Over 2 years ago, I started seriously thinking about Kindergarten options for Benjamin. My assumption had been that we probably would not be in the city long enough to really worry about navigating the system, but as Ben turned 3, I realized that we probably would still be here and I'd better get my rear in gear.
Chris & I talked extensively about all of our options -- (1) homeschooling, (2) private school, (3) public school and the implications of each. As Ben's personality started emerging further and his talent for numbers/math became evident, we realized (1) homeschooling was not an option for either him or me for a myriad of reasons, the chief of which is that it would be detrimental to our family because of our clash in personalities (read: grumpy, frustrated mom vs. unwilling student) (2) private schools cost money, and in some cases, LOTS of money and (3) the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is a labyrinth of magnet, charter, classical, gifted and neighborhood schools, with sibling, proximity, general lotteries, tiers, testing, etc.
In order to give ourselves the maximum possible options, I decided to research CPS and figure out what exactly was involved and at least understand the process well enough to apply. It wasn't going to cost us anything (except time), so we were at least going to put our feet into the water and see what happens.
Well, little did I know HOW much time it was going to involve just trying to figure out the system. To be fair to myself, they did end up changing the way the magnet & selective enrollment (selective enrollment = kids must take a test to get in) schools worked as the Supreme Court (rightly, IMO) put an end to their race-based admissions policy. So then CPS implemented this complicated tier system, whereby your address put you in a tier (1-4, 4 being in the wealthiest neighborhoods) and your chances of getting into a magnet or selective enrollment school are partially based on tier, e.g., tier 1 requires lower scores than tier 4 to get into a school for selective enrollment -- magnet schools fill their spots through random lottery by tier.
Okay, I am a college-educated stay-at-home mom and this was complicated enough for me to figure out (and there is even more minutiae than what I have described), as well as finding and researching each school that we were interested in and finding out when open houses were! It's hard to imagine a single parent in my neighborhood with less time/motivation sitting down and trying to figure all of this out. The CPS website is not intuitive and it was sheer luck that I stumbled across the CPS Office of Academic Enhancement website, which was finally a centralized location for many of my questions!
We visited four selective enrollment schools and then ranked them on our application. We also applied to magnet schools, but those are a long shot since we are not in the higher percentage sibling or proximity lotteries. Ben took the highly secretive gifted & classical tests (kids take them both at the same time) in December. This test is the source of anxiety for many parents mostly because of the total unknown. The children go in to take the test with a stranger (a grad student at IIT, I think), are gone for about 15 minutes and then come back, seemingly with their minds wiped clean of the time in the room since they can't seem to remember anything on the test! Ben told Chris that he didn't know what the "pink thing was on the end of a pencil" but couldn't tell him anything else about the test.
And then we waited. I felt an uncommon peace during this time because we had done all that we could do and there was nothing else to do except forget about it until our letter came in March. I did a good job of forgetting until I mistakenly went to the www.cpsobsessed.com site and found out that the letters were going to go out a few days before I thought they were going to be sent out, so I anxiously waited each day for the mailman to come. I wish I wouldn't have seen that site because I got my letter when I initially thought I would!
to be continued...
3 comments:
kindra, your point about your means to research this versus the average person in your neighborhood is exactly what we have found here as well. california has lots of options like cps, but i cannot imagine the immigrant working class families in these neighborhoods having the time to navigate the system. pasadena public schools are considered bad. the upper middle class do private schools. that leaves the working class and the poor as a large majority of the schools. (50-80% on assisted or free lunch programs depending on the school). it drives me nuts that a system that should be serving students with better education options is shutting out so many people bc of an inaccessible process.
can't wait to hear more of your story.
Kindra - thank you so much for sharing this. I work in CPS and I still feel completely lost. I am glad someone as smart as you went through it before I have to. I also really wish Ben remembered something else about that test. Sophie can be so shy with new people. I am really worried when it is her time she will go into the test and not even be willing to say a word. It sucks that something so important as our kids education has to be so complicated, it just seems like something every kid should have access to.
Lisa -- I think that is what I find most discouraging about this process, is that while it's available, it's inaccessible to most of the people that it's wanting to help!
Anna -- one thing that we did with Ben that I think helped him was to volunteer for studies at the University of Chicago Dept of Child Psychology. They basically would take him into a room and ask him questions/play games/etc. I went into the room with him at first and then eventually let him go by himself (he has probably done about 8 of them total over 2 years). It's such a shame that not all kids have access to such great schools, I totally agree!
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