equal excitement

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March 06, 2006

i'm not equally excited

Living in the city is not all it's cracked to be. I've felt that way for some time now. But the last few days, have confirmed that in my head even more.
You might have similar feelings if you've ever dealt with the NYC Board of Education. For the past few days I've been trying to navigate that insame system, more specifically, I've been trying to figure out where and how to get Willik into a kindergarten(public school) for next september.
Some of you might be wondering why I'm working on that already, after all, it's only the first week of march. Some others might say, "Oh Glaucia, you're too late already!" In my opinion, as it stands this evening, both of you would be right.
As it turns out, in order to get Willik into any special school, where the academics are extra good, a magnet or gifted school, a school with excellent arts/music program, anything other than a zoned school, it's too late. Most schools started this process in October of last year, for this coming September. Insane, I know!!! So, I am too late! :(
But those of you who thought this seems so soon are not off, because it was only last week that I received paperwork from his current pre-k, stating which is his zoned school. So how is a parent/child supposed to have options, when timing between schools doesn't coincide? How does a parent even learn about what's available, when there's nothing telling them what's available and when? What does a parent do, when they live in a neighborhood where all schools are "bad" schools, they don't have resources to enroll the child in private school, and they don't have a computer, much less an internet connection to find out what's out there for their child? It's a crummy system, and I have been very upset and frustrated over this scenario.
I can only hope my excitement over the next really good thing matches my frustrations over today's events.

• Today my day included getting Willik strapped into our minivan, only to find out that the car battery was completely dead.
  
• Driving to a Manhattan school to fil an application, only to be told it will be very difficult to get in, this after spending an hour and a half in traffic.
  
• Finding out about another cool school in queens, whose deadline for admission was still open, but then being told that the applications had rung out and they had none left.
  
• Calling countless times to track down the application for said school, but being told that no one had heard of it, or knew what I was talking about.
  
• Finally arriving at the school to pick up the "golden" application, and being told that they ran out again. They managed to get a few more and I was able to fill one out, but this school picks by lottery at the end of the month, so it's all out of my hands, because last year, this school had 1000 apps for only 40 seats.
  

So this brings me back to equal excitement. You know, the name to my blog. I have been more than a little angry and frustrated at the run-around and the lack of information available to parents. So, can you help keep me accountable the next time something really good happens, so that I can be even more happy and more excited, and more thankful, than the anger I've had today?
And can you pray that I will accept God's will for Willik and his public school. I need to believe what I know-- that God knows much better than I, about what will be best for Willik, and that He loves Willik even more than Fabio and I do..

Posted by glassgirl at March 6, 2006 11:42 PM

Responses

Posted by: Abuelo at March 7, 2006 05:16 PM

Posted by: Stacey at March 7, 2006 11:31 PM

Posted by: Fabio at March 8, 2006 09:41 AM