Dealing with lemons

TLE and "Doctor Rice Ball"

As I posted a few months back, The Little Empress was accepted into a scholarship program for a high quality preschool. She’s been going for several months now and last week, we got a phone call that we were not expecting. Due to budget cuts, the scholarship program has been reworked and our family is among dozens that finds ourselves without preschool for our little ones.

I could write volumes about how unfair all of this is, not just for the kids who no longer qualify and their families but for the preschools who worked with the scholarship program as well. Some of the preschools in the program depend heavily on the scholarship program to ensure enrollment; now this means that some preschools may have to cut their staff. The domino affect is horrible.

Unless something happens in the eleventh hour (doubtful) TLE’s last day of her current school will be September 9th. Originally, they were going to only approve enrollment until August 31st but they decided to be nice because they originally gave the parents and schools less than a week’s warning.

I won’t lie: when I heard the news, I cried. And then, I became angry. And then the anger faded away and I’m left with figuring out how to make the best of the situation. We’re exploring our options which range from asking our parents for help to keep her in her current school on a modified schedule to exploring alternatives like co-op preschools and homeschooling. Right now we’re hoping to keep her in her current school until she was 4 years old since we planned to do pre-k at home. It took her longer to adjust than we had expected and forcing her to adapt to another school right now just doesn’t feel right.

While the situation sucks for the most part, there is a silver lining.  TLE’s been in school five days a week since she was 2 years old on a schedule that’s closer to a kindergartner’s than a preschooler’s and we haven’t had a lot of opportunity for our own adventures. We’ve maybe only a handful of playdates with friends since she started school at 2 years old. The library used to be a weekly thing while now it’s more like a monthly outing. I’ve hesitated to put her in extra classes to keep from overscheduling her.

While I still hope to somehow maintain at least 2 days a week in preschool to help maintain her social skill building, it will be nice to find time to have our own adventures with more home learning opportunities, even if we don’t “formally” homeschool. So while unexpected, this may still be a good opportunity for our family overall.

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