The College Search Blog

Ladies and Gentlemen, Place Your Bets!

The time has come to make some decisions here.

I've done just about as much research as a normal parent can do. Granted, I've known some folks to visit the same school multiple times in one year, and I didn't do that. I've known some folks who didn't go on any tours at all, and I didn't do that. I'm somewhere in the middle. Although, because of my job as a writer at GreatSchools, I had greater leeway than most to visit a wider variety of schools, I still functioned within the normal range.

I think most people would, after touring several schools, know in their heart of hearts which is the best one for them. Even though I have a pretty good idea which one I'll put first, I'm going to make a chart and compare the top candidates, pros and cons, to see if I can gain any more clarity.

Here's my chart:

Pros and Cons of My Top Choices

School
	Pros	Cons
The Up and Comer	Smaller student body (900 students) Good band program Beautiful building Strong parent involvement School definitely on the upswing A 20 minute drive from the house Italian is offered (a continuation of the language Alex is already studying in elementary school)	Test scores lower than the other four
The Hidden Gem	Small, cozy K-8 school Best test scores Very clean, orderly, quiet environment A 10 minute drive from the house	Music and sports programs are not as impressive as the bigger schools
His Sister's Old School	Italian is offered here too 10 blocks from our house Test scores are high Great music program Lots of sports (even though Alex doesn't care about sports now, he might in the next few years)	Tons of homework Building looks like a concrete fortress Huge (1300 kids)
Top of the Heap	Great test scores Beautiful building with awesome views of Golden Gate Bridge and downtown Outdoor education trips to Yosemite and Olympic Pennisula Great music program Lots of sports	30 minutes from the house Tons of homework Huge (1200 kids)
Number Two in the Test Score Wars	20 minutes from the house Test scores are high Great music program Lots of sports	Tons of homework Huge (1300 kids)

Hmmm, let's see. If all things were equal, then The Up and Comer would win, just based upon the number of Pros. But all things are not equal, and I have to give greater weight to the fact that His Sister's Old School is so close to the house. Proximity makes life so much saner.

Plus, I'm familiar with His Sister's Old School. I know the teachers, the administrators and the procedures. I'm just nervous about the amount of homework they give there. It was tough on my daughter, and I'm concerned that Alex won't handle it as well as she did.

Well, for better or for worse, I decided to rank my choices on the district application this way:

1. His Sister's Old School

2. The Hidden Gem

3. Top of the Heap

4. Number Two in the Test Score Wars

5. The Up and Comer

There, I did it!

The Up and Comer

Back in '02, when I was looking for a middle school for my daughter, I was encouraged by other parents to look at The Up and Comer, a middle school with a checkered past. This school went from being a beacon of excellent public education to being a tattered and battered wreck with low test scores.

The downturn came in the '80s, according to the teacher who led my tour in 2002. This teacher, Mr. A., is a character well known to anybody who's ever set foot in this school, as he has a big personality, a big voice and has been there for 30 years, through thick and thin. When Mr. A. says something in his forceful manner, you generally don't forget it.

He told us about the famous Hollywood star who went there in the 1930s, and who, many years and three husbands later, reunited with her middle school sweetheart and made him her fourth husband. He told us about the former student, now a Harvard law professor, who represented Al Gore before the Supreme Court during the disputed election of 2000. He showed us the beautiful mural this artistically gifted Harvard law professor painted in the library when he was a mere 13 years old.

The Up and Comer has a proud and colorful history alright, but, sadly, things fell apart. I don't know exactly what caused the downfall of this once fabulous school, but Mr. A blamed it on a succession of bad principals, negligent superintendents and the decline of public education in California in general.

I was torn, back in '02, as to whether to send my child to a school then just starting to turn around. It was in need of major repairs. The kids seemed pretty darned tough. On the other hand, the building itself was once glorious and could be again. There was a sense of new and exciting things about to happen. I eventually decided against applying to The Up and Comer, but it was a tough call.

So other parents, hardy souls, some of whom I know from my public school travels, took on the Herculean project of taking back their neighborhood school. They lobbied the district for money to paint it inside and out, and to replace all the lockers. 

Another resourceful group famously cajoled the district to start serving healthy food, replacing soda and chips with fruit juice, bottled water and healthy snacks. The cafeteria became that rarity in our district: a cafeteria where food is actually cooked. No longer would soggy, tasteless food be shipped from a centralized location downtown.

The test scores slowly inched up over the years. The school was getting back on track.

Five years have now gone by since the transformation began, and I've watched in the interim as the school developed a good reputation. I've even heard some people say it's the best middle school in the district. I know it's not by a long shot, but it just goes to show how word of mouth works. The buzz is turning into hype.

So Alex and I put on our touring shoes and headed out to look at this cheeky Up and Comer. Maybe it would be good enough to lure us away from His Sister's Old School. The fact that it's smaller by 400 students is a big plus.

The tour, once again, was led by the indestructible Mr. A., the Up and Comer's biggest cheerleader. Everything that appealed to me about the school the first time around still appealed to me: the beautiful library, the awesome Art Deco auditorium, the views of the ocean, the lovely neighborhood. But now The Up and Comer also has comforting cooking smells wafting from the cafeteria, well-behaved students, clean walls and new lockers, and pretty darned good test scores. I like this school and will seriously consider sending Alex there.

Alex's most vivid impression of the tour was not of the school itself, but of Mr. A.

Alex: "He seemed really strict, like he would always be keeping his eye on you. And if you ever got out of his sight you'd still hear his big booming voice going down the hallway."

Hey, Could This Be a Hidden Gem?

Away out in the foggy Sunset District of San Francisco, there is a school no one ever talks about.

Its test scores are tops. It's in a pretty red brick building with Art Deco accents. So why aren't people lining up to get their kids into this school? Is it the fog and the remoteness of the Sunset District? No, that couldn't be it. The Big Three are out there too.

Then the doubts creep in. What's wrong with this school? Wait, wait: maybe this is one of those hidden gems we're supposed to be constantly looking for! And the closer I look at this school the more convinced I become that it really is a hidden gem.

Here's how I discovered it. When I searched on GreatSchools for all the middle schools, the True Hidden Gem showed up, right there near the top of the list, but I didn't see it for what it was. Why? Because no one I know talks about it and there were already too many schools on my list.

However, on the very last week of the touring season, I decided that I really had to make time to look at this school. I've been a tiny bit curious about it for years, but never made the time to go check it out. It was now or never.

Alex and I show up frazzled from all the school tours we've been on and not exactly eager for another one. I try to block out thoughts of how much work I'm missing. Alex says he's missing his spelling test at school. I notice that there are only a handful of other parents on the tour, unlike the usual throngs I've seen for the "hot" middle schools.  I hope this is worth it.

I perk up when I see how clean and orderly the place is. In fact, it's the neatest, cleanest school I've ever set foot in. All the student work on the walls is, without exception, tidy, well-proportioned, detailed. Are the teachers hired based upon their ability to train students to produce neat work and to create immaculate bulletin boards? Do they have an art director on staff?

Our guide hands out packets of school information and I am particularly impressed with the pages from the PTA listing their accomplishments. It's the first time I've noticed the PTA distributing such a list to touring parents, and what a list it is. To name a handful of their accomplishments, last year they:

• completed work on a new play structure (this is a K-8 school)

• completed a mural of endangered species

• started an after-school foreign language program

• sponsored many events, including a haunted house at Halloween, two middle school dances, a spring carnival and several teacher appreciation events

• funded musical instruments, plays, field trips, dictionaries, study kits and a new copier

Having experienced several schools' PTAs over the years, I mentally tip my hat to the leadership of this group. Nice job communicating to prospective members! If Alex ends up at The True Hidden Gem, I definitely want to be involved with these high-functioning adults.

There is only one thing about this school that concerns me. I'm so enamored of The Big Three's music programs that I constantly compare them to all other schools and sadly the music program at The True Hidden Gem doesn't stack up. It's because it has a much smaller pool of students to draw upon, hence it offers fewer opportunities for the students to explore the literature of big bands, orchestras and jazz, fewer opportunities to perform, fewer opportunities to play or hear odd instruments. (At His Sister's Old School, my daughter fell in love with the tuba and the "bari sax," the instruments the cool geeky kids played in her section. She played trombone.)

Here are some other notable qualities of The True Hidden Gem:

• A free after-school enrichment program for fourth- through eighth-graders

• An artist-in-residence program

• A psychotherapist who works with kids and families twice a week

• Spanish and Mandarin classes after-school, for a fee

• Algebra for all eighth-graders

• Alliances with the California Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium

• An API score higher than The Big Three's

• Recognition as a California Distinguished School in 1989, 1993 and 2002. That's one award for three decades running!

This little gem needs no polishing. It's ready to go. And you know what? I'm afraid of spoiling it by trumpeting it as a hidden gem. If the hordes come, the magic might be lost. Yes, I think I'll keep the secret. I'll describe it in such a way now that nobody will be able to figure out where it is. I'll throw an Invisibility Cloak over it.

As usual, Alex has his own opinion. Will we ever agree on a school?

Alex: "When I first came in I thought it was way too quiet and there wasn't enough going on. There weren't enough kids outside having fun. Everyone was crammed inside their classrooms. It just doesn't fit me."

The Big Three

My son Alex and I are setting out to see two of "The Big Three" of public middle schools in town. (The third of The Big Three is His Sister's Old School, mentioned in a previous post.)

Almost everybody in San Francisco who's in the market for a public middle school wants to get into one of the Big Three. These are the top-tier schools, the ones with the best test scores and the best music programs. If there's an Ivy League of public middle schools in our city, they're it.

They're as hard to get into as any of the private middle schools. The ratio is 4:1, applicants to openings, for all of them. I think one reason why The Big Three are so big is that the district keeps sneaking in more kids, trying to keep the vocal parents happy.

Selection is based upon a lottery, but not a pure lottery. We won't get into how this impure lottery works just yet — that's another whole kettle of fish. For now, we're just looking for the differences among the three schools, because on the surface they're very similar: gigantic, good test scores and on the west side of the city. We need to tease out the individual characteristics, parse the components, turn this into a science, so that nothing is left to chance.

The question for Alex and me is not shall we apply to the Big Three, but in what order shall we rank them on the application? The district allows, in fact encourages, families to list seven choices. That way, the odds are pretty good that families will get one of their choices. Also, if you put down just a few schools, say two or three, and you don't get any of them, the district will assign you to a school. Since we're going for individual choice here, the name of the game is to visit at least seven public middle schools and to figure out how to rank them.

Our first stop is the school I shall call Top of the Heap. This school is housed in a beautiful 75-year-old Spanish Revival building, complete with art deco interiors. That's the first thing that captures my attention on the tour. The second thing is the stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the downtown skyline.

Top of the Heap, just like the other two behemoths, offers an excellent music program of daily classes in band or orchestra. Any sixth-grader can take music — no prior knowledge of an instrument is required. If your child is not interested in music, there's the "Unified Arts" option, which is a rotating agenda of art, computer, drama, language (Spanish or Japanese), teacher or office aide, woodshop and home arts. What Top of the Heap offers that the other two do not are week-long outdoor education trips to Yosemite and Olympic National Park.

Overall, this middle school is very impressive, from the API score of 855 to the parent reviews on GreatSchools. Parents say such things as:

• "A terrific principal, committed teachers, excellent discipline, and terrific music and sports programs. The honors classes provide a solid grounding in language arts, math, and social studies for high school, and the band and orchestra classes show the results of excellent and dedicated leadership by their instructors. The school is safe and bully free, with a low tolerance for any kind of schoolyard problem."
• "This school has exceeded all our expectations. We selected it for its academics, and the fine teachers (many of whom have their own children at the school, an indicator of its quality). The academic program is very good. For three years, my son has also enjoyed the rewards of a great after-school sports program, and an excellent band music program."

Next, Alex and I head out to visit the school I've dubbed Number Two in the Test Score Wars. The first thing we notice is that the building is not nearly as nice as Top of the Heap's. It's a bland 1950s concrete affair, but it does have lovely views of the ocean and beach. Outside, the air is invigorating. Inside, there's a buzz of industry in the halls.

The principal's presentation at Number Two in the Test Score Wars is the most business-like I've encountered yet — a PowerPoint presentation, to be exact. After the PowerPoint in the library, the 70 or so parents on the tour are divided into smaller groups and assigned a student guide. Our tween guide didn't enunciate or speak up, so I missed a lot of information. I did glean that the principal used to be the Gifted and Talented Education coordinator for the district, and she firmly believes that it is not a good thing to segregate the GATE students from the general school population.

At Number Two in the Test Score Wars, the GATE kids are clustered into groups of four or five and then placed into general education classes. The teachers are expected to offer the GATE kids differentiated, accelerated instruction. Furthermore, kids might be GATE identified in math, but not in language arts, or vice versa, creating a more flexible GATE program.

Number Two's API score is 846, nine points down from Top of the Heap. The parent reviews on GreatSchools are very positive:

• "The principal is a caring person who runs a very tight ship. The counselors, who stay with a class throughout their 3-year career, do a pretty terrific job, especially considering the number of kids they are responsible for. The music program is justly renowned. We consider ourselves lucky that our son ended up here."
• "It's a great school with a good principal and staff. Best music teachers in the city."

Mentally, I compare these two behemoths to His Sister's Old School, which has an API of 840, 15 points below Top of the Heap. His Sister's Old School is another 1950s concrete montrosity, looking rather like a fortress on the outside, but inside it does have cheery yellow tiles on the walls.

The parent reviews on GreatSchools are interesting:

• "The music program is excellent."
• "Expect many hours of homework, some of it really tedious."
• "An overall great school with a near perfect curriculum."
• "This is a great school for dedicated students. If you want a school that expects a lot from your child and gives a lot in return you will be very happy here."

Wow, how do I differentiate these three schools? How do I choose the best one for Alex?

Alex is stumped too: "I don't know. One of them had holes in the walls that they stuffed desks into and called them classrooms. [Mom here: What??] I'd rather go to My Sister's Old School than the others because it seems better. It feels right for me, more than the other ones. I don't know why. Don't ask me any more questions."

The Shabby Bohemian Charter School

Next stop on our tour schedule is a charter school.

San Francisco, for whatever reason, doesn't have many charter schools with great "street cred." Most people I know look at charters as Plan B schools. I don't know why this is, but the charter movement hasn't provided a great deal in the way of competition or choice for parents in San Francisco.

OK, so there is one charter in town that I know of that's generating a little bit of a buzz, but The Shabby Bohemian Charter School is not one of them.

The reason I want to check out The Shabby Bohemian Charter School has to do with an acquaintance of mine. She's very arty (a painter who lives in a communal household). Her daughter has been at The Shabby Bohemian Charter School for eight years, and she and her daughter seem nurturing and on a slightly less academic, more creative track than most families I know at the "high-performing" schools. It could be that The Shabby Bohemian Charter School would be a good fit for my son, Alex, who is slightly less academic and more creative than is considered ideal by his current school.

The Shabby Bohemian Charter School represents a possible new community for Alex and me, and touring it represents me casting a wider net for a school. Furthermore, I've always been curious as to why I've heard so little about this school. This leads me to wonder optimistically: could it be one of those elusive Hidden Gems that parents are always looking for?

Well, as much as I wanted to like the school, it just wasn't that great. I sensed dysfunction there. The parent tour guide and the school administrator backing her up were not very friendly. I mean, they were civil and polite, but they didn't project pride and excitement about their school. The school administrator, in particular, seemed irritated if too many questions were asked.

This is where school tours can become somewhat subjective. A tour guide who's grumpy or who mumbles can color your whole picture of a school. A sunny day or a gray day can make or break the school in one's estimation of it. I'll never forget the day I toured a school when looking for a kindergarten for my daughter while I was pregnant with Alex. I had such morning sickness that I had to flee the school in great haste. For months afterwards, just thinking of that school made me nauseous. Oddly enough, it was an excellent school and one that we transferred our daughter to when she was in third grade. The moral of this story is: Try to be objective!

The Shabby, Bohemian Charter School is messy and housed in a public school that the district closed and hadn't kept up. I tried to picture Alex learning amid the piles of empty boxes and teetering stacks of paper. The school curriculum is built on a project-based learning theory called Reggio Emilia, with an emphasis on the arts. Why, then, wasn't there any beautiful art on the walls (except in one classroom — see Alex's comments below)?

The tour satisfied my curiosity and pretty much answered the question of why I hear so little about the school. It's definitely not going to be on my list of contenders.

But, once again, Alex and I do not see eye to eye. He likes it better than I do, and more than I thought he would.

Alex: "I liked the art class because it seemed like there were a lot of good artists in there, so I felt like the art teacher must be good. The music teacher seemed nice and funny. He seemed like he'd get straight to the point and he wouldn't talk a lot and seemed like he would listen to you and he seemed very nice. The dance class seemed a wee bit weird because there were these girls dancing and the type of boy like me does not enjoy seeing girls move their hips, so I don't think I'd be anywhere near that part of the school, but other than that it was an OK school.

"The building seemed like it was sturdy, but a little bit old in a semi-good way. They were doing a project in this one class that I found very interesting. They were observing castles and making a castle out of scraps from the recycling and making drawbridges that would come up and down by strings and poles. Now I found this interesting because I am a boy who is interested in things that include art made of ordinary things that you would pick up around your house and say 'Oh, I better throw this away, it seems like junk,' but what a real artist would say is, 'Oh, what a lovely piece of junk! We should make something artistic.'

"I'd rank this school third after My Sister's Old School and The Bare-Bones, Humble Catholic School."

The Former Hippie School Gone Upscale

You've got to have a Plan B.

My Plan B, Part A, is to apply to one Catholic school and one independent school. Plan B, Part B, is to pray that we get a terrific financial aid package. [Plan A is to get into one of the perfectly fine, but very big, public middle schools that everyone else wants to get into.]

Alex and I set out this morning to continue our Plan B research and check out The Former Hippie School Gone Upscale, an independent school located in what a friend of mine (who sent his child to this school) calls the "armpit of San Francisco." The school is nestled in a cozy nook created by freeway overpasses, where Interstate 80 meets 280. The sound of cars whizzing by is a constant backdrop and over time begins to sound somewhat like distant surf. Nevertheless, this school is highly prized by its parent community. While it's not one of the most selective schools in the city, its reputation is solid gold.

Once Alex and I pass through the school's rustic wooden front gate, set in an ivy-covered wall, we feel we've entered a world far removed from the armpit of San Francisco. We're in a magical realm where any child would be happy to learn and play. The courtyard is nicely landscaped. There's an "adventure" garden on the hillside. Well-tended plants thrive in planters decorated with handmade tiles.

The principal meets the touring families to deliver a brief statement before his staff takes us around. He tells us many things about the philosophy of the school, including "Your child will learn to ask: How does my understanding of science help my stewardship of the Earth?" and "This is a safe place for every child to bring their whole self to school." Very crunchy granola. The school's hippie roots are showing and I like it.

But now for the "upscale" part. For $18K a year, parents would get:

• A small school with only 30-32 children per grade level
• Four hours of Spanish per week
• Art twice a week
• Music three times a week, plus - and this is a big plus - the music program is run by a gentleman known as the guru of local music teachers and who is world renowned among musicians and educators.
• Annual field trips to Yosemite and Mexico

Aside from the price tag, and the not inconsiderable distance from our house, I could see being a part of this community for three years. Quickly, I run the numbers in my head. Last year there were 12-15 openings for the sixth grade and they had 47 applicants. That translates to roughly 1 in 3 got in, better odds than the popular public schools and many private schools. I think we should give it a go and apply. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, they say.

Alex, unfortunately, was less than sanguine about The Former Hippie School Gone Upscale, saying: "The school was OK. It seemed small and I want a small school, except for My Sister's Old School because that's a good school. I just want a school that has nice children and nice teachers. The children seemed nice. I liked the library because it was small and cozy and they had good books, like Calvin and Hobbes. I liked the yard, which was small and cute and everyone was having a lot of fun. I like The Bare-Bones, Humble, Catholic School better though because it has a cafeteria. Like, what if someone didn't have a lunch, what would they do?"

The Bare-Bones, Humble, Catholic School

This K-8 Catholic school wasn't initially on my radar screen, primarily because it isn't one of the big, beautiful Catholic schools that dot our city.

But Alex insisted we look at it. A friend and former classmate of his transferred into to this school last summer, and Alex has been talking about it ever since. Alex's friend comes from a Catholic family, and they felt their son wasn't getting the structure he needed in our public school. Their boy was not "stepping up to the plate," as the parents said, and taking responsibility for his academic performance. A smaller school, a school with more discipline built into the day, was in order, in their view.

Alex is curious about his buddy's new school, and I started to get a bit more curious when a second kid from Alex's class transferred over.

But, I'm not Catholic. Although I did look at a couple of other, grander, Catholic schools five years ago for my daughter, I've never felt at home in them. It wasn't the schools' fault. It's just that, frankly, I wouldn't feel comfortable sending my child to a school where beliefs I don't share are taught. I wonder if I should just get over that, look at it as enrichment for Alex and let him decide what he believes, on his own. What do you think, dear reader?

The Bare-Bones, Humble, Catholic School is housed in a rather boring, nondescript building, but it makes up for it by being in a cute neighborhood near a woodsy park. This park is the front door to a little known canyon situated in the heart of the city. The canyon, with its creek, hiking trails and rope swings, is one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets. I count being near this canyon as a major plus for the little Bare-Bones School.

When Alex and I arrive, we notice we're the only ones there for the tour. We're taken around by a vivacious eighth-grader and a silent seventh-grader. The day's bright sunshine seems to fill the school with golden rays from heaven. The classrooms are populated with gentle, happy children. Slowly, my view of the school changes from a lack of interest to grudging approval, but definitely not one of outright admiration.

The classrooms are orderly, if sparsely adorned. The library is small and unimpressive, but Alex disagrees. [See his comments below.] The playground is the school's parking lot and offers no special structures for the younger children. There's no field, or other amenities for P.E., which one would expect to see in a larger public middle school. The kids go to the park down the street twice a week for P.E., but that's it.

The only extracurricular is a very limited offering of music. It's taught once a week, and amounts to singing and music history. There's no language option, no art, no computer class. I'm amazed that so little is offered and yet you have to pay to go there. I guess you're paying to have the semi-exclusive, small school experience.

I'm not sold on this school, not at all. Alex, on the other hand, says it's his first choice!

Alex on The Bare-Bones, Humble, Catholic School: "It seemed like everyone was happy there. When I walked into the cafeteria it smelled like a real restaurant, like it had real food, not like other schools in San Francisco. It had a pretty big library, and it seemed nice and quiet, and two of my friends go there so it seems like a pretty good school to me. I asked my friend if he liked it and he said yes.

"The tour guides were nice, even though one of them barely talked. I wouldn't mind wearing a uniform. They don't have art. That's sad for me, but I wouldn't mind it that much. I can adjust. It's a Catholic school, so they pray in the morning, so I guess I'll just have to pray!"

Our Starting Point

Our first tour of the touring season begins today at the middle school near our house, the middle school that my daughter graduated from two years ago.

My son is with me. We decided to change his name to protect his privacy, and the name he chose is Alex.

Alex has always wanted to go to this school, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't given too much thought as to why. He's only 10, and (I assume) he assumes he'll just go to the middle school that his sister went to. I also suspect that he wants to go there because he believes many of his friends will go there. I'll ask him about this, after the tour. 

Upon arrival at the school, which I will now refer to as His Sister's Old School, we found a crowd of anxious parents surrounded by a teeming throng of tweens and just-barely-teens, waiting for the doors to the school to open. The kids were a roiling mass of rowdies, big overgrown elementary schoolers in spirit, housed in gangly bodies sprouting body hair and other signs of puberty. The little fifth-graders on the tour hovered near their parents for protection.

Touring schools can be a very social experience. I always seem to know one person on the tour, if not several. This is the case today: four sets of parents from Alex's current school, plus some folks from other areas of my life. I met a wonderful mom and dad, the parents of a friend of Alex's from a summer camp. We hung out on the tour and compared notes. I found myself hoping that we'd end up in the same school.

His Sister's Old School is one of the most requested middle schools in the district. The top three middle schools keep switching places in the test result rankings, one taking first place one year, another taking the top spot the next. All three are about the same size too, which is HUGE. His Sister's Old School has approximately 1200 students, making it feel more like a community college than a middle school.

The transition to such a large school is hard for some families, sometimes harder for the parents than for the kids themselves. When my daughter and I were touring middle schools five years ago, I was leaning toward a nice small K-8 school, but she insisted she wanted a big school, with hallway after hallway of lockers and hundreds of kids in each grade level.

Eventually, I came around to her point of view and saw the advantages of a big school. At His Sister's Old School, for example, the music program is able to field four levels of band, three levels of orchestra and chorus, and a jazz band. Not too shabby. And the kids sound great by the eighth grade, even if they've never played an instrument before starting in sixth grade.

Our decision to go to the big school paid off for my daughter. She received a solid education, and in the eighth grade she played in the school's advanced band at a San Francisco Giants baseball game. That was an experience worth the occasional inconvenience and anonymity that comes with being part of such a large pack of kids.

Alex, on the other hand, has not expressed a desire to attend a large school. He prefers smaller groups, where he can get more individual attention from the adults.

Since I'm very familiar with His Sister's Old School, having volunteered there and having experienced it through my daughter for three years, today's tour is really for Alex. It's for him to establish a benchmark from which to compare the other schools we'll be looking at over the course of the next few months.

This is what I like about His Sister's Old School:

• It has a great music program, with one hour of music a day, and a choice of band, orchestra or chorus.
• It's very focused on security: each wing is locked from the outside (not from the inside) during the day and there are two full-time security guards. All administrators have radio communicators.
• The test scores are excellent.
• Italian is offered once a week during "zero" period (the hour before school starts). This would mean Alex could continue the language instruction he received in elementary school, and (thinking strategically for the future) it might help him get into one of the city's top high schools, which also offers Italian.

This is what Alex has to say about His Sister's Old School: "My sister went there and it's seems like a good school to go to. [Marian here: I was right! See the second paragraph of this post.] It's a big school so that means I have a better chance of making friends. They really drill into your head not to use drugs and smoking, and that makes it seem like a good school. It has education with music. I like that because I like music. I want to play guitar. If they don't have guitar I'll do trombone because my sister played trombone. Or I'll play drums. It seems great that we get lockers because I won't have to carry all my books in my hands and in my backpack. But it would be better if we didn't have books in the first place. It seems like my sister had a good time at this school. She had a lot of homework. It would be nice to have that much homework, but most of it would be math and science, which is not my thing."

Oh Noooo! It's That Time Again! Time to Find a New School for My Kid!

It's alright, really, I know how to do this, having done this five times (not counting preschools). I feel rather calm and Zen-like. I hope it's not overconfidence. Or denial. Because in San Francisco, choosing and then getting into a public school is a labyrinthine and constantly evolving process.

Once you think you've got the hang of it, it'll up and change on you, in subtle yet potentially important ways. One year, your ZIP code can be a determining factor. The next year, ZIP codes are out. One year, you're allowed to write an appeal letter if you want to. The next year, they've tightened up the rules — no more appeal letters — ostensibly to prevent eloquent, educated individuals from gaining an unfair advantage.

Knowing all of the most au courant rules and how to best use them, would be moot if there were an abundance of good schools. Unfortunately, that's not the case here, nor is it the case in many communities in the United States.

But at least in the San Francisco Unified School District we have fairly robust school choice. In the middle school arena, where I find myself now, we can choose from among any of the 32 public and charter schools, it doesn't matter where you live in the city. And then there are the 89 parochial and independent private schools!

So what's a mom to do? Research, research, and more research, and don't make any assumptions about anything, as a school's reputation often trails years behind reality. (Catching a public school before it's discovered by the rest of the city can mean catching it before it's spoiled, by overcrowding or by any number of factors that cause schools to change.)

Then learn the rules of the game. Oh yeah, and don't forget to relax. It'll all work out — that's what I keep telling myself — as long as I stay on top of it. I should know. I've been doing this for 10 years now.

[Disclaimer: That's not to say I know everything about school choice, or even simply about school choice in San Francisco. But I do know a thing or two.]