Choosing kindergarten
Categories: Preschoolers, Kids 5-7, Education
Last Saturday, Rachel and I dropped the kids off at her mother's and headed out for a day on the town to go to the public school fair put on by the SF Unified School District. Normally, kids go to the closest school and that's that, right? Well, here in San Francisco, we don't do things normally. You put in your application listing the seven schools you like the most and then sit and wait with your fingers crossed to find out if your kid got into any of them.So we went to the school fair to see what schools we should put on the list. The local school -- just a couple of blocks away -- would be first, no doubt. Some of the parents at Jared's preschool, however, were raving about another school a little farther away. We checked them both out, naturally. We were less than impressed with the principal at the local school and extremely impressed with the other. The more we looked at the other school, the better it seemed.
Now we have a dilemma. Do we send Jared to the local school that would be extremely convenient, has some great teachers, is the school his cousin attends, and is where he has expected to go his whole life? Or, do we try for the other school which would not be anywhere near as convenient, but is likely the better school? At the nearby school, my sister-in-law could pick him up when she picks up my nephew; at the other school he would have to go to the afterschool program.
Which one do we put first on the list? I'm sure he'll do fine at either one, but which would be best for him, all things considered. Anyone have any advice?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ann adams 11-24-2006 @ 2:15PM
If there's not a world of difference, I'd go with neighborhood, familiarity, and convenience.
I have all 3 now in a Middle School across town and the logistics are difficult. Elcie spends over an hour in the afternoon on the bus for a ten minute (at most) trip.
The others have to get on a bus at 7:10 and don't get home until almost 4 by the time they walk from their bus stop.
We manage but it would have been much simpler to have them all at the closer school. When Elcie, the oldest, went into 6th, the closer school was overcrowded so we had no choice. The school she was transferred to is better so we put them all there but it sure complicates our lives.
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Julie 11-24-2006 @ 2:28PM
Administrators come and go quickly--at least in my experience. I wouldn't base my decision on a principal, but I would base it on the teachers my child was likely to have and some of the other points you've brought up.
As far as I can tell, it's the parents and how much they work with their children at home that make the real difference!
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