so everything's moving on at a jolly good pace, which is totally freaking me out!
i just went online & downloaded the school calendar for 2011-12 & realized that christopher's first day of school is august 15th & the kids start on august 22nd. our buyer wants to close on august 24th. that means that we need to move the weekend of august 13th at the latest! ideally, i'd like to move the weekend of august 6th so that we have 2 full weeks of sleeping in the new house before school starts so that the kids can start to get acclimated before we totally change their world again. and somewhere in there we'll have both kindergarten orientation and pre-k orientation.
but thankfully i have amazing kids. the other day, the kids and i painted their rooms. at the time i thought i was crazy for having them help with the painting, but it actually turned out really nicely. chris had found little rollers & paint trays for them, so they actually got to paint their own rooms. we had gone to home depot the day before and picked paint colors, which totally thrilled them, and they did an awesome job painting. so their rooms are done. barbara & chuck are supposed to come in this weekend to finish clearing out the house & then we'll be able to paint our room, the dining room & living room; rip out the carpet & have it replaced; buy a new refrigerator; and replace the bathroom sink. all in 3 weeks. the painting and carpeting NEED to be done before we move in. the existing carpet has been there since they bought the house in the 50's. seriously. it needs to go. every time barbara vacuums, she's vacuuming up the remnants of the padding through the carpet. i was really trying to convince christopher to go with the hardwood, but i had to be a gracious loser in that battle. oh well. i won the battle of the paint color for our bedroom, so :)
and i haven't even started packing what's left in the house. pretty much everything that we don't need is already in the new house or stored in the duplex. what's left is really just the bare necessities. i really think it's harder to move across town than across the country. it doesn't feel like you need to actually pack to move down the street. and we've been doing it so piecemeal that it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we need to get everything else ready to go. but i can't pack the toaster, cuz we still eat toast for breakfast. i guess i could pack my cardigans, sweatshirts & sweaters. i probably won't need those for a bit :) but the kids clothes are done. i actually need to get out what i packed away from the spring to see what we need for school. crap! another thing to add to my to do list :( and i wonder why i'm not sleeping & eating way too much chocolate :)
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2011
Saturday, February 6, 2010
the school delimma
well, i thought i had more time to figure this out, but clearly i don't. alexander is 4 and will be going to pre-school in the fall and then kindergarten the year after. but our school district is quickly going downhill and we hafta figure out what we're gonna do.
option 1: private or catholic school. this option could get really expensive really fast. the catholic school in our area is really good, but if you don't tithe enough, they add the difference to your tab every year. and even if you do tithe enough, it's still expensive. there's a great scholarship program for "children of color" here, but it doesn't start until 4th grade. but the fabulous thing about it is that they pay for everything from grade 4 on. but the competition is stiff and it's all about grades and financial need.
option 2: moving! in the long run, it would really just be cheaper to move into a better school district. but looking at the stats of the better school districts in the area they're pretty expensive and pretty un-diversified. according to one list i looked at, penn-trafford school district has one of the top 10 elementary schools in pennsylvania, but has 0.0% african american students. i don't want my kids to be "the only" (like i was a lot!), but i do want them to get a good education. i looked at another list that ranked schools by the amount of money allocated per student. some of the schools that were near the top were some of the worst in the state, so obviously that list was bunk!
but the final point is that our school district sucks. they're going to a "super-school" the year that alexander will be starting kindergarten, and i don't really want all 1200 elementary school students in one building with my 5 year-old. although people are fleeing penn hills like rats from a sinking ship, so there will probably only be a fraction of that number, but still! but moving makes me sad a little. it's be awesome to get a bigger house, cuz we're kinda outgrowing our little house, but i'd miss our neighborhood and our neighbors. most of the "better" school districts are farther out from the city and it's either new development, which is kinda sanitary with no mature trees, or kinda rural, where it would be impossible to run next door to borrow a cup of sugar. there's pros and cons to everything. we just have to figure out what's important and go from there.
option 1: private or catholic school. this option could get really expensive really fast. the catholic school in our area is really good, but if you don't tithe enough, they add the difference to your tab every year. and even if you do tithe enough, it's still expensive. there's a great scholarship program for "children of color" here, but it doesn't start until 4th grade. but the fabulous thing about it is that they pay for everything from grade 4 on. but the competition is stiff and it's all about grades and financial need.
option 2: moving! in the long run, it would really just be cheaper to move into a better school district. but looking at the stats of the better school districts in the area they're pretty expensive and pretty un-diversified. according to one list i looked at, penn-trafford school district has one of the top 10 elementary schools in pennsylvania, but has 0.0% african american students. i don't want my kids to be "the only" (like i was a lot!), but i do want them to get a good education. i looked at another list that ranked schools by the amount of money allocated per student. some of the schools that were near the top were some of the worst in the state, so obviously that list was bunk!
but the final point is that our school district sucks. they're going to a "super-school" the year that alexander will be starting kindergarten, and i don't really want all 1200 elementary school students in one building with my 5 year-old. although people are fleeing penn hills like rats from a sinking ship, so there will probably only be a fraction of that number, but still! but moving makes me sad a little. it's be awesome to get a bigger house, cuz we're kinda outgrowing our little house, but i'd miss our neighborhood and our neighbors. most of the "better" school districts are farther out from the city and it's either new development, which is kinda sanitary with no mature trees, or kinda rural, where it would be impossible to run next door to borrow a cup of sugar. there's pros and cons to everything. we just have to figure out what's important and go from there.
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