My first experience in hearing about schools was meeting teachers at preschools and private schools that had insanely long waits. I heard stories about people getting their kids on the waiting list in their third trimester of pregnancy. Soon after, I started hearing horror stories from people working in Oakland Public Schools about how horribly funded they are and how difficult the administrations could be to deal with. Then, I started seeing some really positive things about public schools in Berkeley and Oakland and saw how huge the rifts were between the good and the bad.
J- and I were huge proponents of homeschooling. Especially after we visited a panel on education at Counterpulse put on by uber-cool organizer Chris Carlsson. At the panel were advocates of public schools, alternative schools and homeschoolers. I am probably exaggerating here, but it seemed as if the best thing that the public school advocates could say was “They aren’t so bad.” The homeschooling mom, on the other hand talked about the vibrant lives that her kid led, playing soccer, visiting museums, having playgroups and sometimes going to privately held classes to study the three R’s and sciences. We were hooked.
After deciding to do fost-adopt, we knew that any school-age child that we had would have to go to school. Additionally, we realized that our kids may need and want the structure of school. That they have undergone a lot of transition and difficulties and school may provide some comfort or represent a safe place for them when home may have some anxiety attached to it.
We ended up matching with our ideal ages, 4 and 6. We knew that having 2 kids out of school would probably be too much for us. Enter the Oakland Unified School District. We have a school 1/2 block from us that has undergonea lot of change over a few years, including becoming a public charter school. It is now known for being able to help the “toughest of kids”. That is great, and I don’t really see that as being a good environment for my 6-year-old daughter, either. What does she know about tough? She is African-American, but her current school is primarily caucasian and she has lived most of her life with caucasian folks. So, in addition to not wanting to expose her to “toughness” before she is ready, I think she would feel most comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, not on that is more than 90% African-American.
When talking to some neighbors, whose judgment about such things that I trust, I discovered that we are in the district for one of the best schools in Oakland, P-. I was hugely relieved. Little did I know that we are not guaranteed to get our kids in there. Recently, I have found out that our neighbors were not able to get there kid in there. In Oakland, certain neighorhoods have more kids in the district than will fit in the school, so we would basically have to start petitioning each semester to move her to our neighborhood school. This was less than perfect. She has already been to several schools and will be moving once into the Oakland area. Expecting her to move again seems wrong. Although P- is full, I was picturing having a sitting strike or hiring a lawyer to get her in. I had heard that their were laws to get foster kids a smooth transition into school, after all.
After realizing that the P- situation was hopeless, I put the word out to my broader community to tell me some good things about other schools. I got some leads on other potential schools that we visited. One we didn’t like at all and one was okay and was a charter school with a waiting list (which we did get on).
My agency told me to start calling principals. Well this worked for getting tours of the school, but all of the placements are centrally located through the district, so asking about openings got people in the office really chilly. We got word from friends that their kid’s school, C-, which happens to be our second choice of schools, recently had a kid transferred in who NEVER SHOWED UP!! This seemed like a miracle that our friends were talking to this principal at the same time we were wanting to get in the school. It is not walking distance of our house, but reasonably close. A great school… it really was our second choice. Of course, the district did not show the opening in their computer because technically it had been filled. Would it be a huge mistake to call their attention to it? Would we get lucky in the fact that most parents don’t want to transfer their kids mid-semester? We are now waiting to see if the timing will sync.
In the meantime, we have found that two other well-rated schools in the Montclair area have openings for 1st grade. So these are possibilities if C- doesn’t work out. It is a huge relief to at least know that we have a couple of acceptable options for our kid. But it IS complicated and stressful.
I think the real lesson for me is that even though there are these laws, our daughter still wouldn’t be in a school that was a good match if I didn’t have the resources to transport her and the resourcefulness to advocate for her.
