There were no essays to complete but applying to kindergarten is proving to be just as stressful as the college process we completed so many years ago. Every day we wait, wait for the clank of the gate so that I can run down and get the mail, eager to see who rejected us today. Almost every envelope we receive is thin, the tell tale sign of a rejection letter, leaving us longing for a good fat envelope full of school information, welcome materials and a website where we can buy our school t-shirts and matching hats.
Based on school testing, Kate found a spot at a wonderful school, not at all close, and only Kate. A test they both took, a test where Kate did exceptionally well on section A, exceptionally average on section B, and Mary, just the opposite. This school only takes exceptional A students, B stars are sent elsewhere. Where we have yet to discover as there are no straight answers, no consensus from CPS, on anything. We remain lost, not quite bright enough to navigate the system, not quite savvy enough to move and shake our way into the kindergarten of our dreams, or at least the kindergarten of Mary and Kate's dreams: bright, shiny, friendly, safe, close, and happy.
We must respond by the 17th of April as to if Kate will take her one spot, the only spot offered to our family. This week begins the arduous campaign to let Mary join her sister in kindergarten. We are persistent, determined and can be annoying if necessary. Alternatively our campaign may become Let Them Both In Elsewhere, we can be flexible, but they both need a school, a good school, and they need a school together. Separating one from the other at this point would be insanity, something the ever powerful CPS does not seem to understand.
The current theory is that twins should be separated in the classroom, although many question that blanket decision making, knowing that this, like all else, should be determined on a case by case scenario. If the third largest school district in the country, responsible for the education of over 400,000 young minds, refuses to educate our children in the same building, much less in the same classroom, perhaps we must look elsewhere. Italy perhaps, I have always wanted to live in Italy. Or Finland, high incidence of twins in Finland, although terribly cold.
Life was much easier when I walked down the path to Belinder Elementary, but Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore.
NorthSideFour: You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child. Dr. Suess
2 comments:
Why look so far away? In suburban Chicago, the twins are allowed to stay together. If you choose to, you can even dress them alike. In suburbia, the twins are clogging up the classrooms left & right. Tempting isn't it? How about a second home? Possibly you might starting looking for a quaint, suburban, "summer cottage"?
Of course, but wouldn't that be a winter cottage, given that we need it for the school year? And they will be dressed alike, across the city of course, but in the standard blue on bottom, white on top uniform of the CPS.
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