When I opened our son’s Kindergarten notification letter yesterday, I got a wierd adrenaline rush, followed by a feeling that I was going to throw up.
Not our first choice. Not our second choice. In the fall he’ll attend Armatage Elementary, our “safety” pick.
At first I was disappointed. We’d ranked our first two choices, Barton and Armatage Montessori (same building), based on the learning style we thought would fit him best, plus convenience to home. Clara Barton Open school is just a few blocks from us, so I’d always imagined walking there with a little person. Once I knew, as a parent, that it’s a highly sought-after magnet school, I tried to temper my expectations. Which were not helped when we visited over the winter and fell in love with the learning style.
(On that tour, many of the at least 80 or so salivating parents — I remember they divided us into two groups — asked increasingly creative, diplomatic variations of, “What can I do to get my child in here?” Suggestion for MPS school administrators: Please clone this program and make it more widely available!)
It didn’t take long, though, for disappointment to morph into sheer excitement over the fact that Kindergarten is no longer just an amorphous something and is now a fact with a physical address. Holy crap, our kid is going to Kindergarten in six months!
We reminded ourselves that hey, we liked Armatage. (“We” depending, actually, on one solo visit by me, on a night when I was so achingly tired I could hardly fashion sentences.)
That we were lucky to have so many choices when we ourselves had one school, and that’s where you went.
That, even though we think we know our son, we have no idea how he will do in any given environment, since he has a way of surprising us every day.
We do know one thing: We’d better start saving up now for Kindergarten Plus.
No related posts.
We got our letter. We didn’t get ANY of our choices. We have been put on wait lists. We’re still waiting to receive a call back from the Placement office to find out what our options are. We live in an “open area” where we’re guaranteed a spot at our community schools, but neither is an option we’re comfortable with. I wasn’t prepared for this! And now we are pretty much guaranteed to have to find other before/after school care if we decide to wait it out and see if a space becomes available. This is exhausting (the convention, the tours, the statistics, the the talks with friends, neighbors, blogs, etc.)!
@Jen: I had heard that sometimes parents don’t get any of their choices at all. So sorry, and I hope something works out for you.
Love the info you have on here about schools and school choices. It’s hard to know our choices may also change next year.
I can relate to your excitement at opening the school letter. We did get our 1st choice and feel very lucky!
It’s May 3, and we haven’t received our Minneapolis Kindergarten assignment letter yet. What gives!? Talk about a recipe for a sleepless night. I assume all of the letters went out during April. We’ll have to make some calls on Monday…
@Dave: Yes, I think somebody screwed up. You should have gotten a notice in April! Did you find anything out?