quickly fell silent.
But my mind raced. Simone will go to school in the fall. I have not been a fan of school uniforms, but maybe they aren't such a bad idea.
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The little boy just wasn’t having it. He was crying, putting on the brakes, and making a ruckus as parents and grandparents tried to get him to change his mind.
“You don’t have to stay,” they told him.
Those words didn’t seem to help, but he was outside of the car and being lead away to some horrible place. Just before the car left, the adults inside promised to return with a hamburger. What had the little boy so upset? School, elementary school.
Ken and I were checking out a school near our home. It was open house, a day for children to meet their new teachers. (No, I don’t want to think about what it says when parents show up a whole year early without a kid in tow to check out a school.)
The school, the one the boy was refusing to go inside, could be Simone’s new school in a year. We walked through five kindergarten classrooms and saw hundreds of parents and children preparing for the first days of school. We liked what we saw – happy kids, enthusiastic teachers, colorful rooms. There also was some diversity, mostly Asian children. I was pretty much sold when I learned school supplies for the entire year may be purchased through the school for about $70.
Then there was that little boy, arms flailing, tears running down his cheeks. I’m sure the school is not at fault. We, though, will definitely continue to do our homework, making stops at a church-based school and another private before making the final decision.
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This time next year, Simone will be counting down to her first days of kindergarten. By then, we will have come to a decision about this thing called school. Ken and I chose our latest home with the school district in mind. There’s a school nearby, and it’s one of the best in our area. Still, I have an issue with its diversity and have scoped out two schools – one of them church-based – as possible options.
I can’t believe I’m even considering a private school. Ken went to public school and is a graduate of Christian school. I am a product of public schools and spent the majority of my journalism career covering them. I am all too familiar with the intricacies of desegregation, standardized test scores, and school funding. We know parental involvement plays a role in a child’s success and understand reading is a gateway subject. Armed with that knowledge, public school would be the best choice.
Still, sending the girls to a private school would mean we could keep them together. Private schools have more flexibility with curricula and tend to have fewer discipline problems with students. On the downside, sending the girls to one of the schools would guarantee Ken and I would never buy anything for ourselves ever again.
Diversity is weighing heavily in the decision. Some private schools are poised to offer a more diverse student body, one that represents the world. I am not convinced diversity is something that can be taught; you have to experience it. As a child, I lived in seven states and two countries, Germany and Iceland – the effects of which cannot be measured. I broke piñatas with kids in Texas, ate Ysa – the best fish I’ve ever tasted -- in Iceland, and left a pair of shoes outside my door in Germany so that St. Nick could fill them with candy. My mom never met a stranger during her short life, which means I’ve been to more authentic cultural sit-downs at Filipino, Thai, Mexican, Puerto Rican, German and African homes than I can possibly count.
I grew up on military bases, where I played with boys and girls of different races and ethnic backgrounds and then attended public or Department of Defense, or DoD, schools with them. Our parents weren’t afforded the opportunity to choose their neighbors, and kids, at least back then, played with pretty much anyone who had a jump rope.
I can’t replicate any of these experiences for Simone, though I would like to take her and Nadia to as many far away lands as we can afford. I can, however, put her in a diverse setting, offering the opportunity for such experiences. We’ve got a year to make up our minds.
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This time next year, Simone will be counting down to her first days of kindergarten. By then, we will have come to a decision about this thing called school. Ken and I chose our latest home with the school district in mind. There’s a school nearby, and it’s one of the best in our area. Still, I have an issue with its diversity and have scoped out two schools – one of them church-based – as possible options.
I can’t believe I’m even considering a private school. Ken went to public school and is a graduate of Christian school. I am a product of public schools and spent the majority of my journalism career covering them. I am all too familiar with the intricacies of desegregation, standardized test scores, and school funding. We know parental involvement plays a role in a child’s success and understand reading is a gateway subject. Armed with that knowledge, public school would be the best choice.
Still, sending the girls to a private school would mean we could keep them together. Private schools have more flexibility with curricula and tend to have fewer discipline problems with students. On the downside, sending the girls to one of the schools would guarantee Ken and I would never buy anything for ourselves ever again.
Diversity is weighing heavily in the decision. Some private schools are poised to offer a more diverse student body, one that represents the world. I am not convinced diversity is something that can be taught; you have to experience it. As a child, I lived in seven states and two countries, Germany and Iceland – the effects of which cannot be measured. I broke piñatas with kids in Texas, ate Ysa – the best fish I’ve ever tasted -- in Iceland, and left a pair of shoes outside my door in Germany so that St. Nick could fill them with candy. My mom never met a stranger during her short life, which means I’ve been to more authentic cultural sit-downs at Filipino, Thai, Mexican, Puerto Rican, German and African homes than I can possibly count.
I grew up on military bases, where I played with boys and girls of different races and ethnic backgrounds and then attended public or Department of Defense, or DoD, schools with them. Our parents weren’t afforded the opportunity to choose their neighbors, and kids, at least back then, played with pretty much anyone who had a jump rope.
I can’t replicate any of these experiences for Simone, though I would like to take her and Nadia to as many far away lands as we can afford. I can, however, put her in a diverse setting, offering the opportunity for such experiences. We’ve got a year to make up our minds.