School Choice

In my day, most kids either went to a private Christian/Catholic school or their home public school district.  I actually lived right no the border of two area public school districts and my parents got to choose which our family attended.

Today the school choices are much more vast.  When we selected a preschool for Cooper, we picked out home public school district.  He wasn't previously in a daycare setting so for us as first time parents and prior attendees of the public school system, this made the most sense.  It didn't go well...in fact halfway through the year we were meeting with the director and about 2/3rds in Cooper was asked to leave the program.  We followed up with the director (after running a letter up the chain to the superintendent because we couldn't get anyone to respond to our questions) and decided to stick with the public school program for his second year.  That year was also a flop for our family and we ended up moving Cooper into an amazing in-home program where he finished his preschool time.  Now, our guy was definitely a challenge in many ways, but he was and still is very smart academically (not at all gifted, but one of the top in his class).  So as his parents, we knew we needed to do some more digging to make his school journey a successful one!

We attended two kindergarten round up events and toured two additional schools.  There may be a future post about kinder round up if any of you out there are interested.  The first round up I attended was at our local Voyager program - they asked why Cooper wasn't with me to check out the program.  Then our whole family attended the round up at our home public school where we were informed that this was a parent only event.  Why does this have to be so confusing for parents...who's invited, what should you bring along, what information will you glean from the event.  We did some research and I toured a local Montessori program.  I even considered what it would look like to homeschool because we had a bunch of friends succeeding in that arena.  And by this time I was feeling overwhelmed and discouraged because none of these programs seemed right for Cooper and our family.

Then I took a tour at a charter school that was very close to our home. We weren't at all familiar with charter schools but our tour at WMAAA had us digging deeper.  You see...charter schools are not private or tuition based like many parents assume.  Any charter school in the state of Michigan is considered a public school academy.  That means they are funded by per pupil state funds.  I will definitely have an in-depth post on charter schools in the future, but that's not the main focus of this post.

We did our research, we talked to other more experienced and education-enabled families that we knew, and in the end we chose WMAAA for Cooper.  Now, the transition for him was still rough.  But this school was like family to us. They invested in getting to know Cooper and supporting him while he learned how to be in school.

Many of you out there are getting to the place where you will have kids entering school.  Another large group of you have kids already in school.  And unfortunately not all of you are education-enabled! Some of your students are thriving where they are and other's are struggling and falling behind.  Not every school is the right fit for every student.  For the sake of your child, please take the time to research your options and make the school days a success for your student.

January 24th-30th is National School Choice Week.  Check out this
link for more details!  There is a tab specifically for parents with more information and resources for families. Celebrate your school choice.

A Child's First Educator

Parents are a child’s first educator…we need to keep up even as they enter formal schooling. 

My son is already in 3rd grade. From the day he was born until his 1st day of preschool I was his first educator. I helped him learn how to roll over, crawl, walk, feed himself, potty-training etc. etc. etc. And when he started preschool…his first “formal” schooling I felt at a bit of a loss. 

Formal educators, teachers, typically speak a different language than most parents. As parents this sometimes makes us feel intimidated. Like we don’t know how to “educate” our children anymore because these trained professionals now have the job. But it is in the best interest of our children that we stay engaged or Education Enabled! In the same way that we are our child’s first educator, we are also their best advocate. 

I remember when my son started kindergarten the transition was hard. In fact, transitions had always been hard for him. He was impulsive and behind socially for his age and a “young” kindergarten student. However, based on where he was academically, our pediatrician agreed with us that if we held him back another year it would not be beneficial. As his first educators we had worked hard in all the ways we knew how to help with the transition. But it was still hard. 

Just a month in, we were sitting with his teacher in an after school meeting trying to help her get to know our son. And she was amazing…she walked a rough road with us. But it wasn’t perfect. Our super high energy boy was spending more and more of his recess time in the school office because he couldn’t learn to keep his hands to himself. I knew in my heart he needed that recess time but wasn’t sure how to get him there. As his first educator and best advocate I spoke up, I met with his teacher again and talked to school administration. In the end, we came up with a plan, together. He got to be out on the playground to see not only what he was missing  but how to play like other kids. But he walked with a recess aide so that his impulsive actions could be monitored. And guess what…he learned! There were steps forward and back, but he learned. 

I’m now working at his school and am surrounded everyday by educators. I even consider myself a quasi-educator of sorts. And educators don’t mean for it to be confusing. But let’s be honest, I’m a “retired” banker. And as a parent, I get the other side of the coin. I get that being Education Enabled as a parent takes hard work.  

I’m hoping to use this blog to help take some of the hard work and mystery out of being an Education Enabled parent. Some future topics I’m considering already are school choice (public vs charter vs private vs home), assessments, conferences…the list is endless. Enjoy and let me know if you have any suggestions.