Cold Spaghetti

A few years back, before the storm, I remember going into a professor’s office for a meeting and seeing her with worry-lines etched into her stressed face. “Think it’s tough working to get into Grad School?” she asked me. “Just wait until you’re facing school rejections for your 5-year old kid.”

When I interviewed for PhD programs, the faculty I would have worked with at Chapel Hill told me point blank to not go to Chapel Hill. “Go to Tulane,” she said. “Go there, while your kids are young, before they’re in school. That way, you have options to move elsewhere for a post-doc or junior faculty position when your kids are school age.”

Suffice to say, school issues have been on our minds long before we moved here. Long before the storm. Long before our involvement with pre-school education and related nonprofits. A big reason to move to New Orleans when we did was, in fact, to avoid the difficult choices and painful processes of finding a school — and avoid having to shell out big bucks for it. We never really intended on staying here forever. We had no idea we would love it so much.

Paul and I are both public school kids. Tulane is the only private school I’ve ever attended and to my knowledge, Paul has never attended a private school. Until recently, the strength of schools were real estate questions, not ones that we thought about in the intimate sense of making one a part of our daily lives.

Will is reaching a cross roads where Paul and I have to start making choices — and fast. He has two more years (this current year and one more following) before starting Kindergarten. This means he could be at Abeona for two more years — except that the majority (if not all) of his classmates will have moved on to pre-K programs run by their elementary schools of choice. Getting into a pre-K program helps guarantee a slot in the Kindergarten and beyond, so getting in early is encouraged. The problem is, which school?

One glimmer of benefit in the mess that is primary education in this city are the opportunities for bilingual education. As a family that has lived abroad (and intends to again live) in countries where English is not the primary language, we strongly value this. Perhaps above all else, even if “all else” is compromised in the pursuit of language. However, we would naturally chose Spanish as the immersion language for our kids… but most of the immersion programs in NOLA are French immersion (we don’t speak a word of French.) Yet, we don’t necessarily see that as a huge drawback. (Actually, what we would really like to do is find a Spanish-speaker who can teach us French in Spanish. That way, we could practice our Spanish and learn French at the same time. We thought this would be really cool.)

But I digress.

Here is our random list of schools and considerations on the ups and downs of each:

Lusher Charter School. This is the school “where all the professors kids go.” It’s part of the NOLA school system, so it’s free — no tuition. If you live in the Lusher School District, you get into Lusher upon passing the academic testing required (that’s right: testing 4 year olds for intelligence to get into Charter schools). If you don’t live in the Lusher District (we don’t) it’s a lottery system based on those intelligence tests and your luck. The school has a great reputation, is driven by an arts-based educational approach, and starts at Kindergarten through 12th grade. This is the most successful ‘public’ school in the area in terms of graduation rates, college attendance, and standardized test performance. If we wanted to go this route, we would be applying NEXT fall for him to start two years from now (fall 2009). This school is not far from Audubon Park, near Abeona House, but not close enough to walk/bike.

Ecole Bilingue. This is a small, private, French immersion school. It takes students from 18 months and goes through 5th grade. One of the founding parents is a committee member of mine (whom I taught with last fall) that I respect a great deal and who has several children in attendance (her husband is still on the Board of Directors). The instructors are all native speakers and immersion beings with the schools earliest classes (at 18 months). By grade school, students are expected to be ready for learning in French. So, having your child start early is really important. If we wanted to go this route, we would have to apply NOW for him to be accepted into the fall 2008 program. The cost for this school is $6900/year for the school year (Sept-April) with summer camps available at additional cost. In the event we apply to put Will here, there is the question of whether we apply for Kate as well to keep them in the same school. This school is walking or biking distance from our house. It is also the one that Maddox Jolie-Pitt attends. (In other words, they’ve recently had an influx of generous funding — and attention — to supplement their programs.)

International School of Louisiana. This is another Charter School. (Works similarly to the Lusher program in terms of Admission.) It is either French immersion or Spanish immersion. There is no tuition. The program starts at Kindergarten based on lottery — but NO “intelligence” testing. (So Will would start in fall 2009). Students begin language study upon admission in Kindergarten but cannot be admitted to higher grades unless they pass language requirements. It is the only Spanish immersion program in the city. An Abeona parent is an instructor here, so we feel we have a resource to turn to with questions about this school. There are faculty members in my department who have children here as well (most profs from International Health send kids here, as I understand). The school values not only immersion language education, but a multi-cultural, global approach to learning. This school is located nearer to downtown (in the opposite direction as Abeona House) from where we live.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal. I’ve heard very good things about this school from people I trust. However, I have to say that it freaks me out a bit to send my kids to a parochial school. (I’ve never really recovered from the “You, Me, and Jesus makes Three” curriculum we ran into at that terrible childcare program in Mobile.) This school starts pre-K (so we would have to apply this fall for Will to start next fall) and is $6,950 for the 8-3:15 program. Once in Kindergarten, the school year tuition price goes up to $8,950. The school has a strong Spanish program, although it is not immersion. This could be a plus, as I understand early learning of primary skills (mathematics, social studies, science) is best taught in a child’s primary language? But the bottom line is that I really don’t know. This school is close to Abeona House. The Abeona kids threw beads to the kids at this school on their Mardi Gras parade route. It’s not close enough from our house to walk.

Audubon Charter School. This is a fairly new school in the NOLA Charter system. Like Ecole, it is French Immersion. Like Lusher, it is part of the ‘public’ system and works on a lottery/intelligence evaluation process with no tuition. It starts at age 2 (they must be both age 2 and potty trained), which is when Will’s friend Aya began (Aya is a few months older than Will and was going to go to Abeona until she was unexpectedly accepted to ACS.) Aya’s family likes the school, but there are mixed reports from several sources that have voiced things which concern me greatly.

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While there are several other good (private) schools, I am not including them for two reasons. One is cost. I cannot fathom spending over $1000/month on each child for primary education (some of the programs are $12,000/year starting in Kindergarten — more yearly tuition than I have paid, ever, for any part of my entire education!) The second reason is that I was so disappointed and frustrated with the parents we interfaced with at Will’s previous school and I don’t want to be in that situation again. I want my kids to be surrounded by kids who come from families like ours, with parents who appreciate the things that matter in our lives. I don’t want to loose the family we’ve found in our children’s pre-school and although I know it will never be the same, want to find some semblance of it again.

So I appreciate, in a much more intimate and nail-biting way, the frustration and worry my professor felt as she pondered over what to do about her son. (He ended up going to Ecole.) What about Will? We have no idea. But we have to move on something… and soon.