Wednesday, December 29, 2010

My defense

Right about now is when the kindergarten quest goes from informing people to kinda creeping them out.

I guess I haven't realized how intense this whole thing can seem to everyone but the six people in my equally-obsessed kinder email group. Lately I've been getting more questions about my time and motivation than about actual schools. And that's fine. I get it. It is weird and obnoxiously suburban.

But also what people forget is that I'm a reporter. Since I was 17-years-old I've been finding facts, gathering notes and writing about what I see. You can argue that it's really one of the few things I can do well. Instead of using my interview/note-taking skills for an article, this time I'm applying them to my own life.

I'll admit that I've gone to a school or two that I wouldn't seriously consider. But so very often, I think I'm done interviewing people for an article and then I'll make one more call, or approach one more family at an event, and thats often the interview that makes the story. I go to extra schools because I never know which one could be the right ending for this particular story.

January is almost here and that means one more month of this stuff. It means serious choices and big decisions that go all the way into where we're going to live.

So I'm giving everyone fair warning that things are going to get a whole lot crazier, but be assured, I've been training for this for a long time.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Progress

Vacation cooking diary:

Day one - cranberry pistachio biscotti
Day two - orange pineapple salmon, Israeli salad
Day three - though I technically wasn't on vacation on this day, I cooked honey chili chicken and lemony peach quinoa.

Tomorrow - Chocolate banana muffins.

See? This project will not suffer the same fate as my disastrous running blog. It just can't.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

A completely new, albeit temporary, project

I am (technically) on vacation! And I have zero school tours until mid-January!

What does one do with all that free time?

Because I bought a copy of that book "Julie & Julia'" at a school fundraiser, and because my last cooking story is due the minute I get back to work, I'm inspired to do an experiment of my own.

So it's this: Can I make something fresh every day that I'm home?

For the last week or so we've been stocking up on Trader Joe's frozen food and not feeling guilty whatsoever. But then a foodie friend of mine casually mentioned that she doesn't do Trader Joe's. That just about blew my mind. What does it even mean?? We live off those tiny yogurts and Orange Chicken and honey pretzels and beet salads (and I dont even like beets normally).

She pointed out that practically everything at TJ is packaged, not fresh. And after she said it, I had a totally cliche lightbulb moment. And now my love affair with TJ has been tainted! It's not quite on Fresh and Easy levels, but almost.

The project, which doesn't have a cutesy name, is starting off with my friend Kristin teaching me how to make pistachio biscotti. This just happens to be coincidental, something we were going to do anyway. But why not use it as a jumping off point?

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Slumber party

How many animals are invited to this thing??

Dailard

What happens when you throw yourself a pity party? You get strep throat. Lesson learned.

Nonetheless, I hauled myself out of bed for my last school tour of 2010 (don't worry, January is a marathon of tours).

Dailard is in a hidden part of San Carlos and has an excellent reputation. I grew up around that neighborhood and we happen to live about three miles away and I had no idea it even existed until recently.

The principal is a young, earnest guy with kids of his own. I felt like the problems he has with his kids school in a different neighborhood are solved at Dailard. Like he hates all the nickel-and-dime fundraising he has to do and so at Dailard he asks for donations once or twice a year. He noticed that his own son didn't want to get dressed for school and wasn't talking very much in class, so he places great importance on mental health. Also, he was wearing a Red Sox lanyard, so . . .

One thing I don't like is the modular style design of the campus, to me it looks more like a college than a primary school. Like Green, the kinders are in one building and are separated by partitions, not walls. Because of this, the principal said their curriculum has to be more structured.

That being said, I found the classrooms bright, happy and not at all chaotic. Next year, all San Diego public schools are going to go to 29 students, which is very troubling to me. But I did feel this school was well equipped to handle it because partitions could be moved to fit extra kids.

Back to the mental health thing. There is a room dedicated for students who may not be adjusting or perhaps they are having troubles with friends or whatever. There's a staffer who does one-on-one play and we were able to see it in action. I was incredibly impressed. I am having issues with Ella being controlling about her clothes and not talking to her teachers, so I think it struck a nerve with me.

Other pluses: It has one of the only Dad's groups in the county, it has a strong music focus, there are other Jewish kids there, the principal knew every kids name, lots of playground space and is next door to a park.

Negatives: The 1970s modular building, the impending class sizes, I didn't really look into the upper grades program and I've heard both great and not so great things about it.

In the end I will confidently put this one down as one of my top five choices.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Pity party

Things that have happened in December:

1. I got bronchitis for the third time in one year.
2. Ella scratched my face and drew blood.
3. Also, she won't stop crying.
4. Survived a very awkward family blowout.
5. Got a correction in the paper.
6. Spilled salmon juice in my car and now it won't stop smelling gross in there.
7. Got trapped in a silly kindergarten related fight with a friend.
8. Had to call in sick for my first day of hospital volunteering.
9. Was in the same room with Mike "the Situation" from Jersey Shore.
10. I got PINKEYE and I am miserable.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Already there. Or, a somewhat melancholy post

Earlier this week I toured the kindergarten of the school we already attend.

As I mentioned, we are enrolled at a private school that goes all the way to 8th grade. I don't want to say the name for safety reasons, but I felt that it would be unfair to tour all these public schools and not look at what is right there in front of me.

I am not going to go into intricate detail about the curriculum and the campus because, for one thing, the school isn't necessarily an option to the general public. But also because it's really not fair to compare public to private.

The private school classes have about 15 to 18 students in each class with two full-time teachers. And, wow. That is a crazy difference to the public ratio, which has plans to go up to 29 kindergartners and one teacher per class.

I will say that I loved what I saw. Totally loved it. And I think Marina would be happy because there's a big focus on art, music and a Jewish curriculum, which she loves. It's also a familiar environment and we are already part of this school's "family."

The only concern I have is that the level of religion she'll get at home versus at school don't really match up. Will she start asking me why I work on Saturdays or why why eat cheeseburgers?

That's a pretty minor concern, though. A bigger issue is that there's a tuition that we can't really afford. So if we make the decision to keep her where she is, we'd definitely have to apply for financial aid.

What this tour really did, however, was put this entire search process in perspective. Do we really need to live in a bigger house? Do we really need to go out to dinner all the time? My mom made the sacrifice for me to go to a good school and that stayed with me longer than an extra pair of shoes or a house with a bigger room.

Now I see that I'm willing to do the same.

Still, I am desperately hoping to get into a charter because I think those are equally as wonderful as private. I think considering our lifestyle and our finances, a charter is our first choice.
I will also continue to tour schools so that I can confidently fill in my application to get into one of the five best traditional public schools.

But for all the kicking and screaming I did about finding the perfect kindergarten, I think one of our better and more realistic options is sitting right there in front of me.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Xara Garden School

Today was the kind of day where I went to a school fully expecting it to be a joke only to find that it was everything I'm looking for.

Xara Garden School is a teeny, tiny charter by my house that's located in an old church. The garden is a bunch of potted flowers and plants in the parking lot. I drive by it on the days I go to Starbucks before work and see kids frolicking around all the time, always thinking how odd that a "garden" school doesn't have much of a garden.

Wait. Let me back up. I actually first heard about Xara when I was covering an Earth Day festival in Balboa Park and the Xara kids, parents and teachers walked in a parade. They were playing music and giving off such a joyous energy that I wrote the school's name down in my notebook for future reference.

I have heard, though it's not confirmed, that the man who founded Xara is involved in the Burning Man festival. What's Burning Man? I got this from the website: "an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance."

I'm not particularly a Burning Man person, though I'm friends with plenty of people who have gone. But you can pretty much use the above statement to describe Xara, and apparently I'm all about this philosophy in a school environment.

The principal said all the things I wanted to hear, like how kids will learn academics on their own time and they'd rather focus on curiosity and creativity and shift the class where the kids want to take it. This is a school, like Urban Discovery, that doesn't correct spelling at a young age so as to not limit them to use only the words they know. A kid will write extraordinary instead of good, for example, because they don't have to worry about red ink on their papers.

Like Burning Man, they are all about self-reliance and community. They don't raise their hands in some classes, instead they wait until there's a space for their voice. I like the idea of this, but I also worry that if you have a shy child, perhaps their voice will never be heard?

At snack time, I saw a teacher and a little boy sit at a table of food and together they figured out how to divide everything so that it would be fair to the class. They decided on one graham cracker, two apple slices and one spoonfull of almonds. I don't know why, but I loved this.

The thing is that it had like a scatter-brained feeling about it all. The principal, who used the word "man" a few times (as in "these are kids, man") may be a bit too mellow. Plus, they're moving from their current location next year, but they don't know where yet. There's just something I don't totally trust, even though I really want to.

Another thing is that there's not much security. A friend on the tour pointed out that we're used to Jewish schools where there's fences and codes and the like. But another male friend of mine said he was curious about the school for his daughter, stopped by randomly one day and was able to walk right in without question. Do not like.

I honestly went on this tour because I heard so many crazy things about it, how it's a mixture of genius and insane, and I wanted to see for myself. I didn't expect to be so conflicted.