Billings

Jordan has been accepted to Billings Middle School! We are thrilled; Billings was our first choice, and we think it will be great for him. (Regular readers: Billings was School A in an earlier post, and was the school with the fantastic assessment process.)

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours experiencing only the euphoria of acceptance. Then there was a period of gasping for air when we found out that our financial aid award was not what I had hoped it would be. We sort of got through that with pragmatic planning (finding ways to sort of make it work at least for this year). That pragmatic part is not concluded. Emotionally, though, there is another layer, which is: even if we can pay for it, is it worth it? Will it really be as good as we hope, or will we make this huge investment for not very much payoff?

To get a handle on this basically non-answerable question, Dale and I took some time to identify what we hope for Jordan to achieve that would really make it worth the money, and what kinds of things would have to happen on a day-to-day basis to assure us that we were on the right track. We turned that into a family contract, sat down with Jordan to read it through, and all signed it together. He was enthusiastic; he knows the money is an issue, and wants this to work out, and said "These are all good things that I should do no matter what." We are hoping this will be something we can return to in the coming year(s) to see how we are doing.

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Billings Family Contract

This contract is between Jordan Scherr and his parents, who are paying for Jordan to go to Billings Middle School. Middle school costs a lot for good reasons (the same amount as a new laptop computer every month). Here are the things we hope to achieve in middle school that will make it worth all the money.

· Jordan’s work at school will be meaningful. Jordan will learn a lot. The schoolwork that Jordan does will be so interesting, exciting, surprising, and deep that he will gladly put independent effort into it.

· Jordan will have awesome relationships with inspiring teachers that he trusts and admires.

· Jordan will make great friends.

· Jordan’s parents will make great friends and enjoy being a part of the school community.

· Jordan will be increasingly independent and self-motivated.

· Jordan’s parents will trust that school is doing a great job helping Jordan learn.

In order to feel good about spending all this money, we want to know that these things are really happening. Here are some ways we will know.

1. Jordan will have something interesting to say about school each day – something he learned or did with other people – a “school rose.”

2. Jordan will do a good job with his schoolwork. This means keeping track of what needs doing every day, doing it even when he’d rather do something else, and being pleased to share completed work with his parents.

3. Jordan will tell his parents if he feels unable to do his schoolwork well – say if he thinks the work is too hard or too much, and make a plan together with his parents and his teachers for what to do about it.

4. Jordan’s parents will talk to his teachers to hear how things are going.

5. Jordan’s parents will feel secure that Jordan and his teachers are taking responsibility for Jordan’s learning.

6. Jordan will invite new friends over.

7. Jordan’s parents will invite new friends over.

By signing this document, Jordan and his parents agree to do all of these things.


[Jordan] [Dad] [Mom]


If these things don’t happen, there will be natural consequences that will be unpleasant for all of us. These are some of the things we want to avoid:

- Jordan could waste time and not learn much.

- Jordan’s parents might have to work longer hours and play less to make enough money for not enough of a good reason.

- Jordan’s parents could start fighting over whether we make enough money, or be bitter about spending money on middle school.

- We might not have enough money to do regular things like buy good food.

- We might not have enough money for important things that we will need to pay for later, like college.


We agree to do the things on the first page partly because they are good things, and partly to avoid these bad things.