The Story of School

Or: The Causes of All Stress in My Life (possibly a slight exaggeration, but not much)
*Names have been changed

This is not going to be an eloquent and funny post. Actually, if you are looking for eloquent and funny posts you are probably on the wrong blog anyway. But that's beside the point. This is also a very long post. You really don't have to read it. I'm not even putting in any pictures.

Herewith the story of getting my children into school.

This story begins way back in February when the school district began running ads for kindergarten registration in the paper. The ads said to register your kindergartner at the school they would be attending. Not knowing what school area we were in I called Mr Jones* who was listed as the contact for questions. (Maybe this should have started a year earlier when they changed the school boundaries and our house fell into one school boundary on the map and a different one in the description, at the time I didn't think much of it because my children weren't in school.)

I had several questions for Mr Jones. He answered them all quite concisely until my last question, how do I know what school to go to? He said, "There is a map on our website, but I can tell you." He then proceeded to hem and ha for several minutes and finally told me School A.

Now, perhaps I should have been concerned since it took him so long to figure it out. I was a little. So I thought I'd just look at the map myself. I went to the school website. I looked all over the school website and couldn't find a map. So, I concluded, Mr Jones should know what he's talking about, maybe he just didn't know where to find the map, either. Besides, School A was the school that I wanted my children in. It is located a few short blocks from Ray's office. Ray drives past it four times every day, at least. It is in the area of town where all the shopping is. No school in town could get more convenient than School A.

I registered my girls in School A. I filled out all the paperwork. I talked to all sorts of people. No one questioned us being there. The principal said we'd get a packet of information in June. She also said we could talk later about whether the girls should be in the same class or not. I'm not really sure when she meant by "later" because I never actually had another chance to talk to her before classes were assigned.

In April we went to kindergarten screening. I talked to more people from School A. Everything seemed to be going great.

Somewhere in here I searched the website again and finally found the map. I actually found it on accident after I had given up looking for it and decided to look for something else. The map clearly showed us in School B. At this point I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to go to School B. It was by far the least convenient school for me. In the eight years I've lived here I believe I'd driven by School B once. It was the school furthest from our house. It wasn't close to anything I ever needed to go to.

Then I ran into my old boss who told me the girls were definitely in School A because he had just redrawn the map for the school district. They just hadn't released the new map yet. Okay, that might explain the hesitation when Mr Jones told me which school, so I went on with School A.

So far, so good. The girls are registered, screened, we're just waiting for some information. I wasn't really sure what information I was waiting for, but I assumed it would contain info on classes, teachers, and school supply lists. Maybe busing, school open house. I didn't really know.

June came and went. No info. All my friends with kids the same age were talking about the classes their kids would be in. July came and was almost over. No info. Now I was starting to get a little stressed. I tried calling the school but of course no one was there because it was summer break. So I called Mr Jones again. He told me the girls were assigned to the same class, told me who the teacher was and said I could find the supply list on the website. And, if I didn't hear anything by the middle of August I should call him back. The middle of August? As in a week before school starts? Really? That's the best you can do? By then someone should be back in the school. I really wanted to ask what the heck he was getting paid for.

I looked up the supply list. It was ridiculous: three boxes of 24 crayons, three boxes of tissues, dozens of pencils, it went on and on. What kindergartener needs 6 dozen crayons? Are they eating them for lunch? I thought it was bad enough for one kid but I was looking at this as someone who had to buy twice as much. I was not happy. But I started to pick up a few things off the list. Being the non-complier that I am, I only got one box of crayons for each child, etc. on down the list. I also skipped the hand sanitizer completely (I've heard from other parents that it doesn't get used anyway).

The beginning of August I finally got a postcard in the mail from the girls' teacher. It didn't have much info but did say she would call with more. That was a start.

But the phone call I got a few days later didn't come from the girls' teacher. It was the principal of School A. She basically said, "The bus barn just called and you're not actually in our school boundaries. I'm really sorry, we'd love to have the girls but you're just not in our boundaries. I'll send all your stuff to School B." I said that Mr Jones told me School A. She replied, "Well, I talked to him and he said he might have given you the wrong information."

Two or three weeks before the start of school. I finally felt like I knew something and suddenly I was starting over. I called Mr Jones again. Of course he didn't answer. I left a message. I don't think it was very nice. He called me back. He apologized. He assured me that School B is just as good a school as School A. The class sizes were smaller in School B. (The real reason, I've since concluded that all this happened.) That's nice and all, but it's still absolutely the least convenient school for me and now, two weeks before school starts, we're starting all over. Mr Jones said he would have Mr Smith*, the principal of School B call me.

Mr Smith called. He was very nice. He asked if I wanted the girls in the same class or not. He assigned them to classes while we were on the phone. He told me who their teachers were. I felt a little better after talking to him.

About three days later I heard that Mr Smith had resigned as principal of School B and was moving out of state immediately to take a new job. Great. The one person at School B who knew we're supposed to be there was now leaving. At this point I was seriously considering homeschooling. Well, not really seriously, but it was crossing my mind a lot more often.

The one upside to School B that I found was the school supply list: much more reasonable. In fact, I already had pretty much everything on the list and I had only purchased about half the stuff, if that, for School A. Bonus.

Now, the bus barn was who caught that we were in the wrong school, I was told, so I assumed the busing would be worked out. Then the bus routes came out in the paper. The closest bus stop to our house was for School A and it was two blocks away. (Fun side note: the School A bus drives right past our house every day.) The School B bus stopped 3-4 blocks south of us, across a major street, and 3 blocks west of us, across another major street. From the looks of the route I was pretty sure they didn't even come into our neighborhood. I called the bus barn. I talked to some guy. I told him my story (the condensed version). He took my information and said he'd have to get back to me.

A couple more days go by. The start of school is getting much closer. No call from the bus barn. I called again. This time I talked to Stacy*. As soon as I said who I was she said, "With the twins? I've got it all figured out." I think Stacy at the bus barn should run the whole school district. It would work much smoother I'm sure.

That's pretty much the story. From that point on things were looking up. We went to the school open house, met teachers and the bus driver. The bus driver said we could have the bus stop right across the street from our house. That's pretty handy. I like the girls' teachers. I like the school. It's still not convenient in any way, but I'm sort-of getting over that. Even with the girls riding the bus most of the time I find I'm driving a lot more than I did before school. That's the part I hate.

The first day of school there was another kid waiting for the bus at our bus stop. I talked to his mom for a minute. They lived on our block (until a week ago) and last year he was in School A. They just switched him to School B about the same time they switched our girls. Which made me think we probably were supposed to be in School A to begin with but they switched things when they saw the class sizes. I don't really know.

Now if you read all of that you will understand the angst and difficulty comment I made a few posts back.

Are you happy now, Holly?