What to do with school

Tony starts kindergarten this fall. From the time he was a baby I have considered all educational options. Some ideas I have thought of for two seconds and rejected, others set in a “we’ll see” pile, and then there was the “probably pile.”

Traditional public school is out; the big city school district close to where we live is lying off over 200 teachers. Our school district isn’t in such straights, but neither Angelo nor I believe that public school will serve Tony’s best interests.

There’s the parochial school route. In fact there’s the school I taught at almost two years ago. However, there have been many changes within the faculty and administration, and the school seems unsettled. That bothers Angelo.

Recently, we considered a foreign language charter school that is a short bike ride from our house. Upon inquiry, I discovered I should have thought of it six months ago. Registration was in January and currently there are over 100 kids on a waiting list to start kindergarten. Only about ten from the list will make it.

So, there’s home school; the first and most prominent idea Angelo and I have had. That brings about a completely different batch of questions. What type of home school? What curriculum? What are the ramifications? Will I be able to handle it? Will it be beneficial for Tony? Can we afford it?

I taught Tony at home last year. We called it preschool, but it was more like kindergarten. Yesterday we visited a specific curriculum display and found it to our liking. We ordered the kindergarten books, and along with the order came two sample DVD’s showing classroom teachers teaching out of the same curriculum. Tony watched them and was immediately taken in by what he saw. He did the same hand motions the teacher did, and repeated after her. As we watched the samples of the different teachers teaching different grade levels, Tony had questions, and we would stop the video so we could discuss what was on his mind.

Finally he asked me, “Mommy, which one will be my teacher next year.”

“Well, I will be,” I told him getting down to his level.
“Mommy,” he said as he put his arms around my neck. “I love you, and you’re my mommy. I like it that you’re my teacher, but I want a school building teacher. Will one of those teachers be my school building teacher?”

Um, what do I say to him? Angelo and I have talked about it, but the program the DVD’s fall under is different than the books I got (same curriculum but different program). Instead of $71.00 for the few books I got, I’m looking at ten times that much for the DVD program; over $700. This DVD program includes all the books for student and parent, the DVD’s and all the extras like flash cards, manipulative and supplemental books.

I’m a teacher and can make the supplemental materials, find them off the Internet, or I have them already. And the only way to get the DVD’s is to get the whole program.

So now it’s back to the options stage and more discussion as to what is best for Tony. As always the extremely slim pocketbook is part of the conversation……