Ella's birthday, part one

Today is Ella's third birthday! Woohoo!
The celebrating started yesterday with a birthday party in her class.


Marina was invited to join the cookies, ice cream and fruit salad feast. It always makes me feel a bit guilty because Marina has a summer birthday and will probably never have one of these classroom parties.



After a short day at school, we'll continue the party with cupcakes in La Jolla followed by a Thanksgiving/family celebration tomorrow, an actual party on Saturday and Yo Gabba Gabba on Sunday!

We're so smart!

I'm learning that the most annoying part of touring schools is the parents.

Maybe it's the places I'm picking, but every time I go on a tour, a good 20 minutes is spent discussing the Advanced Placement or gifted programs. For kindergarten.

I have no problem with advanced curriculum, if Marina tests into those classes (which actually don't start until second or third grade), then good for her. But if she doesn't, she doesn't. I'm not one of these parents that behaves as if they've got some sort of genius child (even though I do).

The school I went to this morning was especially terrible about this. The place is called Grant Elementary and it a K-8th grade in Mission Hills, a well-to-do and trendy area of San Diego.
I know three people who went there and they are all great, smart, funny people that I like very much. It also has high test scores and high popularity rankings and I was expecting this to be my first choice.

Maybe that's why I'm extra disappointed.

I showed up five minutes late because of traffic and already they were talking about AP and GATE programs. And all the parents were asking all these ridiculous questions about tests and skill levels and are the smart kids separated from the "other" kids.

(There was a lot of discussion about separation at this school, actually. Smart versus regular/poor versus paid daycare/little versus big kids.)

The school used to be a science magnet but the district took away its magnet status a few years ago. I asked the principal and she said they weren't bringing in enough outside students, but she also insinuated that there was some politics involved.

I also got the feeling - and this is only a gut feeling - that the neighborhood wasn't so into being diversified. One of the people on the tour was a resident and she said "so there's no bussing anymore, right?" like it was a good thing.

Another issue is that the school isn't getting much money from the district because it's in such a wealthy neighborhood. They don't qualify for a lot of programs, like Title I, and so there's very little money for art, PE and extras. The campus isn't all that wonderful, either. Lots of trailer type classrooms. I can't even tell you what the actual rooms were like because they didn't take us inside. They didn't want to disrupt the class.

But I kind of tuned out when I heard that you have to apply for their after-school care. The day ends at 2:15 and there are two options for after school: the Head Start program which you have to qualify financially for and doesn't start until first grade. And a daycare that only accepts 150 students complete with a two-year waiting list.

If I have to point out a positive, I'll say that the kindergarten area is very cute, separate from the rest of the school and each class has its own bathroom so the kids don't have to wander around.

It does seem to have a very strong community feeling to it, but if you don't live there then what? If I did live in Mission Hills, I think I'd be perfectly happy sending my kids there.

But I don't. So the search goes on.

Halloween 2010

This is to prove to everyone - mostly Matt - that I don't just think about kindergarten.
I do take time away from my own brain to celebrate certain occasions.

Green and Birney

Do you know how overwhelming it is to tour one school?

There's all this stuff you have to process: the campus, the kids, the test scores, the amount of hours each one devotes to art or p.e. or music, the after-school programs.

Well today I made the crazy decision to tour two schools: Green and Alice Birney.

Green is a P.E. magnet very close to my house and even closer to my grandmother's. It's a wide, open campus with its own sports field and a philosophy to live healthy. The principal is super personable and embodies the school motto by getting up at 4 a.m. everyday to run before heading to campus.

Do you know why he has to get up at 4? Because the school day at Green begins at 7:30 a.m. That's not a deal-breaker for me, though. What did bother me was that the students are overwhelmingly male. It makes sense because there's tons of physical activity going on all the time and it really helps hyperactive kids focus.

I just don't see my teeny, tiny daughter flourishing there. Even though they do gymnastics and even though they give all kids swim lessons (so awesome). I think she'd get lost among the kids, who the principal described as competitive.

The actual kindergarten classroom was laid out in a way I haven't seen. There are four separate kinders, but they are all connected by a little maze of doors. You can walk into all four classes from inside the building. I'm not sure how I feel about it, I didn't like it at first, then I did and now I'm just sort of confused all over again.

Next was Alice Birney, an IB magnet in University Heights. It only became an IB (which is like the international equivalent of AP) last year so it's still in transition from being an under-performing urban school to a desirable magnet.

The kinder building is new and each class had a huge library. They also have several pretty cool vegetable gardens and I was impressed that they have a full-time counselor on staff.

But Matt, who came with me on this tour, pointed out that there must be a reason to keep a school counselor during such bad budget times. And there definitely was a big-city kind of feel there, which means big-city problems.

I didn't see Marina there and Matt, who it turns out has even higher standards than I do, didn't either.

Touring two places in one day did leave me with this: I believe all the schools I saw are truly trying their best. They've all got good test scores, dedicated teachers, an involved PTA. For me, these numbers and facts are just running together and it's becoming more about feeling, about where I can imagine Marina.

I'm telling

Because I really want to finish what I start, and because I don't want any kind of bad karma, I will share what I saw at Urban Discovery.

The building in which it's located is really old. I used to have a pediatrician in that building and even when I was five-years-old I knew it was ancient. Also, it's directly across the street from Balboa Park, which along with being a good thing, does have it's element of sketchy characters and foot traffic.

Those are the things I was holding against it going in.

But the school is very secure. The only way in is through a front office with a giant glass window and the office people can see you coming from a good way away. Also, it was surprisingly clean and colorful.

The "thing" at UD is "the whole child," which means they treat all subjects with equal importance. But it's also about making education fun. And while that's something that would seem to be all talk, like a random idea they put on the brochure, it was pretty obvious when you walked into the classrooms that they mean it.

There are two kindergartens and instead of learning letters, they were learning "ap" words: tap, nap, cap, etc. They had lots of projects on the walls, including science explorations and pictures from a play they had put on.

We met both sets of K through 3rd grade teachers and they were all super enthusiastic and, though I didn't say this aloud, they all looked like Disney princesses. In a total, total good way - all smiles, stylish but not trendy, excited about their jobs.

If there's a downside I'd say it's that they don't have a physical playground. Instead they walk across the street for recess and PE. It's kind of weird to think of my little kid crossing a busy street, but they showed us how the kids link arms in sets of three. They walk to the crosswalk and then pick a spot directly in front of the school. They don't let the kids use the public bathroom, either. They said if a kid really has to go, they call the office and an adult runs over and brings the child back to campus.

Another thing that made it pretty desirable is that there's also a preschool. So if we did end up getting chosen, there's a good chance we'd use a preschool that's in the same building (and next door to a pediatrician's office).

That's it.

I think I'm done looking at charters.

Now I've got to concentrate on traditional public schools in my neighborhood. I've got to pick five schools and right now I'm only confident about two. . .

So I plan to look at Hearst, Green, Daillard and ? suggestions?