Yup yup yup... for Kindergarten, lollie.
(Rant warning)
Lot's of competition for schools in this neck of the woods.
And this isn't anywhere near the top of the list either.
I can't imagine if we applied to the top schools. ::shudder::
Well.... we applied to the top left wing school last year and my H kicked me under the table 3 times.... in front of the interviewing parent.
We didn't get in.
They weren't hard kicks.... they were "don't talk about teacher problems" kicks.
He thought she was a teacher, not a parent. At that school the parents make the decisions about who gets in.
The kids can go barefoot and dye their hair purple if they want.... wonderful programs and NO grades, which I liked for my highly competitive first born angel.
Right now I have my very round 7yo in pleated plaid skirts with ugly black mary janes strapped to her little feet during school hours. Uniforms are not a good thing, IMO.
Before I went to visit those left wing folks.... I went to talk to a so called education advisor..... I thought he'd tell me which schools would be a good fit for my children.
I wanted to enrich their learning experience.
::nod::
Provide them with an environment that facillitated their flourishing learning experience and helped them discover their passions.
Ah hem.
Turned out that the guy was headmaster at the second rated RIGHT wing school for 20 years.
He was quite impressed with himself too, lol.
I paid to hear him call me the "great unwashed" (which I laughed about, considering the context.)
I'm not pedegreed and my Grandfather isn't on any school boards buying up land and building wings, that's for certain.
More importantly..... I learned that people don't choose schools to facilitate their children's enhanced learning experience.
Nope nope nope. Silly me....
They select schools according to their political and religious beliefs. Mainly political, as he grouped them into Right Wing and Left Wing categories.
Then....
these people choosing schools full of people very similar to themselves......
raise
their
children
to
be
just
like
them.
Who knew?
I no likey.
At the end of the hour the ex headmaster guy got all fidgety and impatient.
He practically threw some paperwork at me......
farted
then popped off down the hall....
towards the bathroom I presume: /
Poor man.
It must have been dreadful for him.
Considering I was the great unwashed and he was fantastically pompouse horn (pedigreed, no doubt) so uptight you'd swear there was a stick tucked away somewhere.
All in all..... he regained his composure and walked me to the door..... me trying to remember the quesitons about schools a friend was interested in.
At the mention of one school in particular, he turned to me and barked.... "just how FAR LEFT ARE YOU?"
I already told him 'a friend' was interested. Not me, sheesh.
Moving along and I'm sorry if I've bored the pants off you at this point but it's theraputic to just let it out....
Who knew that we should choose schools according to our political beliefs?
I had no idea.
After that experience...... I figured I'd go see the Left wing folks in charge of their best school, just to see how the other half of the voters approached this education equation.
I liked them.
A lot.
They seemed to be willing to allow their children to become unique individuals, at any rate. ::shrug::
Oh oh... one more thing this ex headmaster actually told me.....
I found this information particularly frustrating and unhelpful.
You choose school A if:
You were very attractive... he said that the mothers and daughters actually look similar in age there.
Another school was for the Power Couples in our City.
Yet another school was for those who liked to throw attend snobby social gatherings..... yes.... he only knew about the right wing schools.
He really said all this, and I about fell off my chair when he threw in that one school had THE best drama program.
That was actually information I could use for my purpose.
Right?
But who knows if your child is going to want to do THAT when they're in PreK or K?
Hmmmm....
Yes,
I was entertained,
but highly demoralized on the school selection front.
You don't even want to know about the rules for approaching, applying and sucking up when you finally make your 1st, second and third choices. Apparently, you hire this guy to be your mouthpiece and then you have several very specific hoops you find and jump through with a particular demeaner intended to look committed to them but not desperate, for God's sake.
They have it set up so that you have to pay an admission fee to many schools then freak out going to the mailbox till the first week of April.
All the schools send out their acceptance letters on the same day and you have no idea who's accepting you or not. Unless your pedigreed or scored over 160 on the JATP test.... which is another nuckle biting experience I don't want to repeat.
So.... you try not to lie too much then proceed to tell every school that they're your first and ONLY choice...... then hope you get into number one.
If you didn't..... you're then grateful if number 2 accepts you.
If not..... you're grateful if number 3 does, and so on.
::sigh::
Sorry for the rant.
And.....
I didn't apply to my second, third or fourth choices for my youngest this year.
It's gonna be a long wait for that letter to show up. ::nod::
