these things come in cycles, right? we have pretty much accepted that maya will follow in her brother's footsteps and attend the starr king mandarin immersion program. we will support her as much as we can and see how it goes. maybe it will be hunky dory. if not, a learning experience.
but now middle school changes are now on the horizon again. never a dull moment around here! in a draft proposal of changes we read about in the fall miles' entire school was slated to feed into a mission middle school but there was a lot of mandarin immersion parent uproar. many vocal people did not like the low test scores and spooky scary crowd of mission kids. i was not thrilled at first but the more i looked into and thought about it this school grew on me. the kids miles is getting to know, slowly but surely, would be together for another few years. it was a nice sized school, not a gargantuan one with 1500+ kids. small class sizes. and walkable, walkable, walkable. but then a few weeks ago another district plan emerged, a plan in which the mandarin immersion program was to be placed at a higher scoring school, but a huge one, with bigger class sizes, and across town.
maybe i am nuts to lean toward my kid attending a low-scoring school in a part of town with more violence and less open green space, but to me community is huge. i can clearly recall that horrible self-conscious feeling of being in a new school, surrounded by strangers. it took a long time to be myself when i switched schools in 6th grade. and then another long time when i switched in tenth. i never got to know kids outside of my classes and everyone was in a little group alienated from everyone else. i also remember that long long bus ride i took for years, and how my parents never set foot in my schools. and i don't think a tiny school is the best but yes, size matters. i know i am projecting onto my kid but i really believe that it makes more sense to not have to make all new friends every few years in a huge sea of people just because, well, because we live in a big city. i am hanging on to my commitment of having a stable community for my kids despite the erratic urban planning around here. i like walking my kids to school and being green and all of us getting to know the people and places on the way. our city here is the mission, bernal, and potrero hill.
so maybe it will be a waste of time, but i guess i am going to jump into this middle school assignment redesign process by attending the meetings and thinking and talking. who knows what the district will come up with? i would love to see starr king stay together. or at least have my kids attend middle school in our neighborhood. learning new languages is supposed to bridge cultures, not separate people, right? after posting this i will organize the soccer registration forms i have been trying to collect from miles' second grade team, kids in ALL the classes who our tireless coach has been working hard to recruit and register.
anyway, it will all work out somehow, but i do think this school district, like a lot of government, is good at coming up with plans and goals, but not so successful at implementation. suppose the implementation would be easier if there were not so many voices clamoring for what they want and think is right. it would be nice if we could all just be good citizens and not be so entitled and think about the bigger picture in a thoughtful way. the good, the bad, and the ugly are all out in the open when you talk about educating everyone's kids. and of course we are all in for another shock when the new state budget is revealed.
