People may think that 6 months old is too young to worry about what type of schooling your child will be receiving from preschool onward but I disagree. With how important schooling is, I don’t believe it is every too early to research what your local schools are like and to begin research to make informed choices.
One of the big problems with moving to where we did was the school system. The town has its own school district and honestly, the schools are horrible. The schools in neighboring towns are quite good but the prices in neighborhing towns are much higher than are own so, unfortunately, you live where you can afford to. I’m not happy with the demographics of the students as The Little Empress would have few Asian classmates, if any. The test scores of the elementary, middle and high schools she would be going to are in the toilet. The high school in particular has an alarming drop out rate . Parents in the two separate parent groups have attested to how bad the schools are.
I got an email today from one of the parents in my area parent group. There are schools in the district that have closed their libraries every other week due to lack of funding. How in the world can a school contientiously close a LIBRARY?
The Hubster ™ now agrees with me — either The Little Empress goes to the local charter school or she will be homeschooled. I’ve been telling The Hubster ™ this for a few months now but the reality of what the schools here are like really hits home.
I checked out a local co-op preschool this week which happens to be next door to the local charter school. I like it. It’s a very Montessori-esque program with lots of free play and all the kids looked happy. There are always parents at the school as helpers with a wonderful ratio of kids to adults. I will definitely be sending The Little Empress to this preschool when the time comes.
I was disappointed to hear that the local charter school has a lottery system as a waiting list so there’s no telling whether TLE will get in for kindergarten. At this point, I’m hoping she gets into the charter for kindergarten but preparing for homeschooling. I’d rather hope for the best scenario and prepare for alternatives and learn as much as I can now rather than possibly scrambling to prepare a kindergarten curriculum at the last minute.
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Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.
I think it’s extremely important. My grandmother made sure I had the best pre-school education at home–memorization of 30 something Tang poetry before the age of 2 and start piano lessons at 4. Then my parents decided to send both my brother and I to an American Catholic school while attending weekend Chinese schools. We also had to learn calligraphy from our grandmother. On top of all this, I had ballet lessons, swimming lessons, gymnastic classes, painting classes, and Japanese language classes. Most of them I got bored after a while, but I’m sure my parents had the best intentions.