Finding The Right School

I always thought I'd be the type of parent that didn't care about what school my child attended, because we'd (the parents) be the ones that influenced our child and made sure she got the most out of school and learned everything she needed to, so we could make up for any deficit the school might have. This was especially true since I went to a so-so public school, and still managed to graduate near the top of my class, and go to a top notch college.

But reality is never as easy as what we idealize. For our daughter, we thought we'd send her to public school for kindergarten. But then California budget cuts struck, and the idea of sending our daughter to a school where the child to teacher ratio was 33 to 1 just didn't seem like a good idea, when just the year before it was only 20 to 1. So our daughter has spent her kindergarten year in a private elementary school. While we love the school, we don't love the cost of the tuition, and I really don't see us being able to sustain this through the rest of her academic years.

So in January we started looking at public schools and other alternatives again. With our severe disappointment in our home school (who failed to return any calls to us last year), I started looking into the open enrollment process, where you can apply for any school in the district. There were two obvious choices, the lottery schools which were top ranked, and in fact one is the top ranked elementary in the state of California. But we decided that one is way too competitive, and we didn't want our daughter growing up amidst that much competition to succeed. The other lottery school requires parent participation, 4 hours in the classroom during the work week.

So we started looking at the other elementary schools in the district that are close to our home. We found one that's relatively close, is smaller than typical, and still has 20 to 1 child to teacher ratios in 1st to 3rd grade. While its scores aren't the best, they are better than our home school, so we decided to target getting into this elementary school.

Last week, we got our acceptance letter, so it appears we've found a public elementary school for our daughter. But it's been a lot more work than I ever expected, and even then I'm still worried about the quality of the education she's going to receive. It's a surprise to me how much this matters to me, after I was so convinced it wouldn't make a difference.