On Education: Part 3 – On Tour

Once we learned that private schools did not have to use August 1 as a cutoff date, we began vehemently researching dates, prices, and curriculums.  The most difficult pill to swallow – the average $8,000 in tuition it would cost us to send Carina to kindergarten in a private school.  We decided that as long as our household budget could handle the monthly payments, we felt it was important to give Carina the opportunity to go to kindergarten.

In the midst of all this, we learned more about eSTEM Charter School in downtown Little Rock.  After having watched Waiting for Superman and learning more about the school, their structure really appealed to us.  The have a year round school schedule and an extended school day.  The school is public, so it’s free and open to anyone that lives in Arkansas, but spots are chosen by lottery, so for kindergarten they’ll fill 60 spots from 250 applications each year.  We had heard that eStem was flexible about age cutoffs, and so we were excited to attend an open house.  We brought Carina along.  But, we were very disappointed when we hit the front door and were handed a piece of paper that said “Children must be age 5 by August 1st in order to attend kindergarten.  NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!” Phooey.

So, we scheduled some tours. Many private schools are following the August 1st deadline, so that took them out of the running.  Most memorable was Arkansas Baptist Schools.  Craig had emailed them inquiring about their cutoff date.  Their response – “Our cutoff date is August 1st.  We are following the state law.” Tsk Tsk on us. After touring three private schools, we had a big decision to make.  Honestly, taking the tours and asking tons of questions made our decision pretty easy.  There was one school that just stood out as the best fit for Carina and the best fit for our lifestyle.  So, we’ve applied to that school and are waiting to hear if there is a spot for Carina.  (I’m not going to say which one until we have a spot guaranteed.  Don’t want to jinx it, or have a blog post come back to bite us.)

The immediate feeling of relief of having made the decision was huge!  I am excited and found myself imagining Carina enjoying what the school has to offer.  However, in the week since we’ve submitted our application, a new feeling has set in – nervousness!  What if we applied to late and they run out of spots!  I am hoping this is a silly concern, but I can’t keep myself from thinking it.

In the meantime, we’ve started to look at the kindergarten curriculum.  I’ve started introducing some dolch sight words, working more on lower case letters, and getting more comfortable with the “teen” numbers.  Carina is really motivated to read, and loves to write.  She locks herself in the hall that goes to the garage and writes letters and words all over her artwork hanging there.  All this at-home educating has me thinking about the values of home schooling.  But, at this point, we’re not going there! (I think Carina would get very bored of me very quickly!)

So, of course, as soon as we officially figure out where Carina will be going next year, I will be posting it here.

(to be continued…)

Other posts in this series:

On Education: Part 1 – The Mindset
On Education: Part 2 – The Dating Game
On Education: Part 2b – A Correction
On Education: Part 4 – We’re In!

Related posts:

On Education: Part 2 – The Dating Game On Education: Part 1 – The Mindset