During the Thanksgiving-ish feast at my children’s school, we went around the table sharing what we were thankful for. When it was my turn, I announced, “I’m thankful for my healthy, happy kids, and their fantastic school.”
Last year around this time, I was still saying to myself, regarding our choice of kindergartens, “Are we really going to do this?”
My wife and I have been involved for the last two years with a group of parents and community members dedicated to nudging the local public elementary into the renaissance of our funky urban neighborhood in San Diego. The school zone includes the best restaurants, coffee shops and brew pubs, the highest density of creative professionals and some of the most jaw-dropping house prices in the city; and yet, for our pride in all things “local,” our little school has been neglected by the population it was meant to serve. Essentially, the “school choice” movement, embraced by our district for decades, encouraged concerned parents to “choice” their children into niche magnet schools, themed charters, or typical public schools in other neighborhoods where the scores were higher and other data less daunting to them.
As a result, the majority of students attending our local elementary have likewise “choiced in” from other, less socioeconomically and ethnically diverse neighborhoods than ours. The most recent statistics show that 80 percent of our students are eligible for free or reduced meals, 48 percent are English learners and 70 percent identify as Hispanic. There are no other numerically significant ethnic groups. I understand how it might be difficult for the savvy school-shopper to see past these demographic data.
When our school-support group first convened, most of our children were preschoolers. None of us had any children enrolled in the school, and few of us even knew any families who sent their children there. We were operating under the premise that, if we all sent our children to the local school, we could affect the culture enough that it would become the kind of school where more people from the neighborhood would want to send their kids. We would disrupt the vicious cycle and convert it to a virtuous one, and the student body would reflect the diversity of the neighborhood.
By the time the 2014-15 school year started and the first “wave” of families who were involved with our group enrolled in school, we had already formed a foundation, held fund-raisers, started a gardening program and logged many hours of volunteer work at the school.
We had also seen some attrition. A few core members had quietly announced over the summer that they had enrolled their children elsewhere; and some defected at the last minute. But others, who may not have been as active or vocal in our early efforts, did the most important thing anyone could for the cause: They enrolled their children, like it was no big deal.
Kindergarten enrollment this year was higher than anyone can remember, and the principal’s unofficial estimate was that over 50 percent of the kindergartners were from the neighborhood.
Our first day of school was not fraught with social anxiety, because my daughters already knew half the pupils in their class, and I knew their parents. We were no strangers to the campus because we had been to countless meetings there, played on its “joint-use” sports field, and we already knew the principal and several teachers. We immediately felt like family. I had wanted my children to have a close-knit school community experience that I was not even sure really existed; and days into our kindergarten career, I realized that it was even better than I had hoped.
Even as I was feeling this initial elation though, I questioned whether it was sustainable. Would the other proverbial shoe drop, and the “problems” indicated by school data and conventional wisdom start manifesting in my daughters’ behavior, performance and attitudes toward school?
Now that the first grading period has passed, I’m happy to report that we are all just as enthusiastic about kindergarten as ever. My children are rising to the academic challenges, and socially, well, they’re killing it. Our group of involved parents has not encountered any pushback from the administration or the parents who predate us, as we had been warned; Rather, we are asked by both to keep doing more of what we do.
I’m not angry with the parents who were on board with our efforts until the rubber hit the road. I may be disappointed. But mostly, I’m just sad that our children don’t get to go to school together. And I’m a little sad for them — the children and their parents who chose to leave the neighborhood for their schooling — in that they are missing out on what is turning into one of my favorite experiences as a parent.