Outside, the rain is falling. The wind is gusting, the roads are closed and the radio reports of flooding, closed freeways and overturned vehicles interrupts my daily dose of sports talk radio. “It’s a blustery day," to quote my old friend Winnie the Pooh.
A perfect time to catch up on the things I’ve put off during these wonderful two weeks of vacation from real life. First on the list is to fill out our youngest’s application for admission to high school and the supplemental application for financial aid. It’s challenging enough sending one child to private high school. It will be near impossible to send two. As part of the application process, the parents (and student) are asked about why they are making this choice.
“What’s wrong with public school?” my friend Judy asks, relaying just the slightest hint of judgment at our decision. She’s a high school teacher in a local community. She’s good at what she does and she’s a strong proponent of public school education. My husband is too. He’s worked in public schools his whole career and is very committed to the work that he does and the kids that he serves. Funny thing is, so am I.
Our kids went to public elementary school. It was a wonderful school of about 300 with a diverse population and that diversity was one of the reasons we loved it so much. The teachers were terrific and they cared deeply about the children they taught. We knew them and they knew us and chance meetings in the grocery store or coffee shop always led to a friendly chat about this and that and an update on how things were going in the classroom. We liked that. We liked knowing that our kids were being cared for, that their educational needs were being paid attention to, that with a student population that was manageable, even the staff who did not have daily contact with specific kids knew them as well and welcomed them with a warm smile and a big hello. It felt like a community and that is important to us.
The transition to junior high changed all that. All of a sudden the landscape changed and the small, nurturing pond-like environment of elementary school gave way to a turbulent sea of adolescent angst. It was a little like going from shopping in a mom and pop store to a huge warehouse. It’s hard to shop without a list, customer service is almost non-existent and it was easy to get lost.
There’s a lot of debate about the best way to move kids from elementary school to the high school years. Some communities have middle schools that incorporate 6th through 8th grades. Back east, where my nieces and nephews go to school, middle school includes 7th through 9th grades. High school doesn’t start until 10th grade. In some communities, K-8 schools are commonplace. The question remains, what is the best way to educate our youth and prepare them for a happy and productive life?
That was the question we struggled with too. We have two very good public high schools in our community. Both have their strengths, both their challenges. Both have their share of faculty that are excellent and programs like music and art that give kids an opportunity to explore different aspects of themselves. They are diverse and local and filled with kids who excel there and they are also quite large. So why did we choose something different?
What it came down to for us was trying to find a place that was the best fit for our kid and our family as well. High school is a challenging time for even the strongest of kids. As they struggle to find out who they really are, they are faced with finding the answers to questions that will shape them now and set the course for who they will become. As a therapist who has spent her whole career working with teens and their families, I know how hard the road is, even for the most solid of families.
Parenthood is about raising your kids to the best of your ability, about making choices that give them the best chance possible for a healthy and happy future. Education is one of the best ways to make that happen. So in the end, we chose a place where we felt he (and we) could get what he needed. It wasn’t about being “better than” and it certainly wasn’t because the local school district wasn’t a good one. It was just two parents, trying to do what they could for their children.
Everyone should have that opportunity.
