I've spent the last few weeks basically obsessing about Alex's future school career. Where and when to start him in preschool and worrying whether or not I should even be worrying about the stupid public school age cutoff. I think I've got some things figured out.
I'm not going to worry about the age cutoff. After talking to several other mothers (one of them being a Kindergarten teacher in a public school who also has a teen aged son who missed the cutoff by two months), I've come to the conclusion that giving him an extra year to mature and grow will only benefit him in the end.
My next worry was whether or not to start him in preschool this year and if so, where should he go? After this morning, I've found the answer to both of those questions, the problem is, I need to get John on board.
As it turns out, I've chosen the Christian school as Alex's preschool. There are several factors that brought me to this conclusion, not the least of which is the fact that it is affordable when compared to the other programs I'd investigated. Once I started calling around to some recommended preschools, I found that the tuition (for schools in our area anyway) ranges from $300 to $600 per month. PER MONTH! FOR PRESCHOOL! I mean, this isn't graduate school here. What will they be doing for $600 per month? Coloring with crayons made of gold? I'd better be getting gallery quality art projects sent home every day for that price. He'd better be speaking three languages and know how to perform brain surgery by the end of the year. Forget preschool, if we had an extra $600 per month sitting around, let's buy a Maserati (well, we could probably insure the Maserati for $600 anyway). The Christian school is $120 per month with a $60 yearly "supply fee". To keep costs down, they also require parents to volunteer a minimum of six hours per year. That's more like it.
I took Alex to the preschool for a tour this morning and discovered that not only is the price right, I love the program. The classes are small (1:8 child to teacher ratio), and they're focused on learning through play and experience. In contrast to the other schools which are highly structured and focus on teaching through doing worksheets and such, this one lets kids be kids. If he doesn't want to do the art project, well, he doesn't have to. He doesn't sit and memorize his ABC's, he learns letters by seeing the labeled objects in the room. He learns to count by counting out napkins for snack time or counting his friends. This seems to fit right in with my own "hippie" parenting style.
The only downside to our tour was the fact that my sweet son morphed into an evil little troll the minute we walked in the doors. He wouldn't talk to the program director. He refused to play with the dinosaurs she gave him and instead tried to wreck her office. He wanted desperately to play with the other kids, but that obviously wasn't possible, so he cried and said he wanted to go home. Then, when we did finally leave, he cried "no bye bye!". He pulled out every bad behavior in his repertoire. After that display, I'm surprised she even bothered to give me a registration form. I mean, why would they want to let this kid into their happy school? It reinforced my feeling that going to preschool this year is exactly what he needs.
Sadly, the preschool is already full for this fall. We can, however, get on the waiting list and she was confident that he'd be able to get into a class by September (apparently, there's a high number of kids pulled out due to not being potty trained before school starts. Since Alex is well on his way to being potty trained already, this shouldn't be an issue for him). Getting a spot in the school this year would also ensure he has a spot reserved for him for every year he attends the school (they only go to second grade).
John isn't thrilled about the idea of Alex going to a Christian school, but seems to have warmed up to the idea since I've assured him that he won't be hearing sermons or reading the Bible every day. His major concern is the cost. We're trying so hard to get our finances under control after our wild and crazy year last year. $120 a month would go a long way to helping us pay off some of our debt. But he hasn't dismissed it completely and is willing to mull it over and give me a definitive answer by Monday so I can get Alex a good spot on the waiting list should John decide we can in fact afford it this year.
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