San Francisco

When the teacher calls...

Last week, Alice's kindergarten teacher phoned in the evening. My husband, Ryan, took the call because I was out speaking on a panel about San Francisco's public school enrollment process (more on that in a later post). Apparently, Alice is "poking and tickling" other students and she's disrupting her classmates. The teacher tried to explain this to Alice in class but my daughter didn't understand because she only knows four week's worth of Chinese.

My husband recounted the conversation to me and the teacher couldn't have been nicer about it. She recognized that Alice's pokes are playful and loving and not vicious, but she wanted us to talk to Alice. And so the next morning, we held a family meeting and reminded Alice to keep her hands to herself.

"But can I hold my friends' hands?" she asked.

"Yes, of course, just no poking and tickling."

"But I like to poke and tickle."

"Well, it's disruptive."

"I like to disrupt."

What am I going to do when she's a teenager? I worried

Have you received a call from a teacher about your child's behavior? Got any funny stories to share?

First Kindergarten Meltdown

When the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m and I walked into Alice's room, I could immediately tell it was going to be a bad morning. Alice opened her eyes, sneered at me and pulled the covers over her head.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy," I sang cheerfully.

"Be quiet Mommy!"

"Sweetheart, you need to get up or else you're going to be late for school," I said in my nicest tone.

"I don't want to go to school!"

I tried to cuddle with her but she pushed me away.

"You need to get up if you want to get to school on time," I said in a less nice tone.

Alice burst into tears, and said, "Why do you have to talk in such a mean voice?" And then she let me hold her as she sobbed.

Alice and I were paying big time for the night before. We went to dinner with my parents and Alice got to bed too late. I quickly realized that the key to happiness in kindergarten is a consistent 7:30 p.m. bedtime.

Alice was fragile and teary throughout her morning routine — and nothing was going right. Her pleated skirt was wrinkled; her toast tasted yucky; and her wavy hair was uncooperative when she went to put it in a ponytail. I don't think her teeth ever got brushed.

At 7:30 a.m., I walked her down to the car since my husband, Ryan, was driving her to school, and I gave her a big hug. She broke down again and for the very first time since her last day of preschool at the end of June she said, "I want to go back to Sweet Peas!"

I asked, "Why? Don't you like kindergarten?"

And then she told me that one of the girls in her class can do the rings on the playground. "All she wants to do is play on the rings," she said. "She doesn't play with me and I can't do the rings." I told her that I'd pick her up after school and we'd work on the rings — she looked relived. And then Alice hopped in the car with Ryan, and I began to worry that she would melt down when he dropped her off.

Ryan called as soon as he got back in the car.

"How do it go? Was she OK?"

Ryan told me that he walked Alice up to the playground, where the entire school meets every morning. A group of the kindergarten girls were standing in a circle holding hands and playing "Ring Around the Rosie." Ryan worried that the girls might not let Alice into their circle. She's going to break down again, he was thinking. But then one of the girls let go of the hand next to her and she said, "Let's make room for Alice."

Anyone else have a meltdown story to share?

First Day of Kindergarten

The alarm clock rang at 6:30 a.m. I went into Alice's room and cuddled up next to her in bed. She opened her big dewy brown eyes.

"It's the first day of kindergarten! Yeah!" she squealed.

Alice popped out of bed and put on the navy uniform dress she picked out at Children's Place. While she was getting ready, I asked her what she wanted for breakfast. I'm almost certain she said honey and peanut butter toast with cinnamon. But when she walked into the kitchen, she screamed, "I don't want peanut butter! I said only honey and cinnamon!" And then Alice stormed into the living room, flopped down on the couch, and burst into tears. The first day of school can't be entirely perfect, right?

Somehow we made it out the door at 7:30 a.m.

We found a parking spot at the bottom of a steep hill several blocks from the school. Alice spotted some of the girls we got to know at summer play dates. She raced up the hill and I trailed behind. My son, Sam, and my husband, Ryan, were left in the dust and Sam started wailing. JoLynn Washington, the principal, stood in front of the school, greeting students: "Hello, Alice! Hi Kate!" And then JoLynn hollered, "Is that Sam I hear crying?" Sam came huffing and puffing up the hill, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Is that Sam crying? Hello, Sam!" My little guy immediately perked up.

We gathered in the cafeteria. The school typically begins the day on the playground but it was wet and drippy outside so the party moved inside. We mingled with a group of kindergarten families who we got to know at summer events. After only a few play dates, a school picnic and a school clean-up, I already felt as if these people were family. We exchanged hugs and words of congratulations.

JoLynn got up on the stage and welcomed us all. She apologized for the weather and went over logistics. And then she ended by saying, "Don't worry. Your kids are safe with us. We'll care for them and we will love them."

Love? Love? Did she say love? Her words stopped me. I spent the past two years on a serious hunt for the perfect kindergarten. I analyzed schools' academics, studied playgrounds, closely observed teachers. I looked for schools that were outstanding, high-scoring, creative, ecofriendly, cutting-edge, well-funded, beautifully landscaped, innovative. I dreamed of going to one of the city's top public or private schools. And then I ended up at Jose Ortega, a school that I now think is the most outstanding school in SFUSD, but it's certainly not one of the big names (based on wait list numbers).

At this moment, it all clicked and I finally realized why I was attracted to the school — it's loving. Yes, it sounds corny, but Jose Ortega is a warm, fuzzy place that's perfect for young kids adventuring off into the big world (not to mention parents who are excited yet sad about their babies growing up). It's nurturing, comfy and intimate.

As JoLynn declared that the school was going to love my child, I had all of these flashbacks. I remembered when I nervously enrolled at Jose Ortega and the school secretary grabbed my hands and said that she understood how scary it is and that everything was going to be alright. I remembered when Alice met her kindergarten teacher over the summer and the teacher gave her a huge hug. And I remembered when a returning student raced down the hallway and jumped into JoLynn's arms at the summer clean-up.

Jose Ortega is full of caring, good-natured people who welcome everyone with open arms. They are people who I know will love my daughter and when I was actually dropping Alice off at school that seemed to be the only thing that mattered.

Alice's teacher held up a sign, and the students along with their parents lined up behind her. We marched to the classroom in a far corner of the labyrinthine school. We remained in a line outside the door as the kindergarten teacher greeted each student individually and brought them one by one into the classroom. When Alice's turn was up, I broke down into tears and she wiped the drips off my face. "It's OK Mommy," she said — and then she was off.

I walked away, holding Sam tightly in my arms and crying. In the hallway, an older lady stopped me. She gave me a hug and asked if I was OK. She told me that she used to teach at Jose Ortega and I guess she was there helping out on the first day, providing support to kids and parents. Just another one of the warm fuzzies at Jose Ortega.

Please share your first-day-of-school stories and memories.

Part IV: A Decision Gets Made

During my search for a kindergarten, I had the opportunity to speak with the SFUSD superintendent, Carlos Garcia.

"What do you think of San Francisco parents?" I asked. "They are the smartest parents I have encountered," said Garcia, who has worked in districts throughout the West. But he added that they were heartless. What? Why? I was offended.

"I don't think everyone in this city has ownership of all of our children," he said. "We need to stand up for all of our kids.

"Whether they're kids living in the Presidio or Bayview, we need to take responsibility for all children." Garcia added that his mantra is: "Our schools will not be good enough for any of our children unless we can make them good enough for all of our children."

At night, Garcia came to me in my dreams and said, "You need to take care of your family." My husband and I would make the decision to go private and then I would hear the superintendent buzzing in my ear: "We're a family . . ." If only I had a fly swatter.

It's Carlos Garcia's words that got me to seriously consider Jose Ortega. The public school, perched on a hill behind San Francisco State, isn't a "popular" choice for overly obsessive parents like myself (let's leave it at that). Last year, 207 families selected Clarendon as their first choice in Round I, while 13 families put down Jose Ortega. I feared sending my daughter to a school that none of my friends were considering.

But then I visited the school, which isn't housed in a building fit for Architectural Digest but does overlook the Pacific Ocean. I met the principal, JoLynn Washington, a warm, caring woman who knows the name of every child in the school. I observed the Mandarin kindergarten teacher, Kat, in action and was impressed by how she had the kids laughing and speaking Chinese at the same time. And I talked to other parents who were equally concerned about their kids' education. Basically I fell in love. And most importantly I realized that the school was a great fit for my daughter.

I made my husband call the private school to turn down our spot. Ryan phoned me at work afterward and I felt relieved — my two-year search was over. But when I got home that night I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. I was letting go of the private school — the organic lunches, the woodsy campus, the kindergarten teacher who uses the Reggio Emilia method, and a group of close friends who were sending their kids to the school. My husband walked in. "Why are you crying!!?" he asked. "If you changed your mind, you're making the phone call."

"I'm grieving," I told him, and I was. I had spent two years daydreaming about sending my daughter to the private school, and I needed to say goodbye to my friend.

"Whatever," he said and walked out.

After my hour-long cathartic cry, I was fine. I let go, and I haven't looked back.

So we're excited about sending our daughter to the Mandarin program at Jose Ortega. I look forward to sharing our kindergarten adventures in upcoming posts.

Part III: Private or Public?

You might remember that I fell in love with one particular private school—that dreamy place with organic lunches, amazing teachers and a woodsy campus. Alice received a golden ticket from this school and we could have easily stopped our search at this point. But San Francisco Unified School District offers several rounds of its nerve-racking lottery system and I couldn't resist rolling the dice in Round II. Also, I wanted the opportunity to choose between private and public. At that point, private was our only option.

In Round II, you choose one "wait list school" (your top choice), and then you list seven more (the district says these seven should be less popular schools to improve your odds of receiving an assignment). To come up with my eight, my husband and I toured several more schools and attended PTA meetings and school fund-raisers. I talked to parents, principals, graduates. I did exactly what I would advise every parent not to do — I became obsessive.

My final list consisted of only immersion programs and a few schools where the wait lists were short (or nonexistent) in past years: Leonard Flynn, Spanish (wait list); 1) Buena Vista, Spanish; 2) Alvarado, Spanish; 3) Jose Ortega, Mandarin; 4) Monroe, Spanish; 5) Starr King, Mandarin; 6) Marshall, Spanish; 7) Paul Revere, Spanish.   

A few weeks later, we received an assignment for the Mandarin program at Jose Ortega. This presented a decision: public or private? I'll tell you what we decided in Part IV.

Were you ever faced with the decision between public and private for your child? What did you choose? Why?

Part II: My Crazy Search

To be honest, I started my search for a kindergarten in San Francisco with a negative impression of public schools — primarily fueled by other parents. If you have ever brought your kid to a playground in SF, you've heard parents talking smack about public schools. Here's a conversation I heard just the other day at the playground behind the library in Bernal Heights:

"Have you considered Fairmount?" one mom said to another mom.

"Oh my God, I had the worst nightmare about Fairmount," the mom said. "I dreamed that a car crashed into the playground." And then the mom went on and on about Fairmount's scary location next to a busy street.

The funny thing is that a third mom walked over and jumped into the conversation "I overheard you talking about Fairmount. I actually send my son there. We absolutely love the school."

And then there are all the conversations you hear about parents whose children don't get into a school.

Like so many people in this city, I figured the public schools were mediocre, and so two years before my daughter's kindergarten start date in fall 2008, I began touring the privates. I fell head-over-heels in love with one particular school. I was enamored with its organic lunch program, woodsy campus, intelligent teachers, amazing after-school offerings, and the list goes on and on. I became set on sending my daughter to this school.

Jump forward a year: In fall 2007, I began to tour public schools, mainly because I was interested in the language immersion programs. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw in all 13 schools that I toured. Yes, the schools seemed starved for money. Some were lacking extracurricular programs while others were housed in dilapidated buildings. But on my tours, I met strong leaders, energetic teachers and devoted parents. Among the schools I toured, Alice Fong Yu's Cantonese program was my favorite. Of course, this is one of the most sought-after schools in the district.

I also revisited my favorite private (loved it again) and toured a few other private schools. In fact, I immersed myself in the process, attending parties, writing applications, bringing our daughter to screenings.

As someone who went through the private school process, I have to say the schools do bend over backward to make the experience as pleasant as possible. But for a Nervous Nellie like me, it was a struggle. At the parties, I always broke into sweats and ended up drying my armpits with toilet paper in the bathroom. And I never knew what to say to the administrators: "Hi, my name is Kate and I'll cut my left arm off if you let me into your school!" or "Do you mind if I camp out in that tree and I'll just stay up there until you let me in?"

In the end my husband and I applied to two privates and came up with a list of seven publics (five of these were language immersion programs). We got into both privates, but we didn't get into one of the seven publics. What did we decide to do? I'll tell you in Part III of my SF Schools series, coming soon.

What was your experience with looking for a school in San Francisco? And what do those living outside the city think of the search?

Part I: The Insane Process

Last year, I entered the ring of hell known as the San Francisco school search. For two years, I immersed myself in a panic-stricken hunt for a kindergarten for my daughter, Alice. I've decided to write a series of posts telling the story of my search. Yes, my daughter is going to a kindergarten this fall — but I'm not telling you which one, yet.

I toured some 20 private and public schools, a number that's typical for a neurotic SF parent like me. My husband looked at about 10. We ended up applying to a few privates and we played the public school lottery.

Lottery? Yes, for those of you who aren't familiar with SFUSD, the district uses a lottery system — actually they prefer to call it a "school choice" system. Families may apply to any school in the district regardless of where they live. A family in Noe Valley can apply to a school in the Outer Richmond or in Pacific Heights or in Noe Valley. Freedom of choice doesn't sound so bad, but there's a catch.

Just because you want to go to a school doesn't mean that you automatically drop your little spawn off there on the first day of kindergarten. Actually, a lottery system assigns you to your school. Here's how it works:

The district consists of some 80 schools. Parents pick seven where they would be happy sending their child. Usually, they come up with their list of seven by visiting schools on organized tours. Parents fill out a form, ranking their choices in order of preference. They turn in their forms in January — and hope for the best. In March, parents receive a letter with a school assignment. If they're dissatisfied with the assignment, they can go through another round of the lottery and then there's a wait pool process. It's not uncommon for a family to be without a school until August or even until 10 days after school has started.

Why the lottery? Diversity. SFUSD uses what it calls a "diversity index lottery system" to achieve a blend of students of different backgrounds throughout the district. The index isn't based on race but rather parents' academic achievement, family income and English proficiency. The diversity index kicks in only when there are more applicants than spots. So for example, there might be 855 total requests for Rooftop (one of the more popular schools), but only a few dozen available spots. The system's intentions are good but can you imagine how upset parents get when they want to send their child to the school across the street from their house and they don't get assigned to that school?

The privates are an entirely different game — which involves written essays, cocktail parties, coffee talks, parent interviews and child screenings. We applied to two privates, but some families submit applications for five, seven, even more. Many parents have zero faith in the public school process and they put all of their eggs in the private school basket. According to an article in San Francisco magazine, "Schools Gone Wild," San Francisco leads major U.S. cities in the percentage of kids in private school — a whopping 29.3 percent in 2005, or nearly twice the national (and almost four times the statewide) average. Also, some families are applying to parochial and charter schools. Sound crazy? I can tell you from my first-hand experience that it is crazier than crazy. Many families decide to skip the process entirely and flee for the burbs. In fact, in a San Francisco Chronicle article, "Exodus of S.F.'s middle class," states that San Francisco has the fewest children per capita of any major metropolitan area in the United States. The story also reports that, "In 2006, a group of Potrero Hill parents concerned about declining public school ranks surveyed families that had left San Francisco to find out why they had done so. Fifty-three percent cited the schools; 70 percent blamed housing costs."

I plan to tell you about my experience with the process in a four-part series. I'll tell you about attending private school parties and public school tours. I'll tell you about an incredibly tough decision I was faced with, and I'll reveal where my daughter is going to school.

In the meantime, please share your thoughts on the San Francisco kindergarten search.

Welcome to the San Francisco schools blog!

Welcome to GreatSchools' new San Francisco blog. This is a place where I'll cover all things related to schools in San Francisco. Mainly, I'll be chronicling my daughter's first year in kindergarten — both the tears and the successes — but I'll also write about SFUSD's rising test scores, visionary superintendent and complicated enrollment process. And I'll offer up tips for parents looking for a school in the city.

Why am I doing this? In October 2007, I launched The SF K Files, a blog recounting my search for a kindergarten in San Francisco for my daughter, Alice. Here, I posted reviews of schools and emotional stories about my struggle to find a place where Alice could learn and grow. Other kindergarten-bound parents stumbled upon the blog and it evolved into a gathering spot for talking about schools. The site continues as a forum for parents looking for a kindergarten in San Francisco and people are already talking about the search for the 2009-2010 school year.

But what about the second-half of my story? I found a kindergarten for my daughter and where can I tell that tale? This is where GreatSchools steps in. The Web site, fueled by a nonprofit whose purpose is to inspire parents to participate in their kids' success, seemed like the perfect place for me to share my experiences with sending Alice to kindergarten.

My daughter is now in her third week in school and doing quite well. But before I share the day-to-day experiences, I need to backtrack to tell you about my search, Alice's first day of school, her meltdown a few days later and my first day of volunteering at the school. Stay tuned for a four-part series focusing on my search.

Thanks!

Best,
Kate