(no subject)
I filled out Lucy's public school kindergarten application today, the whole process seems daunting.
1. She will most likely stay in the private Catholic school that houses her public school preschool class. When I was first considering this private school, I was really earnest about comparing the concept of private school and public school and making sure I had good reasons for private school. So now, four months into schooling, I can tell you I have one reason: it is next to our house. I have no other reasons that I care about. Frankly, it would have to have a specific untenable issue, like maybe human sacrifice, before anything would trump "next to our house" as a reason not to go to this school. Obviously, this means paying private tuition, and I did some comparison shopping to see the lay of the land, and while I'm sure no one likes to pay tuition for kicks, the rates are impressively reasonable for what it is; I would not feel like I was being taken advantage of, you know?
2. The other obvious choice would be our neighborhood public school. Something like 98% of NYC neighborhood schools can accommodate the number of children that live in the neighborhood zone. While not right next to us, it's three blocks away, easily within walking distance even in poor weather. Guess what? This school is one of the few schools that cannot take the number of children that live in the neighborhood. So it's a lottery system, and some kids get in, and the other kids are sent to another school. I put this one down as my first choice of public schools for the lottery.
3. If she does not get into our neighborhood school on the lottery, most likely she would end up at one of two schools that are relatively close in the sense of the universe, but would still require driving (we don't own a car, so "driving" means taking a bus). Other than distance, one of them is pretty neat. It's a school in a modern building (well, like circa 1978) that's on an educational campus, with a charter school and a middle school, and I think a vocational high school (although there is another name for them now) at what used to be a seminary, is my guess? So unlike most schools in the Bronx, this one has more of a green campus, and many of the other buildings are cool gothicky 19th facilities. Because aesthetics is really the best metric to use when choosing a school. I put this as my second choice.
4. The other school, for non-lottery winners, is a new school that is designed to be a small school (like seriously some Bronx elementary schools are 4x larger than my all-district HIGH SCHOOL, cripes -- our neighborhood school that cannot accommodate all the neighborhood kids has more than 1,600 seats) and so far has a good reputation BUT is only K - 3. There's a proposal to expand it to K - 5 at some point, but I'm not counting on that, and I do not want to be doing this again in four years. This is my third choice. Both this school and the previous school are not only not walkable from our house, they are in a completely different transit path than how I go to work, so getting there at times when I want to be there would be a cluster.
5. I am having her take the test for public school G&T ... although at this point I'm not even sure why because all of the G&T locations are crazy far from where we live. Again, I things would have to be really dire before I'd send a kindergarten student on a 1+ hour commute (each way!). She'll have her whole life to have jobs with crap commutes. Well, I signed up for the test before I really looked at a map, so at this point she'll just take the test so I have another data point to complain about.
1. She will most likely stay in the private Catholic school that houses her public school preschool class. When I was first considering this private school, I was really earnest about comparing the concept of private school and public school and making sure I had good reasons for private school. So now, four months into schooling, I can tell you I have one reason: it is next to our house. I have no other reasons that I care about. Frankly, it would have to have a specific untenable issue, like maybe human sacrifice, before anything would trump "next to our house" as a reason not to go to this school. Obviously, this means paying private tuition, and I did some comparison shopping to see the lay of the land, and while I'm sure no one likes to pay tuition for kicks, the rates are impressively reasonable for what it is; I would not feel like I was being taken advantage of, you know?
2. The other obvious choice would be our neighborhood public school. Something like 98% of NYC neighborhood schools can accommodate the number of children that live in the neighborhood zone. While not right next to us, it's three blocks away, easily within walking distance even in poor weather. Guess what? This school is one of the few schools that cannot take the number of children that live in the neighborhood. So it's a lottery system, and some kids get in, and the other kids are sent to another school. I put this one down as my first choice of public schools for the lottery.
3. If she does not get into our neighborhood school on the lottery, most likely she would end up at one of two schools that are relatively close in the sense of the universe, but would still require driving (we don't own a car, so "driving" means taking a bus). Other than distance, one of them is pretty neat. It's a school in a modern building (well, like circa 1978) that's on an educational campus, with a charter school and a middle school, and I think a vocational high school (although there is another name for them now) at what used to be a seminary, is my guess? So unlike most schools in the Bronx, this one has more of a green campus, and many of the other buildings are cool gothicky 19th facilities. Because aesthetics is really the best metric to use when choosing a school. I put this as my second choice.
4. The other school, for non-lottery winners, is a new school that is designed to be a small school (like seriously some Bronx elementary schools are 4x larger than my all-district HIGH SCHOOL, cripes -- our neighborhood school that cannot accommodate all the neighborhood kids has more than 1,600 seats) and so far has a good reputation BUT is only K - 3. There's a proposal to expand it to K - 5 at some point, but I'm not counting on that, and I do not want to be doing this again in four years. This is my third choice. Both this school and the previous school are not only not walkable from our house, they are in a completely different transit path than how I go to work, so getting there at times when I want to be there would be a cluster.
5. I am having her take the test for public school G&T ... although at this point I'm not even sure why because all of the G&T locations are crazy far from where we live. Again, I things would have to be really dire before I'd send a kindergarten student on a 1+ hour commute (each way!). She'll have her whole life to have jobs with crap commutes. Well, I signed up for the test before I really looked at a map, so at this point she'll just take the test so I have another data point to complain about.