More on Schools: An embarrassment of riches

"The house backs on to a park and schoolyard. Within easy sight and shouting distance of the backyard there is an elementary school, community centre, play
structure, baseball diamond, skating rink, tennis courts, basketball hoops and a soccer field. In addition to the school in our backyard, there is another elementary school and a high school both within easy walking distance (5 minutes) of the house."

The above is a quote from our Dear Birthparent letter. This whole issue with Kamyrn's "new" school has me thinking. We live in school central, that was one of the things we were sure to tell both kids birthfamilies about. Let's me write out a little legend to help keep things straight:

School A = Backyard School
School B = Nearby Perfect School
School C = So Now I need a bus School
School D = So I can't handle instruction in French
School E = Just cause their aren't enough schools let's add another

There really is a HUGE elementary school in our backyard, school A. Most of the other families on our street I am positive (by the looks of incredulity we get quite regularly) think we're a little odd in our conviction that neither of our kids will go there. School A is a good school with an excellent French immersion programme and well it's the backyard. They can walk to school out a back gate in our fence should we choose to install such a gate. We have always been adamant that French school is better than French immersion and I don't know why any parent with that option would settle to less. The difference though is the effort the parents must put in (which I know is the case with two of our biggest critics). If you want to send your kid to school in French as opposed to a French programme for English kids you have to commit to speaking in French in the home. Big commitment there - if you don't, unless you have really gifted kids they are going to struggle (some can handle it I know two amazing teenagers that only speak French at school but have done amazingly well). Anyway, having a school in the backyard makes you wonder if settling for the easy route may not be so bad. Anyway, it's a public school and that was something we also knew we didn't want to settle for. I went to Catholic school (Catholic schools are funded by the government here but belong to a separate school board) and I still have a bias that they are better (I find they have a stronger community spirit). So that excluded School A.

The next closest school, School B. is at the end of our street a 5 minute walk from the house. It is French and catholic. This is the school we had always assumed our kids would go to when we moved here and our street was literally an island in the middle of a farmer's field. This was the school we spoke about with the kids birthfamilies - how we were their perfect choice because we lived near a good school. lol. Okay due to some bizarre zoning issues that we found out about when Kamryn was about a year old we are not eligible to send our kids to the school at the end of the block. We live on the East side of the street the school is on. The school is on the west side. The road the school is on is the boundary and we are on the wrong side.

So we were relagated to School C. School C isn't all that far away. I timed it last summer. As an adult I could walk to the school, leisurely, in 11 minutes. It does however cross 4 lanes of busy 80 km/h traffic. Our kids wouldn't be walking to school. They would be bussed until grade 8. Seems utterly preposterous considering School B is so close. I had considered making a stink about (I'm sure many parents already had) until two things happened. A neighbour who's kids started at School B school and then were forced to move to School C raved about how much better she thought School C was. Now this really doesn't mean all that much. This is an utterly homogeneous community. Most households are made up of at least one individual who works for the federal government. It has one of the highest (if not the highest) per capita income in the country (not because everyone is rich; just no one is poor) and overwhelming majority of adult residents have completed either community college or university (more have been to university than college even). (These are stats from the 2001 Census; I suspect it's even "worse/better" now as a large number of sizable single family homes have been built since 2001. http://www.ctv.ca/mini/election2006/preelections/riding35063.html ) My point is that as uniformly middle class as this area is all the schools are about the same. Still it helps to hear someone loves a school your kids are going to go to. The other thing is Kamyrn's best friend lives right next to School C and the two should be going to school together. That seemed nice (okay I'm a suck). I'm still kind of sad that that won't happen.

Now we had a back up plan in case the kids couldn't handle school in French. That would be School D and E both English catholic schools equidistant from our house. I'm not sure which school they would be zoned for because they are both so close although School D is across the same scary road as School C.

So now, although living around an unreal amount of elementary school - all good we have chosen to drive our kids 10 minutes down the road to this other school - so they won't be able to walk to school. I am, nevertheless, so psyched about this school!