Sticks and Stars

Today I toured the first of five schools in preparation for making The Choice, deciding where to send my son to kindergarten next year. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, but I’m taking this sort of circuitous route around the schools, starting first with my least favorite, then my favorite, then my second-to-least favorite, then my second favorite, then ending with the one that’s right in the middle. It’s good that I started with my least favorite because if I started with my favorite and still liked it after the tour then my tricky little brain would start coming up with all these excuses as to why it’s not really necessary to take all that time off to go on all these tours, and so I wouldn’t and then every time I had the slightest issue with the school I chose I would stare longingly at that bright green grass on the other side.

But no, I inadvertently started with my least favorite and it was such a great school and I’d be so happy to have my son go there that now I’m dying to see how the schools I actually like measure up.

Far and away, what makes this school stand out is its art program. Art studios, dance studios, pottery studios, photography studios, studios freakin’ galore, with kids taking classes starting in kindergarten. I was amazed at the depth and breadth of the art classes available to kids and student artwork was everywhere and was beautiful. The lunch room was filled with gorgeous murals and the school offers, instead of an orchestra, a steel drum band (and guitar classes as well…and pianos in every classroom). We happened upon a band class and got to listen to a “practice” that was incredible.

What also makes this school stand out is the fact that it’s a K-12, the only one in our district. Over and over the kids and the teachers (random ones, not special tour selectees) talked about how they feel like they are part of a family, how close the community feels, how much everyone cares about everyone else. The assistant principal who was leading our tour said that it’s hard for the high school kids to be too “cool” when their kindergarten teacher is right there. The school has 580 kids and their senior class has 28.

Other things I like about the school are the fact that the grades are mixed (K-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc), the classrooms were almost shockingly multi-racial (I estimated about a third to half of the kids in every class we saw were some shade of brown — although all the teachers we met were white), the school places great emphasis on experiential learning, and the assistant principal told us that they filter everything they do at the school through a filter of social justice. Classrooms had an average of six computers and the library had two big classroom-sized banks of computers, and most classrooms also had a projector. Science and math classrooms tended to have more computers than average and they even had a graphic arts lab (again, more computers).

I entirely forgot to ask about academics and in particular, since they are a small school with limited resources (i.e. no advanced classes), how they deal with advanced learners or children who are learning outside their grade level. They are across the street from a traditional high school and we were told that kids who want to take advanced math and science classes during their 9-12 years can do it there, but I’d like to know what else they offer for younger kids who might otherwise be bored to death in class.

The only thing I really didn’t like about the school was the lack of resources. They only offer one second language option (Spanish) and they don’t offer it until high school and as I mentioned, they don’t offer advanced learning classes. The lack of language options (and an earlier start on language) bothers me more than the lack of advanced learning opportunities because in a school that small, I’m sure they’ve come up with ways to handle all levels of learning. The lack of language options does bother me though.

I was a little surprised at the other parents on the tour. I could hear them whispering about other schools and many of them were surprised to learn about the number of alternative public schools that exist in our part of the city. I guess not everyone researches every single school in the district and compiles classroom stats, test scores, demographics, media mentions, special areas of focus, tour dates and questions in a tidy google spreadsheet that can then be referenced at will.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.