not sure we are in the right place
Oct. 31st, 2011 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaI wonder about the school we've chosen. I don't quite feel it's our vibe. It's a good school, but it's a little more traditional and test-prep than my ideal, and the demographics are a little too heavy on stay-at-home mothers with dyed blonde hair, designer jeans, and shiny, shiny boots.
Emblematic of the issues is the large packet of homework Casper wrestles with weekly. Part of the wrestling is her, based around personality, not liking to do hard things, not liking to do boring things, and dawdling. But part of the issue is there's easily 3 times the homework of our old school. Is it really accomplishing much? I think she's accomplishing at least as much as the president of the Rockin' Hot Buttercups, the club she and Dillo and the two neighbor girls have established for themselves.
She's also getting special test-prep tutoring, I assume basically because she is new to the school and system and they want her to do well. But there hasn't been any critical assessment of her reading and spelling difficulties. (I realize I want an explanation, ideally with concrete things that can be done, of her struggles in these areas; there may not be one, and the thing to be done may just be to live with it.)
I think the actual place we're living is a little bit of a better fit, socially, for us, than the school, which is technically in another neighborhood. Many of our close neighbors are childless 20-somethings passing through, but the ones we've met who aren't are more laid-back and less consumerist than my perception of the school. Little things, like my neighbor is a Quaker, as opposed to school where several 3rd graders were army men (never saw that at our old school!)
The one family on our block with kids sends them to a public magnet Montessori, and it sounds good. The "camp-out" season for admittance for next year is now, though, and I am not ready to give up on our current school after only 3 weeks. Another possibility is the planned re-opening of a neighborhood school on our side of the neighborhood, for fall 2012. But much depends upon the pending school levy, and it's not entirely clear what the school will be - some talk of making a a gifted magnet instead of a neighborhood school, or maybe combining the two in the same building, and the opening might not happen until 2013. I also want to investigate the school for creative and performing arts. It runs K-12, and if Casper is not going to be a good candidate for the very rigorous traditional high school (Walnut Hills) that our elementary feeds to (it has a required admissions test), it might make sense to get her into SCPA before the end of 6th grade, when presumably it will be more competitive (people move to Ohio from other states to send their kids to SCPA).
Emblematic of the issues is the large packet of homework Casper wrestles with weekly. Part of the wrestling is her, based around personality, not liking to do hard things, not liking to do boring things, and dawdling. But part of the issue is there's easily 3 times the homework of our old school. Is it really accomplishing much? I think she's accomplishing at least as much as the president of the Rockin' Hot Buttercups, the club she and Dillo and the two neighbor girls have established for themselves.
She's also getting special test-prep tutoring, I assume basically because she is new to the school and system and they want her to do well. But there hasn't been any critical assessment of her reading and spelling difficulties. (I realize I want an explanation, ideally with concrete things that can be done, of her struggles in these areas; there may not be one, and the thing to be done may just be to live with it.)
I think the actual place we're living is a little bit of a better fit, socially, for us, than the school, which is technically in another neighborhood. Many of our close neighbors are childless 20-somethings passing through, but the ones we've met who aren't are more laid-back and less consumerist than my perception of the school. Little things, like my neighbor is a Quaker, as opposed to school where several 3rd graders were army men (never saw that at our old school!)
The one family on our block with kids sends them to a public magnet Montessori, and it sounds good. The "camp-out" season for admittance for next year is now, though, and I am not ready to give up on our current school after only 3 weeks. Another possibility is the planned re-opening of a neighborhood school on our side of the neighborhood, for fall 2012. But much depends upon the pending school levy, and it's not entirely clear what the school will be - some talk of making a a gifted magnet instead of a neighborhood school, or maybe combining the two in the same building, and the opening might not happen until 2013. I also want to investigate the school for creative and performing arts. It runs K-12, and if Casper is not going to be a good candidate for the very rigorous traditional high school (Walnut Hills) that our elementary feeds to (it has a required admissions test), it might make sense to get her into SCPA before the end of 6th grade, when presumably it will be more competitive (people move to Ohio from other states to send their kids to SCPA).