Ready?, Set?: Go Choose a School!
As part of gearing up for this year's school admission season, I interviewed families I had worked with. These families have children who are in K-3rd grade in public or independent schools. I asked them a slew of questions about their school choice experience. Some of these families came to me early in their search and others met with me at the very end. As I heard them answer questions like — "If you had to describe Seattle schools to someone outside the city, what would you say?" or "What was the most challenging aspect of choosing a school?" — I recognized these commonalities in their experiences.
I summarize them as the nuggets that define the school choice experience:
Emotionally charged: Whether parents are considering a neighborhood school, a public option school, an independent school or contemplating a move across the pond to send the little one into kindergarten, they have many hopes, dreams and questions all grounded in one singular feeling — to do the very best for the child. The desire to do right, to do the very best makes school choice an emotionally charged process. Much of the emotional energy is dissipated by reading school websites, talking to peer parents for tips and seeking counsel from parents at target schools.
Applying to public option schools and independent schools can make the emotions even more intense as hopeful parents turn in applications and then feel out-of-control on a decision that will affect their dearest one.
There is a need to ground the emotions and find channels for them so parents are not confused or overtaken by their intense care and feelings for the child.
Multitude of options: The greater Seattle area has endless options for elementary education — neighborhood public schools, option public schools, independent schools, forrest kindergartens, homeschooling, 1:1 learning environments, Montessori, parochial and more. Its hard to know what all the options are, what they all look like in reality and which one is right for a given child.
There is a need to sort through the many options and whitle down to a few that are right for one child.
Too much information: Tell someone you are looking for a school and the information comes flooding your way most often in a random manner. There are school websites, school search websites, open houses, tours, parents, friends, families, local parent discussion groups. Each source tells a story, one part of the whole story and only some aspects of the whole story, let alone one singular part applies to a given child.
Year after year, countless parents navigate the school choice process in Seattle. They all get going the fall before the year their little one will start at a new school. Many parents navigate the process elegantly with and without much help. Regardless of how they naviagte the process, their experience is colored in some way by these characteristics. Year after year, the elegant navigators exclaim that one thing and only one thing made the process elegant and that was — Know your child and know yourself.
Getting going on your school choice journey with foundational workshops this Fall. They will ground you in knowing your child, yourself and give you all the essential information for choosing a school with confidence.
Oct 15: Choosing the Right Elementary School for a Gifted Child