School Assessment
Greetings to everyone.
The MOPS group Rebecca belongs to hosted a school open house last week. Representatives from many schools around the city attended to provide information about their programs and answer questions. Both private and public school programs had representation.
It was something of an education, to put it mildly. The state of education today, the costs (even, surprisingly to us, public schools) and the curriculum leave one a little flabbergasted. It gave both Rebecca and I much to discuss and consider. One thing we did see was how well-centralized our home is in relation to so many schools.
Rebecca put out some feelers to a few of the preschools after we discussed them. None were taking students; the year had already begun and most have waiting lists. Less than a week after, Rebecca gets an email from one of the schools we considered an appropriate choice. The email explained it was opening up a new class, one day a week for four hours. It asked if we were interested.
Rebecca emailed back and set up a time to tour the school. That is what we did this morning, along with two other families. We were very impressed by the facility, the staff and the classes. Xavier (who would be entering the one-year olds class, which is called "the Bumblebees") seemed impressed as well. His attention was held by the lesson being taught to an older class as we passed them in the hallway.
One of the items which impressed us was the kinesthetic emphasis the school has adopted, especially since Xavier bends strongly that way. The school is a Christian-based school, and well-established, having been around for more than twenty years. The staff are fully certified to teach within the Jefferson County School System and have basic medical and first aid training. And, the tuition is cheap. Surprisingly cheap! As he advances to higher-level classes (the school goes through kindergarten, about age five) and the number of days per week to attend increase, it costs only a few thousand dollars for the school year at the high end of the scale.
We went to lunch and discussed the school, then returned home and signed up. We had to race, as there are only eight openings, and one of the other families also wanted to enroll a one-year old. Actually, no race. Plenty of time; but we did want to pull the trigger before word got out about the availability of the class. Xavier will start school either next week or the week following (the start schedule is still unsettled as the class is just kicking off).