We're in!

By waiting in front of my computer and typing madly as soon as the link became available, I got Miss Pink into the charter school!

YAY!

This means Mr. Blue will be guaranteed a spot when he enters kindergarten, too. So I don't have to go through this in three years. Thank goodness, because I don't think I could stand the suspense.

Let me assure you that I am no school snob. If Miss Pink had not gotten in, we would have sent her to her assigned elementary school and been fine with it. The attempt to get her into this school was nothing compared to the competition to get in the preschools in NYC and Chicago. They have entrance interviews and IQ testing in those places! Sending my kids to a charter school was more about finding a school where they would learn well, not trying to get into Harvard or anything. I just wanted to make sure y'all knew that.

I know that no school is perfect, and Miss Pink and Mr. Blue will still have challenges in school that I will have to help them deal with. But I think this school sounds like a good fit for them. I like that the school believes in multiple intelligences, that every child has gifts and abilities that may not show up on a standardized test. Miss Pink would be fine, I think, in a traditional classroom with lots of reading and writing and sitting at a desk doing worksheets. But she is also artistic and social (interpersonal intelligence). At this school, there is a lot of cooperative learning because their philosophy is that we learn better when we talk about what we're learning instead of just listening to a lecture. (Sort of what we've discovered in the small groups model for churches, right?) Since Miss Pink loves to talk about what she's learning,* this should be perfect for her.

*wonder where she gets that from?

So we shall see. I am committed to volunteering my time at the school (parents must do 10 hours minimum)--not to be hovering over my kid, but to help make the school the best it can be.

A lot of the other parents feel the same way. As my friend said today, "All the other parents really wanted their kids in that school, so it's bound to have a positive atmosphere." I truly believe that parental involvement is the key to a good education for children--not more federal dollars, not fancier technology in the classroom. As a parent, if you are involved in your child's education, whether you're a public, private, or homeschooling family, you are doing the best thing you can do for their future.

When I started this post, I was just going to type the first line. Please don't hate me for my longwindedness!