First Days of School

[geminigirl]

After a lot of hand-wringing and anxiety, careful consideration about personalities, about long term plans and goals, about parental involvement, about learning styles, and other things, we made the decision to send Naomi to a public magnet school this year. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that...most of which stem from my feelings about the quality of the schools in general where we live-not specific to our neighborhood or district or anything like that, but we generally find them underwhelming here. Combine that with the pressure to perform on standardized tests, the general expectation of the a achievement of certain skills and certain ages whether or not that's an age appropriate expectation and without meeting other age-appropriate expectations, and so on, the choice not to homeschool was a hard one. What it came down to was that the opportunity to enter the magnet school is a limited one...while there may have been 36 spaces available in the program this year for kindergarten, the chance of getting a spot in the future was much, much smaller-perhaps 2 or 3 slots in the entire first grade, half of which doesn't do the same program that we wanted. It's always an option to pull her out and homeschool, while the reverse-the option to get into the program, isn't always there, so we took a chance, and are trying it out, and if it doesn't work, then we change things. The program is a French Immersion program, which means that her foreign language studies will be supported by classmates and peers-something that I couldn't provide at all through co-ops and homeschool groups, since the French speaking population around here is fairly small. I am trying to be fair and patient, but I am having a lot of trouble adjusting to things, while Naomi seems to be thrilled, though she's finding the adjustment difficult, too. It's only been a week and I already am sitting here thinking "How soon til she's home with me again" and "What do I need to get together to start homeschooling her?" And that's not fair of me, especially since I'm sure a contributing factor to the homeschooling desire on my part is a desire to feel useful.

Naomi is thrilled that her uniform offers pink as a shirt option, too. I've never understood the love for pink-even at Naomi's age I didn't much care for it, but if it pleases her, and the option is the same price as the others, why not? She's got a bunch of pink shirts and a few of the blue and white options.

Miriam also started school this year-three mornings a week at the same preschool where Naomi went. we considered sending her elsewhere-we loved the threes program at the school but Naomi had some conflict with her 4s teacher, and I anticipate the same sort of thing happening with Miriam. It's possible we'll change our mind and move her somewhere else for next year...we'll see. One of the things that I've come to appreciate greatly about where we've sent the kids is the flexibility they're able to offer us; the schedule I want for Miriam isn't one of their actual tuition plans, but when I asked, they looked at me and said, "Of course we can do that." (She gets dropped off at a regular time, but two days a week I pick her up an hour later than the after lunch dismissal time...it means I'm not running in circles, since Naomi's school has no bus and is much, much too far to walk.) As with Naomi, the threes teacher took me aside when she started and said, "You know she knows all of this already," and proceeded to tell me what happened at circle time when they went over the calendar and Miriam kind of stared at her classmates who seemed to have no idea that the number 14 came after the number 13 and then provided the answer to the question "What's the missing number?" She seems to be having fun though, and that's what I want.

As for me, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life now. I'm completely lost and don't know what's going on...but that's another post. How about a couple of cute first day of school photos to end on a positive note?





Miriam is too cool for preschool:



Naomi's first day

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Love the pics!

I understand the school conflict. I ask Zoe regularly if she wouldn't rather homeschool. Always the answer is "no!" Her school's great, but ... school is really disruptive to family.

[geminigirl]

It is very disruptive...especially when it starts so early. Miriam started on 8/12 (she goes to a preschool in a different school district than we're zoned in) and Naomi started 8/19. And I'm still undecided on whether to opt out of the FCAT or whatever replaces it (our standardized testing)-there isn't a formal opt-out process as far as I know, but I need to look into that anyway.

I hope I'd know if either of them were unhappy, but when they're so young it's sometimes hard to get accurate answers.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

It took us a little while to figure out what was going on with Zoe and Kindergarten. We knew something was up, and we were heavily involved in try to sort out the problem, but it took us some time to figure out the problem was the teacher and she wasn't interested in changing.

I think you'll know if something's up with your kids. It just might take some diligent detective work to figure it out. It's especially hard because kids don't realize that what they're experiencing isn't right, when someone in authority is telling them it IS right/deserved/whatever.

[points.livejournal.com]

Though it is way early, we've been discussing schools as well, and the options therein.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

The only thing I can say is, give it time. The first few months are an adjustment for everyone, and you'll feel tempted to pull her right out and bring her home, and that's OK - just don't follow through on it :) Honestly, it sounds like an amazing program. Yes, she's going to be tested, but she'll do fine on the tests, and if she's at a school where they do more than tests she'll have the opportunity to shine.

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

They're so big, omg. I know we don't have the option to homeschool and the whole standardized test thing bugs the crap out of me. What's the purpose of that? It means nothing.

I wonder when I need to start looking into magnet programs. Max is only 2.5 and the schools here are supposed to be decent (for Georgia), but ugh.

[geminigirl]

Depends on when your school has entry into magnet programs-some around here are kindergarten only entry, some allow children to enter later. Our district has an open house in the late fall, and the various programs have visiting days/info sessions during the early part of the winter, with an application deadline around the end of February. I guarantee you'll hear more talk about it from other parents in a year or year and a half, as parents try to figure out where to send their kids.