  We finally made a concrete decision regarding Aidan's schooling for this year, and the road we took for the journey ended up delivering a surprise ending. urlLink Click here if you want to read about the options we faced. We remained split and waffling all week long. Toward the week's end, I called a few contacts to acquire the phone number of a parent who sends her daughter to the super cool international private school. This woman's daughter (let's call her Jill) is in the primary school, not the pre-school, and she came to this school after attending a very low-structure, let the child decide his/her way, Montessori school through kindergarten. Jill had a very emotional transition when, upon first grade at the international school, she had to adapt very quickly to structure. I asked Jill's mom if she had considered a Vanguard public school rather than this private school and Jill's mom said because the Montessori didn't push her child to learn pre-reading if Jill didn't want to, and because Jill didn't want to, she didn't test into the Vanguard program at all. And, not wanting her daughter to be in the regular public school she was zoned for, Jill's mom chose this private school.
She said even through the transition to structure, the first grade instructor was so loving and flexible that Jill learned to sit in a desk and even to read at the level of the other kids eventually. She learned to write in cursive with ease, as this school doesn't teach print writing. But her experience turned more sour after the level of the first grade, when the curricula became increasingly difficult. Jill's mom said she felt the school was pushing the kids too hard to achieve too much and Jill wasn't thriving in that atmosphere. She said the school's work level remains about one year ahead of even the private schools, and that even though the school says they have 30 minutes of homework every night, in reality it was often more like an hour and sometimes even more than an hour's work. But Jill's mom didn't have any experience with the prek3-kindergarten programs, so she gave me the phone number of a mom who did.
Let's call her Jane. I'm being bland on purpose here with my pseudonyms. Jane said she loved, loved, loved the programming for the levels of prek3, prek4, and kindergarten. She said one instructor was an accomplished artist and led the children in amazing creative journeys. The learning style was very play-based and responsive to the capabilities of the children. She warned that the kids did not actually come out fluent in either Spanish or French, though.
She echoed Jill's mom's experience that primary school was considerably more structured and the expectations for the children's performance were very high. Within the first few years of primary school, she moved her child to a public school. The interesting point to make is that at this point in hearing everything these two moms had to say, I was really thinking, that does it then, I'm ready to switch to the international school. Aidan does well in structure, and we intend to have high expectations for his performance, as well.
I know how structured and academically challenging European schools are from first-hand experience. I think these parents weren't quite as prepared as we would be for this style of learning. Jane started discussing the things she thought I would love, specifically the international peers and parents. Only, she mentioned they were all oil business parents. Knowing Jane herself was liberal, I asked her if the morals of peers raised in oil families poorly affected her children. Turns out Jane must be a blue dog liberal because she said, "oh no! Kids are way too young to pick up on morals at those ages. " Hmmmm. She said families often move out within a year if they are very liberal or internationally minded because living in the south of the US is just too difficult for their morals.
She also mentioned the kids got a week's break from school every six weeks. I would love that system if it were in lieu of a summer break, but it's in addition to it. It's like this school took the worst of both US and European systems: summer retention loss and constant breaks in the school year. After I got off the phone with Jane, I thought about what she'd liked about the pre-school and how she stopped liking the primary school.
I realized that the pre-school is almost identical to the program Aidan's in now, and she didn't like it when it became what I thought it was already at this age, that is, academically oriented. When I called John and told him everything the two moms said, before I could even approach my conclusions, he said that he felt exactly the same way. We both agreed that as long as the schools were so similar at this age, we should keep him in the atmosphere we already know and trust. Perhaps for kindergarten, we'll move him over to transition with the other kids for the new structure and academic schedule. Through our process, my mom asked if there was middle ground between his part-time pre-school and this super cool international one. I approached the question as if she intended a different program, and I'm confident that we've found two of the best schools in the city. Certainly not the two most expensive, by at least half, but considering curricula, diversity, and faculty, really the best. Once I was back in the paradigm of staying at this school, however, I realized there was a middle ground option. He could attend his pre-school program full time rather than part, therefore 1)getting the complete, unabridged preK Prep curriculum, and 2) being eligible for an early move-up if he excelled at his learning goal acquisition.
John had mentioned this option off and on through our journey and I wasn't able to consider it. But now, I'm sold on it. Once we told his school he'd be staying and we'd be moving him to full-time, we found out another huge benefit of the full-time program, by complete coincidence, is that it meets in the same building as Ellie's program. I'm so glad Aidan will be there to soothe his sister if she needs him. I think just feeling him in the other room will be a comfort to her, just as feeling John somewhere in the house is a huge comfort to me. 
