Father's Day Tuesday: The many-school shuffle
Today's Guest Dad is Michael Cross-Barnet, op-ed page editor here at The Baltimore Sun. He probably won't be able to look at this post for a while, because he's probably still trying to get all of his kids to school this morning...
Here's his post:
"Four years ago, I pulled into town after moving across the country with my wife, three kids, two dogs, one cat, one rabbit and one fish, all stuffed into our Toyota Sienna. We were plagued by all the usual doubts and fears attending a major relocation. But at least one aspect of our lives would be simple and straightforward: All three of our kids would be attending the same school, Roland Park Elementary/Middle School, a little less than two miles from our new home.
"Our youngest was starting kindergarten; the middle child was entering second grade; the oldest would be a fifth-grader. And because it was K-8 and one of the best public schools in Baltimore, we had every reason to expect to be there for a very long time. Indeed, one of the main reasons we chose our neighborhood and our home was to be able to send our kids to that school. So if you see us driving around Baltimore in a white minivan weekday mornings between 7:15 and 8:45, looking a little dazed and more than a little tired, please understand: We're disoriented. Our morning routine used to be a "simple" matter of getting three groggy kids out of bed, dressed, fed, prepped for school and out the door to one place...
"This year, a funny thing happened. Actually, a few funny things. One of them is called high school. Yes, our not-so-little girl Emily is now 14, and a freshman at City College High School.
"Then there's our 11-year-old. We had a choice: Keep Joshua at Roland Park for middle school or move him to a different school where he could take the higher-level math and science courses offered by the city's Ingenuity Project. (They have Ingenuity at Roland Park too, but his test scores were just not quite high enough to get him into his first-choice school.)
"As for our youngest child, he never really thrived in a traditional classroom setting. So when we found out a public school was opening in the city using the Montessori educational philosophy, we jumped at the chance to put Zeke, 9, in an environment that we felt was a better match for his personality and learning style.
"For those of you keeping score at home, that's three kids in three different schools. And none of them is the one in our neighborhood! Thus, our daily, drowsy (from waking at 6:30) sojourn through the streets of Baltimore.
"Starting from our home base of Tuscany-Canterbury, we traverse at least a dozen city neighborhoods daily, representing the highs, lows and in-betweens of Baltimore: Guilford, Radnor Springs, Northwood, Hillen, Lauraville, Hamilton, Mayfield, Ednor Gardens, Coldstream-Montebello, Oliver, Greenmount West, and probably a few others whose names I don't know. Ah, you may be thinking: But at least the girl can take the bus to school, can't she? So we thought, too. After all, the No. 22 stops just three blocks from our door and drops her off right in front of City College. Unfortunately, as many of you reading this are no doubt aware, a teenager can be somewhat -- how to put it nicely? -- sluggish in the morning. And more often than not, there's a page or two of homework that somehow got missed the night before. All of which means that, most mornings, riding the bus becomes more of an aspiration than a reality. She piles into the van with the others.
"Now, as for getting them all home in the afternoon? Ugh. Don't get me started ..."
Comments
Wow, we're not alone! We have a special-needs child who attends an out-of-area school and another child in private school. Both must be driven, and both schedules are very different. It's very tempting to say 'to heck with it!' and send them to the local public school when those busses go by every morning, but we are happy to see our kids thriving in the schools that are the best fit for them! (I'm not looking forward to adding a third to the mix when our toddler is school-age!)
Posted by: Meg | September 17, 2008 7:35 AM