The kindergarten drama continues round here. While the spots are swirling among the various private schools, we continue our undaunted pursuit of the Korean Immersion Program at a well-regarded public school. SF boasts many language immersion programs, but this is the only Korean one. The others are Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish. The kinder class has 20 seats, some of which were taken by siblings of the older kids (don't know how many). So we are vying for one of those few remaining seats. We didn't get one in Round 1, so we are submitting our name for the Waiting Pool and hoping for the best. Last year, 2 seats were made available to families in the waiting pool, so there is a slim chance. I realize now, however, that I may have made a crucial error by not emphasizing on our form that we have a Korean speaker in the home. Apparently this is a big factor, though nowhere on the form does it ask that.
The application form did ask us these questions:
1) What is the first language your children spoke: For our kids, that is English.
2) What is the primary language spoken in the home: You got it, English again. (If you don't count chaji, koondengi, and pangoo as "primary language.")
3) Please mark the box next to the racial group that your child most identifies with, ranking them 1, 2, 3, etc. Huh? I am supposed to rank them? My kids are Hapa. the Ha and the Pa are equally important and equally present. You can't possibly expect me to rank them. So I put an X in the Korean box and an X in the "White" box. I guess this wasn't good enough.
A little bit of history here: Up until 1946, on most public enrollment/application forms, "Jewish" was a racial group. One can argue the merits of that, if one wants to, and I don't, but it is a fact. So a person back then was categorized as either Caucasian, Negro, Oriental, Jewish, etc. I know these terms are antiquated, and in many instances offensive, but they are the terms used at the time. After WW II, Jewish was dropped as a racial category and Jews were supposed to say they are "White." Again, one could argue the merits of this, and I don't want to, at least not right now. So being asked to classify my kids as "white" and "Korean," and then being asked to prioritize these things was, to put it bluntly, fucked up. Oh, and they say that they are asking for the racial information for purely demographic reasons. It has no impact on school assignment. Then why ask me to prioritize it?
So now we are in the situation of having to strategize to get into the KIP program, or else have Booper do a year of pre-K, which I'm sure he would love, then do this all over again next year. I am really okay with "red-shirting" him for a number of reasons. But I am feeling pretty annoyed at how we have to go through these machinations to get our kid into public school. Despite our annoyance, the current plan is to have The Handyman, in all his Korean glory, go down to the Educational Placement Center and let them know that we have a Korean speaker in the home. This is supposed to be very desirable, as he could potentially help the kids with homework, etc. Can you believe that this is what it takes?
I spoke for a while with a mom who sent both of her kids through this immersion program, though they are not at all Korean. She loves the program and thinks it's "perfect" for us. I agree. It is perfect. We are committed to the culture and the language and would be very enthusiastic about the annual school trip to Korea and the Korean student exchange in 6th grade. She said a lot of folks ask for the Korean Immersion just to get into the school, then they drop it after a year or two and go into the general education strand of this highly regarding elementary school. Jerks.
Any other ideas out there on how to handle this? Is there some secret Korean handshake I can do with someone to grease the wheels a little bit?
Friday, March 21, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
What's good enough for my children
I am pissed off today. So if you plan to read this entry, I suggest you put on your helmet.
We received our "letter of assignment" on Saturday, telling us which public school Booper has been assigned to for kindergarten. We received exactly NONE of our choices. (The process involves listing up to 7 schools that you would consider, then they assign you to one of them based on their fucked up "diversity" selection system.) Instead, he was assigned to some for-shit public school, nowhere near our house, where the mother of one of the students was shot a couple years ago by her estranged husband. We are not sending our child there. I am not sending my precious son to kindergarten in some concrete dump with inferior facilities, mediocre academics, and underfunded extracurriculars, that cannot guarantee basic safety in their own parking lot. Needless to say, we are not accepting this "assignment."
Our options, at this point, are the following.
1) We can "select" a few other schools that we would consider and hope a space opens up for him in one of those. Of course, these are the schools that still have openings, meaning no one else wanted to go to them either.
2) We can put him on the waiting list for ONE school only, and hope he gets a spot.
3) We can keep him in pre-K for a year and then try this process again next year, including private schools in the mix. Because of his birthdate, he did not make the cut off for a lot of the private schools this year so we didn't go that route at all. Not that we really want private school, but if our choice is private school or some bullshit like this, then we'll take private, thank you very much.
Our top choice school for him is the Korean Immersion program at one of the popular public schools. Thirty-eight other families made this their top choice. A total of 130 families had it somewhere on their list. And this is for less than 20 spaces. (We don't know how many exactly because the class size is 20 but some spots are taken by siblings. Maybe all of them were!) I think some families say they want their children in this program just as a way of getting them into the school in general. It's one of the most desirable public elementary schools in the city. Then they ask to switch out later, to the general education track. But in the meantime, they take a spot that could go to a child with a genuine interest in learning to read and write and speak in Korean. Like Booper. We did not get offered one of these very few spots, unfortunately. But my inclination at this point is to put this program down for our one waiting list choice. I've heard this can work, if you're tenacious. One thing I am is fucking tenacious. I applied to UC Berkeley 3 times before I got it, and then I was the valedictorian of my class. So the fucking joke was on them, those assholes.
I guess it could be worse. We do have the option of having him go through one year of pre-K at his current school, which we like a lot. Of course, this costs about $16K a year. A steal compared to the expected $20K a year for private school. Some families have to put their children in kindergarten next year no matter what. But I still feel angry that, after paying property taxes in this city for 5 years, we still can't get our son a seat in even the public elementary school that is 3 blocks from our house. No shit. We put that down as one of our choices, and we didn't even get that. This drives me ape shit. Makes me want to do something crazy, like move to Marin.
I am so frustrated. What kind of system is this? What the flying fuck is this? And what's the best thing to do now?
We received our "letter of assignment" on Saturday, telling us which public school Booper has been assigned to for kindergarten. We received exactly NONE of our choices. (The process involves listing up to 7 schools that you would consider, then they assign you to one of them based on their fucked up "diversity" selection system.) Instead, he was assigned to some for-shit public school, nowhere near our house, where the mother of one of the students was shot a couple years ago by her estranged husband. We are not sending our child there. I am not sending my precious son to kindergarten in some concrete dump with inferior facilities, mediocre academics, and underfunded extracurriculars, that cannot guarantee basic safety in their own parking lot. Needless to say, we are not accepting this "assignment."
Our options, at this point, are the following.
1) We can "select" a few other schools that we would consider and hope a space opens up for him in one of those. Of course, these are the schools that still have openings, meaning no one else wanted to go to them either.
2) We can put him on the waiting list for ONE school only, and hope he gets a spot.
3) We can keep him in pre-K for a year and then try this process again next year, including private schools in the mix. Because of his birthdate, he did not make the cut off for a lot of the private schools this year so we didn't go that route at all. Not that we really want private school, but if our choice is private school or some bullshit like this, then we'll take private, thank you very much.
Our top choice school for him is the Korean Immersion program at one of the popular public schools. Thirty-eight other families made this their top choice. A total of 130 families had it somewhere on their list. And this is for less than 20 spaces. (We don't know how many exactly because the class size is 20 but some spots are taken by siblings. Maybe all of them were!) I think some families say they want their children in this program just as a way of getting them into the school in general. It's one of the most desirable public elementary schools in the city. Then they ask to switch out later, to the general education track. But in the meantime, they take a spot that could go to a child with a genuine interest in learning to read and write and speak in Korean. Like Booper. We did not get offered one of these very few spots, unfortunately. But my inclination at this point is to put this program down for our one waiting list choice. I've heard this can work, if you're tenacious. One thing I am is fucking tenacious. I applied to UC Berkeley 3 times before I got it, and then I was the valedictorian of my class. So the fucking joke was on them, those assholes.
I guess it could be worse. We do have the option of having him go through one year of pre-K at his current school, which we like a lot. Of course, this costs about $16K a year. A steal compared to the expected $20K a year for private school. Some families have to put their children in kindergarten next year no matter what. But I still feel angry that, after paying property taxes in this city for 5 years, we still can't get our son a seat in even the public elementary school that is 3 blocks from our house. No shit. We put that down as one of our choices, and we didn't even get that. This drives me ape shit. Makes me want to do something crazy, like move to Marin.
I am so frustrated. What kind of system is this? What the flying fuck is this? And what's the best thing to do now?
Thursday, March 6, 2008
My Peeps
We are invited to a birthday party this weekend. Ordinarily, this would not be worth mentioning, as there are birthday parties almost every week when you have two kids in preschool. It seems that, at this age, inviting the entire class is de rigeur (we don't, but others feel it's the proper thing to do). This party is different, though. It is the party for the baby sister of one of Booper's classmates. The classmate in question is a beautiful and sweet Little Korean girl, 100%. She has a crush on the Boop, and wants to marry him, which puts her in good company. (It seems that most of the girls at his school have designs on him. And what's not to like?) We feel that she would be an ideal wife for Booper, but that it may be premature to make this kind of decision.I'm not sure what the genesis of this invitation is, but I am touched and flattered, and a tad surprised, by it. You see, the party is at a restaurant, to celebrate LKG's baby sister's dol. We have never met LKG's baby sister, though we have met her parents who are friendly, intelligent, and kind people. I was once chatting with LKG's mother (who is stunning, BTW) at a school event. She told me that LKG has a crush on Booper. Then added, "What the heck! I have a crush on him, too! Those lips! That hair! He's so handsome!"
I checked the Evite list, and we are the only family from the preschool that is invited (and possibly the only family that is not 100% Korean.) I assume that is because:
1) They are taking this preschool betrothal more seriously than we are
2) They wanted to have a friend there for their older daughter to play with
3) They are wrapping us in the warm, kimchi love of the Korean family.
Whichever it is, we're happy to be included, but I am a little nervous about being the outsider, unfamiliar with the customs, foods, language. I love to experience new things, but I don't want to put my foot in it by mistake. My son's social life hangs in the balance! Sound familiar to some of you Kimchi Mamas? Can anyone offer some guidance on the how-tos? I have only been to my own sons' dols, and I think they were fairly unorthodox. My sense is that this is going to be the real deal.
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