School Selection Frenzy: A Letter to My Two Selves

Sumner on his first day of kindergarten.

Dear Emily (a parent dizzy from the kindergarten admissions process),   

I get it. It feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. You are unsettled because in eight short months you will drop off Zola at a yet-to-be-determined school where she will be molded and nurtured. You hope you will get lucky and make a decision that will stick for the next six to thirteen years. The pressure is on to get it right.

In the midst of the madness, it is hard to remember the lessons you’ve painstakingly learned. Don’t fret. You know better. Do not get swept away in school-selection madness. It’s mania and you know it. So snap out of it.

It will be okay. Zola will be admitted to a public school in New Orleans and it will be acceptable. At times, it will be exceptional, inspiring. You have never, not ever, heard of a child whose parents wanted them to go to a New Orleans public school, who ended up without a seat in August. If somehow she doesn’t get a spot in a public school of your liking, it may not feel like it, but you have other choices. You can cut corners and send her to a private school. You can homeschool her. You’re lucky like that. You have choices. It will be okay.

Until it isn’t okay, because nothing is ever perfect. This human truth applies to education. Zola will be excited and tentative on her first day. She will probably love it. On some days, she will be bored or insecure or both. She will make life-long friendships, yet there will be times when she has no one to play with. She will have magical teachers and she will encounter a terrible teacher or two, but most of her teachers will fall somewhere in between because no one and nothing is ever perfect. School will help Zola discover things she is passionate about and it will quell her enthusiasm for other things.  She will have classes that are too hard and classes that are too easy. You will agonize over all of this. Some days she will be in tears about what happened at school and she will cry very hard. After she is asleep, you will cry harder. Other days she will be bright and fulfilled and you will feel blessed. If you homeschool Zola, all of these things will be true too, only you will be the only one to blame.

Remember: nothing is forever. Children change, you change, schools change. When Sumner was four, you were looking for an open-admission Boston public school and a challenging, individualized curriculum was a bonus. You stood on high moral ground and refused to move homes or look at private schools or apply to so-called “test-in” schools. Later, when Sumner was six and you moved to New Orleans, you compromised. While diversity and open-admissions were still priorities, art, challenging curriculum, and proximity to home rose to the top. Still later, you paid (gasp!) to send Ramona to a school because there was a teacher she clicked with, no homework, lots of outdoor time and art, and space for her to recover her health and her confidence. And now look at you, someone who poured a career into public schools, homeschooling your teenage son. Watch what you proclaim, because priorities change, people are dynamic. Nothing is forever.

Finally, stop judging everyone. The Lusher parents aren’t all elitists, the Newman parents aren’t all rich, the St. Andrew’s parents aren’t all saints, the homeschooling parents are not all introverted radicals, the dual-language parents aren’t all bilingual and dress like the French, and the Bricolage parents of five, six, and seven year-olds don’t have it all figured out. In fact, these parents are your friends and they are just like you. How a family educates their children is very personal and sometimes born out of accident or circumstance. Everyone takes it very seriously. And just like you, most people harbor some degree of insecurity about their choices. So stop judging. Just listen and support your friends.

Everything will be okay.

Sincerely,

Emily (the parent of children who have been to and through kindergarten)

P.S. Good luck choosing a high school and visiting colleges this year.