Schools

I am the sort of person that likes to get a jump on things, so last month, I visited a middle school. I worry about middle school. Not only is middle school a tough time in life, I think it is likely to be especially daunting for Jordan, not so much socially but organizationally. Six different teachers, six different homework schedules, certain things you need to bring to or from school only on Tuesdays, stuff you have to get from your locker before 4th period because you won't have time after 4th period and you need to bring it home to finish in time for 2nd period on Friday morning... I don't want to undersell Jordan, but I think this kind of thing is likely to totally snow him. Our neighborhood middle school has a good reputation with some people, especially its music program, but it is huge: there are six hundred sixth graders. Our friend with a sixth-grade son says he can't physically get to his locker in the middle of the day because it's just too far to walk. This is not promising.

So we are looking around. The public school system offers a few "option schools," which are lottery schools with a special theme or emphasis. I went on a tour of the option school nearest us and I liked it pretty darned well. It is a K-8, which I like philosophically (I think it's good for the middle school kids to have leadership opportunities, and a reason not to swear in the hallways), and it is an "E-STEM" school (Environmental Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), which I think our kids would go for. It is a fairly new school (5 years old) with a hardworking visionary principal who has assembled a team of teachers who very much share her vision. And there are only 725 kids in the whole school (350 in the middle school, 6-7-8); so the scale of the thing is just a lot more manageable. In this environment, I would have more hope that someone would be keeping track of Jordan. 

In fact, I liked it enough that we started to think... why wait? Why not switch now? We could switch them both. I don't want to get into the details, but much as it pains us, we are not happy with our neighborhood school. We put in the paperwork. The lottery is this month.

Meanwhile, our friend Jessica is the admissions director for the Seattle Jewish Community School, which is K-5. It's a wonderful school, which we know because we have a lot of happy friends there -- much of our old SJCC preschool crowd, who are still some of our (and our kids') best friends. It has a big price tag, so we were prepared to be satisfied with our neighborhood school. Except now we're unsatisfied. When Jessica heard that we had put in to change to the K-8, she politely asked to have one conversation with us about her school. It is quite an awesome place; for one thing, the maximum class size is 20, and for that size class there are two full-time teachers who team-teach, one leading in the morning and one leading in the afternoon. In addition, a learning specialist spends all day supporting kids whose learning needs are different than the rest of the class, either needing extra challenges or extra support. And we have been made aware... that the sticker price is not the price we would pay. There is quite a lot of tuition assistance. (This is thanks in part to the extraordinary Samis Foundation, founded by a guy (Sam Israel) who was an immigrant cobbler who moved to Seattle before WWII, got lucrative contracts to make Army boots, used the profit to buy downtown real estate, and had no heirs; his foundation is partly dedicated to funding Jewish education for Seattle families.)

Dale and I went on a tour the other day, and we were practically in tears the whole time, it was so touching. When we visited the first grade classroom, so many of Aaron's friends (including Emanuel, Amara, and Adam) jumped up and cheered that the class's official greeter could hardly get over to greet us. Their teacher invited them to tell us some reasons why we should send our kids there, and the kids said, "Because the teachers are so awesome! Because we use art and games to learn better! Because we learn Hebrew! Because we are already their friends!" Both of our kids would join classes that literally have one of their best friends in them, as well as multiple other kids that they know from preschool and summer camp. The whole thing is just too good. Though it is a little weird to move Jordan for only one year, every year counts, and we feel sure that he can have a really good year at SJCS. And Aaron can have four. We don't feel at all sure of that elsewhere.

The kids liked the idea. They were very relaxed about it. The application includes them spending a day at SJCS for assessment; they did this this week, and had a great time. They were greeted like rock stars. Aaron's class sang him a Hello Song (and they were so excited they kind of freaked Aaron out; they had to be asked to do it again more calmly). The fourth graders, meanwhile, had each written Jordan a welcome letter saying how they looked forward to spending the day with him and why they like their school. The kids came home saying it was a wonderful place and they would be happy to go there.

So assuming that Sam Israel comes through for us, we're going. It feels like a big deal, to move out of our neighborhood school; but what we are moving into just seems way too good to pass up. Wish us luck.