May You Have Room to Grow

In a recent moment of high concentration over yet another project, our Mason said, "I love days when I don't have school. Then I can make crafts like this." At the time he was refashioning a styrofoam box into a ship or pontoon or some other nonsense. I had a moment of heart warming affirmation that going to school every other day was a great choice for him and mentally populated a list in my mind of all the awesome things we could do together in his last year at home.

But the best laid plans are often the first to change and the subsequent changes are the hardest to accept. We attended kindergarten open house about a week ago and discovered that our elementary school had plans of their own. They had decided to move the part-time class that Mason had been assigned, in to a "learning lab". That's a fancy word for closet. 

Honestly, the learning lab/closet is adequate for learning. But in my estimation it is too small a space for fully effective, imaginative progress. There are no windows and the shape of the room is similar to that of a bowling lane. Knowing what I know about our district and our school, I know that by the time school starts in August they will have crammed 30 kids into a room designed to accommodate about 10.

That is why our family made the agonizing decision to come up with $4000 and request our Mason be placed in full-time kindergarten. Remember that mental list of all the fun things I would facilitate next year? Vaporized. (I'm also not very happy about the price tag of public school.)

All politics aside, the place where your children spend 60% of their time should make them happy. We're not talking about the difference between Harvard and Yale, here. We're talking about the difference between, "I can't wait to go to school today." and "Don't make me go to school today."