I offer you a typical exchange:

“Mama, how hot is it on the sun?”

“I don’t know exactly, but crazy hot. Hot enough to heat our planet.”

“Um, I think it’s around 5,000 degrees.”

“That might be right, Simon.”

“Yeah, that’s the right answer. What if the Earth got that hot?”

“Oh, honey. It can’t. The hottest it’s ever been on earth was around 140.”

“Where was that?”

“Somewhere in Iran. But even the places that are always hot–like Saudi Arabia, and Libya? They usually just get to 120 or maybe even 130.”

“What if it got to 5,000 degrees on earth?”

“It can’t, honey. We’re too far from the sun.”

“But what if it did?”

I’m sure I could come up with many other examples as well. Almost any conversation about anything that can be proved or disproved—conversations ranging from gravity and human anatomy to the existence of mummies (scary, bad mummies, not museum specimens) and the nature of time will eventually reach the point when I say, “But X can’t happen” or “But X is impossible” and Simon replies with “But what if it did?”

Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure we’ve argued over whether time can go backwards, whether you can add or multiply infinity to another number, whether a human could outrun a cheetah, and whether a person can grow to be nine feet tall. It’s entertaining some times and exhausting others. I know some parents would cut these exchanges short, but I don’t have the heart for that. Simon is a fact collector, as is witnessed by his new obsession with the TV show Jeopardy. For that matter, I’m a fact collector, too, as is Matt and my brother Steve. So he gets it honest.

Plus, if this habit keeps up, I can add another career possibility to the (joke) list I’m making up for him, which currently includes professional soccer player (his idea) and sports statistician (mine). This could totally feed into his becoming a writer of science fiction or alternate historical fiction!

It’s now safe to put away the Louisville Magazine school issue from last November, quit pulling school report cards from the web, quit playing with my Excel spreadsheets (yes, there was more than one), and quit second guessing our chances every time I learned of someone new applying.

Then again, I’ve only got six years to figure out the whole middle school thing, and I just found out that one of the schools I assumed would be a likely bet no longer pulls from our zip code. Kidding! (sort of)

Addendum:

For those wondering what Simon thinks about this, allow me to quote him. “You mean I’m going to Brandeis with my cousin Ben? … I’ll see Ben at school? … Will I be on the same bus as Ben? … You mean when you pick me up I might ride home with Ben?”

So, to summarize, Ben! Big Cousin Ben! He’s been called up to the big leagues, baby, and he’s feeling like a total hot-shot about it. Also, Ben!

Included in the missing posts were rages about the complexity of the system, confessions of test-score Excel spreadsheet creation, a recounting of my trip to the JCPS Showcase of Schools, and the realization that a lot of what has been making me crazy is lack of control and the knowledge that my time at home with Simon will soon be at end. Starting in six months, Simon won’t be with me from 1:00 on every day, and I don’t get the final say in which school he attends. It’s unnerving.

Simon’s being sick for the last month (now, thankfully, completely over) didn’t help any, either, as he seemed completely unequal to the task of making a big change and adding three hours to his school day. Making decisions about kindergarten when your child is breaking down by 11:30 at school every day would give most parents pause.

Now, thankfully, much of the angst is over. I’ve made my decision and am about to turn in all the paperwork. Here’s how it all ended up:

• The Top Pick: Remains, or returns to, Brandeis.
• The Lowe Wild Card: Not rolling that die. I watched Matt show Simon new hi res pictures of Earth the other day and marveled at how excited Simon was to learn about the different atmospheric layers. Then I remembered the little robot Matt bought Simon for Christmas that they still haven’t built. Then I laughed at an old picture of Simon in his solar system “derby hat” from last year. If Brandeis doesn’t work out, we can supplement science at home. This won’t work for eleventh-grade physics, but I think we can handle the next few years, and it’s not worth the risk of being placed at a chronically low-performing school.
• Bloom vs. Coleridge Taylor: the last sticky point. Should Simon get into our second magnet choice, Coleridge Taylor, and our first cluster/neighborhood choice, Bloom, we were uncertain about how to proceed. Matt wanted Bloom in this scenario; I wanted Coleridge Taylor. Phone calls did not help, as everyone I talked to loved both schools. Nor did research: Test scores for our demographic were pretty even. Bloom sent 4 kids to an MST middle school last year; C-T sent 12. You’d think that would swing things to the C-T side, but as Matt pointed out, if the Highlands were a techie neighborhood, the neighborhood school would not be investing all the PTA funds into an artist in residence. In other words, we’re dealing with selection bias.

What finally made the call was a little visit to the JCPS bus finder of all things. School starts at 9:00 a.m. here in Louisville. To go to Brandeis, Simon needs to catch a bus a block and a half from the house and travel for 40 minutes each way. To go to Bloom, Simon needs to catch a bus two doors down from us and travel 20 minutes each way. To get to Coleridge Taylor, Simon would have to catch a bus about three and a half blocks away and travel just over an hour each way, including a transfer at a local high school.

That’s not gonna happen. I might be OK with that when he’s 8 or 9, but this sounds like too much for kindergarten. And while I will be available to drive him in the beginning, I don’t want to pick a school where my driving both ways every day is a long-term necessity. Stuff and life happens; the school bus needs to be a reasonable option.

So there it is. Or there it will be tomorrow when I copy all the paperwork and deliver it to the necessary offices. As for the ultimate assignment, I’ll know in early May. Now I look forward to talking, thinking, and dreaming about something else. Anything else, really.

I DON’T KNOW HOW I’M GOING TO FILL THIS SUCKER OUT!!

Three months of touring. Talking to parents and staff at the JCPS Showcase of Schools last Saturday. Follow-up calls after tours. Stewing over stats and crunching numbers like a witch at her cauldron. And now I stare at the form I have been anticipating and am frozen with indecision.

It wasn’t always this way. Heck, it wasn’t this way yesterday before 9:30. As of 9:30 on Tuesday, January 31, I had it all figured out.

• First Magnet Choice and First Overall Choice: Brandeis (60% chance of admission)
• Second Magnet Choice and Second or Third Overall Choice (a bit of stewing left on this call): Coleridge Taylor (since second pick, % unclear, but probably around 50%-60%)
• First Neighborhood or Cluster Choice: Bloom (90+%)
• Second Neighborhood or Cluster Choice: St. Matthews (0% if second, probably 0% if first, too, but I have to list something).
• Third Neighborhood or Cluster Choice: Byck, with reservations about test scores and arts focus (90+% as third choice because it’s an A-cluster school and I live in a B-cluster area)
• Fourth Neighborhood or Cluster Choice: Engelhardt: Please no.

Then, at 9:30 a.m., I pulled into the parking lot at Lowe Elementary for what I thought was yet another pointless tour to mark down my second neighborhood choice, which I assumed I would never get given the way the system works.

And I loved it. As the (personal, hour-long) tour continued, I felt sicker and sicker to my stomach as each awesome aspect of the school was introduced to me. Enthusiastic teachers? Check. Warm vibe? Check. Enhanced Math and Science curriculum? Check. They use PTA funds to maintain a discontinued “Everyday Math” curriculum that the rest of the county as dropped. Playground? A cross between an amusement park and a soccer field. Student body: Economically and racially diverse with a super-active PTA. Technology Lab? State-of-the-art. Writing samples? Adorable.

If I sat down to envision my perfect elementary school, I think it would look like Lowe. It is, in my opinion, the magical rainbow unicorn of schools: the thing you don’t believe exists until you see it with your own two eyes. What gives it the edge over Brandeis for me is the better playground, the shorter drive-time, and the fact that they teach Spanish twice a week instead of Chinese once. No offense to Chinese instructors, but how much can you learn in one-day-a-week sessions? Test score wise, Lowe and Brandeis are both very high, with the edge going to Lowe.

And my odds of getting in if I list it first under neighborhood schools? Historically, about 50/50. This neighborhood school is an older neighborhood (so lower population density of the under 10 crowd) that includes many popular parochial schools (so many of the kids who do live there go elsewhere). Therefore, unlike every other B-cluster school I could visit, this one has limited space for non-resides kids.

Had the odds been 0%-40%, I’d never consider listing it. Had they been 75% or so, I’d never consider NOT listing it. But 50/50? Just good enough to inspire hope. Just bad enough to instill fear. Here’s how it would shake down:

• First Magnet: Brandeis: 60% Chance
• Second Magnet: Coleridge Taylor: 50%-60%
• First Cluster Choice: Lowe: 50%
• Second Cluster: Bloom: 0% if listed second
• Third Cluster: Byck: 90%
• Fourth Cluster: Engelhardt: Please no.

Now, if 50% three times equaled 100%, I’d be sitting pretty. But my own math skills, while not great, are better than that. So the question remains: Do I go for the high-risk, high-reward strategy that increases my odds of getting into a math-science centered school but also increases my odds for a struggling school? Or do I pursue the low-risk option that ensures placement at a good, beautiful, and nearby school if the math-science one doesn’t come through?

I have 28 days to stew on this and decide whether I should roll the die with my son’s education.

“I’m taking my talents to __________.”

I kid, I kid.* I do honestly understand that this is not as high-stakes a game as most incoming kindergarten parents make it out to be, even if I can’t totally shake the anxiety myself. Honestly, I think Simon would do well at Bloom or Brandeis. It’s some of the other options that worry me, the ones that are far away and post terrifyingly low test scores. Having said that, between the two excellent options with reasonable odds I’ve explored, one is a better fit than the other.

The cock-roach Matt met at Brandeis last week belonged to my niece Maddie, and one of the kids listening to a third-grade presentation about a famous mathematician was my nephew Ben. We’re going to see if Simon can get into Brandeis for the following reasons:

1. Test scores: I know they don’t tell the whole story, but it seems foolish to ignore them. Bloom and Brandeis are pretty much tied in reading and math scores. But Brandeis is up 18 points in writing over Bloom, and 30 points in science, and that difference is significant. I think part of the issue is that Kentucky recently changed its required science standards and Bloom is working hard to catch up, whereas Brandeis has science at the core of its curriculum all along. I can’t explain the writing difference as neatly.
2. The media lab: If I had to guess what put Brandeis’s writing scores so high, I’d put it down as the results of Ms. Bell’s work in the media lab. Surely having kids write dramas, poems, and essays about all topics improves writing skills across the board. And I’ve got to say, the creativity on display in the students’ written samples just blew me away. I wish I could remember some of it to quote.
3. Art vs. Science: Bloom gets the nod in the former; Brandeis in the latter. Five year old Jessica would have been happier at Bloom. Dancing and painting and sculpture oh my! But Simon’s not an artsy kid unless you count music. He’s happy enough to sit down with some play dough or do a bit of coloring, but it’s neither his passion nor his strength and he bores of it quickly. On the other hand, he loves to write numbers, type numbers, and obsessively count, measure, and quantify everything else. He can do simple addition and subtraction in his head, sometimes up into the teens. He used to always ask me to pop up the hood on the car so he could see what was under it, he’s made me give him a tour of household plumbing, and he loves “helping” Matt put together model rockets and the like. And remember his solar system derby hat?  I think his talents and interests are in the math and science arena, making an MST magnet a good choice for him.
4. The fun factor: This is one of those intangibles and hard to judge based on a 60-minute tour, but I think the kids and teachers at Brandeis might be having a little more fun. The science essays at Bloom were fine, but nothing can compare with the fifth grade goof-balls at Brandeis creating a talking blood cell and imagining a doctor passing out at the mere mention of blood. I also liked that the teacher let them keep that bit in.
5. The diversity: This is the part where I can’t take myself out of the equation. When I was a kid, I was interested in and befriended just about every kid whose parents were from somewhere else I bumped into. There weren’t many, but I managed to have friends who were Filipina, Indian, Chinese, and Persian. And when the ESL kids had an open house in high school, I was one of the very few Kentucky-born kids that dove into the Vietnamese food unafraid. I took one look at the student body at Brandeis and knew that (a) I would have loved it myself and (b) it would provide an education for Simon. We live in a world that’s getting smaller all the time; I’d like Simon to grow up comfortable around a wide range of cultures.

So that’s that. Next up is the paperwork, a two to three month waiting game, and doing more tours to decide what our third and fourth choices will be. I won’t bore you with that, though!

1. Bloom, our “resides” or neighborhood school, and the B-cluster school we have the best shot of getting into;
2. Brandeis, the district-wide MST (math, science, technology) magnet school, and our favorite of the two magnets we toured.

Helpfully, we visited these schools on back-to-back days. To have a shot at Bloom, we need to rank it first among neighborhood schools and fill out our general assignment paperwork completely, correctly, and on time. That means I’d be delivering it to the school the first week of February. To have a shot at Brandeis, we need to rank it first among magnets. We are also required to submit an evaluation and skills summary from a teacher or care-provider. Applications are scored by team, and parents may earn points by attending a Brandeis tour, going to the JCPS showcase of schools in late January, and attending a Brandeis family night in February.

Either of these schools would be a fine option for Simon, but we think one is a better fit for him than the other. Come along and see if you can tell which one it is. There will be a quiz at the end. Descriptions and more after the break.

Bloom

The Facility

This is I.N. Bloom Elementary School. It’s located 1.3 miles from our house, and its back entrance backs up to the parking lot of our favorite coffee house. The original 1890 building and 1968 addition underwent a major renovation a few years back. It cost $6.8 million before all was said and done, and the school features top-of-the-line everything. From the vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors to the stained-glass entrance windows made by the kids themselves, Bloom is a thing of beauty.

The Tour

The principal, Ms. Bobo, is very well liked and is clearly proud of her school. She’s also clearly very sympathetic with anxious parents who are freaked out by the JCPS assignment plan. On that score, she offered the unexpected news that for the last two years, Bloom has been able to accept all the resides kids who choose it first, complete their paperwork correctly, and turn everything in on time. That’s not the same thing as a guarantee, but it sure is reassuring.

Ms. Bobo took us to almost every classroom and was very generous with her time (and tissues; this is the tour during which I cried!). In a kindergarten room, kids were sitting on a rug and reading along with the teacher as she pointed to words in a sequence. “Today is Thursday, the first day of December. December is a month….” In the gym, older kids were playing dodge-ball. A third-grade class was working on personal essays, (“I took the bus to CEP. I had a snack. I went to the bathroom” began one.), and the second-graders we peeked in on were working on addition worksheets. In almost every class, 20-25 students sat in chairs or in a circle while a teacher lectured up front or went from desk to desk checking work. Each kindergarten also has an assistant in the room.

We also visited a science room, empty at the time, where the principal told us how much more excited the kids are about science when it’s all hands on, giving their current study of cock-roaches as an example.  “You can’t believe how much they love them!” she laughed. “Thankfully, they don’t scurry the way the ones you find in places you don’t want them do. Anyway, we can’t let the kids see if we are bothered by them.” I could sympathize.

We were shown the new playground equipment, a gorgeous library—those high ceilings again!—and a modern cafeteria. The cafeteria had a sign up about bullying, as Bloom participates in a program aimed at developing good citizenship and social skills among the kids. Bloom offers Chinese as its foreign language instruction once a week, social studies twice a week, and science twice a week, the latter two with the same teacher. Reading, writing, and math are daily parts of the core curriculum, and once a week the students rotate between enrichment activities such as music, library, art, or Chinese.

The teachers seemed like nice ladies, and the student work posted on the walls featured the expected and cute autobiographical essays, essays on science, and self-portraits. The school was otherwise decorated with many samples of student-created art, including some pretty cool three-dimensional masks. Another charming touch was the inclusion of upside-down “fu” characters (Chinese for good luck) over many of the school’s doorways.

The Demographics:

The demographics were about 73% white and 27% non-white; with the vast majority of the non-white kids being African American. Most of the kids enrolled come from the Highlands; the balance arrive from nearby A-cluster neighborhoods.

The Strong-Suit:

Bloom’s standout area is the arts. Budget cuts have all but eliminated arts and music from schools in Kentucky these days. Those that have it do so because of grant writing and PTA-led fundraising. Well, the Highlands is a neighborhood where the arts and arts education is highly valued. As a result, Bloom offers visual arts, sponsors an artist-in-residence program, and has weekly dance and music class. When we toured, the music and dance teacher was preparing a lesson in the Virginia Reel. Many of us parents wanted to stay for that one ourselves.

And the stained glass at the school’s entrance came about via a field-trip to Glassworks, a local glass-blowing studio. The school only pays for a small part of this arts enrichment: The PTA does most of the heavy lifting, and Dr. Bobo was clear that there would be a riot if she ever withdrew her support and partial funding. At present, the music teacher is busy readying the kids for their upcoming Christmas program. The library also works to bring in children’s book authors once a year for special library presentations.

The Bottom Line:

Bloom is, no doubt about it, a good and beautiful neighborhood school that reflects the demographics and values of the population it serves. Odds are, if Simon were to go to Bloom, he’d be joined by at least one kid from his preschool (possibly the much loved Caroline) or extracurricular activities. His bus ride would be short, or we could drive him there in less than 5-10 minutes. I know several folks with kids at Bloom, and all are very happy there.

Brandeis

The Facility:

This is Brandeis.

Or at least it was. Brandeis was built in 1913 in the Tudor style and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. When the original building became too small and expensive to maintain, no one lovingly restored it. Instead, in 1992 the school decamped a few blocks away to a new concrete and brick building of no architectural interest. Brandeis is located at 28^th and Kentucky, between the Parkland and California neighborhoods, a prime example of urban decay if ever there was one. It’s a high crime area with many vacant lots and boarded-up houses.

The campus is surrounded by a high chain-link fence and is located across the street from a (defunct?) factory. The whole area looks like nothing so much as a set for “The Day After” or a Superfund site. If I had to sum up the atmosphere in a single word, I’d go with “apocalyptic”. My heart sank when I took the scene in.

The Tour:

Brandeis, as I’ve previously explained, is an MST magnet. Our tour was led by a very enthusiastic magnet coordinator who was clearly proud of her school. This woman, Ms. Shewmaker, was very patient in explaining the application process for the school.

The Brandeis tour also took us into every classroom. I watched kindergarteners work quietly at a variety of stations in one room while the teacher worked with a small group by his desk. In another class, the kids were singing their do-re-mis with accompanying hand gestures. When I ducked into one third-grade class, the kids were taking a PE break and doing yoga in the room. In other, students were taking turns giving power-point presentations on famous mathematicians.

In a science class, fifth graders were excitedly tending to their cock-roaches.  We were invited to walk in and talk to the students about their work. Matt opted to meet one student’s cock-roach while I declined.  In another science lab, the kids were gathered around the teacher discussing something or other (I didn’t catch what) while a pile of model-suspension bridges sat alongside one wall. “I can explain how a suspension bridge works all day,” the teacher explained, “but it’s nothing like having them build one and see what works and what doesn’t.” Kids in the computer lab were working on technology assisted self-portraits.

There is some music offered at Brandies, art if you count computer generated stuff, and also Chinese once a week. On the whole, the teachers seemed engaged and pretty lively. Some of the classrooms were quiet and orderly, while others were bustling, noisy affairs.

Throughout the tour, I stopped to look at student work posted in the halls. There were math samples produced in whatever format the kids most liked (long-hand, graphed, keyboarded), and essays about famous mathematicians. There were also autobiographical pieces that had to take the form of poetry. While we were there, many of the bulletin boards were empty as the students and teachers got ready for their upcoming diversity week, in which they will be sampling music, food, and artwork from all cultures in the building. Brandies is also starting to experiment with container gardening, though Matt and I are both skeptical about this endeavor unless the resulting produce is first tested for heavy metals.

The Demographics:

This school enrolls students from over 50 countries who speak over 20 different languages at home. Whites make up about 35% of the student body, with large numbers of East and South Asians and Africans filling the halls. It is not uncommon to see African girls in headscarves and traditional dress. It is, by a long shot, the most diverse school in the district. To be honest, it’s more diverse than I would have thought possible in a Midwestern/Southern city like Louisville. At the big party that comes at the end of diversity week, students are invited to wear national costumes; I’m wondering if hoodies and jeans count….

The Strong Suit:

Brandeis has, as expected, high math and science scores. It was also clear to me that science was part of the daily, not weekly curriculum. But the highlight of this tour was the library, a space with all the charm of a large walk-in closet. The woman who runs the media program at Brandeis, Ms. Bell, was personally responsible for making our tour run over by a half hour, so enthusiastic was she to show us the work students do there.

She gets kids in the library and media lab for a month at a time. Kindergarteners work on things like self portraits, have story time, and are introduced to the collection’s holdings; primary students learn the rudimentary rules of research; and fourth and fifth graders put together books and multi-media presentations using film, animation, and technology-assisted arts programs. The presentation I remember best was a film three boys put together on blood cells. Aside from the animated blood cell that had leukemia, the other distinctive feature was the portrayal of a doctor who was inconveniently afraid of blood. He passed out in the movie three times. Next up, Ms. Bell is working to create a section of the library that will hold student-created works.

Ms. Bell informed us that Brandeis works with a local private school to bring in visiting authors, that students frequently email scientists all over the country with questions, and that she has to borrow bandwidth from the University of Louisville to host student projects because she jammed up the whole JCPS system a few years back and got in trouble. Every couple of years, Ms. Bell is introduced to a new technology suite that she wants for the kids. There’s never money in the budget for it, but she usually ends up getting it anyway due to prolific grant-writing.

The Bottom Line:

Brandeis is clearly good at what it’s supposed to be good at: math and science. I also get the impression that, via the media lab, they provide artistic outlets for those inclined towards design and drama. Were Simon to attend Brandeis, we’d be looking at a long bus-ride, possibly as long as 45 minutes, or a drive of 25-30 minutes each way. I don’t know if he’d know anyone else in his class. I do have some acquaintances with kids at the school, and they’ve been very happy.

Quiz

And that wraps my tale of two schools. So, dear readers, where is our money going next year?

1. The Gas Tank: We’re putting Brandeis first. Simon can wear a kilt (he’s a McLean on is step-grandmother’s side) for multicultural day and befriend a cockroach. Bonus: it’s named for a Jew.
2. The Coffee Shop: Our hopes are pinned on Bloom. Simon can work with a real artist and have school friends in the neighborhood. Bonus: cupcakes next door and did we mention wanting to put a stained-glass window in our dining room?

One additional note: Three of Simons cousins, Steve’s kids, have gone to one of these schools. Liv and Maddie will be in middle school next year, but Ben has two years left.  I’m declining to say where they go, as I consider that information prejudicial. Do note that Steve lives about a mile from me.

1. The Brown School: A district-wide alternative, unstructured school that serves children K-12. Entrance is by lottery, and word on the street is that two children are selected per zip code. You must list this school first to be considered.
2. Audubon Traditional: I went here for grades 1-3. The traditional program serves up a back-to-basics curriculum with an emphasis on discipline, patriotism, and morality. Like The Brown School above, you must list it first to be considered, and entrance is determined by lottery.
3. Coleridge Taylor Montessori: This is a magnet/neighborhood school hybrid. Located just west of downtown Louisville, Coleridge Taylor is one of two public Montessori schools in the JCPS system. The school enrolls neighborhood kids from an A-Cluster area and accepts applications from children in roughly half the district.
4. Brandeis Elementary: a Math/Science, Technology Magnet (MST). Located in Louisville’s west end, Brandeis enrolls children from the entire district. Entrance is by scored application. You don’t have to list this school first to be accepted, but you are unlikely to get in if you don’t.

Now, before I toured any of these, I engaged in a little research project. First, I looked up test scores and online parent reviews. And then, in pure Jessica style, I have asked every adult I have encountered for the last six months or so where their children go and what they think about it. And I do mean everyone: I’ve had this chat with other parents at Kazoing party zone, preschool teachers at KIP and AJ, adults at a church picnic across the street, anyone I know who teaches, other parents at Simon’s swim and basketball classes, and random check-out clerks. It’s amazing how much you can learn by asking questions and then shutting up.

I ended up touring just two of these schools. Brown and Audubon, the two most popular on the entire list, got struck down before we started out of the gate. The reasons why told me a lot about my educational priorities and personal values. Details after the break.

The Brown School:

Everyone wants The Brown School. Or, almost everyone. This school maintains a mystique that exceeds its admittedly high test scores. I think part of this is down to the fact that once you are in, you stay there for 13 years. I think another part of this is down to its exclusiveness. I have spoken to a few African-American parents who want The Brown School because it is diverse and serves up high test scores. But mostly it’s white folks from the Highlands that are disproportionately crazy for it.

My neighborhood, the most San Francisco-like (minus the diversity) in Louisville, is mad for The Brown School. It’s a school without walls! There aren’t any bells or buzzers! It’s a student-directed learning magnet! They have field trips to natural and cultural locations all the time! You can call your teachers by their first names!

It’s hippy-dippy heaven is what it is, high test scores or no. If I had a dollar for every neighborhood parent I’ve met who is putting The Brown School first and will be devastated by any other outcome, I could afford to put Simon into the most expensive private school in town, a fact I can illustrate with two brief anecdotes. First, there was the friend of a friend who moved to Louisville from Brooklyn, chose The Brown School for her daughter, didn’t get it, and had no back-up plan. She ended up home-schooling the next year.

Then there was the thirty-something hipster couple at our recent tour of Bloom, a couple who had a marital spat about school selection while waiting for the tour to begin. They had lots and lots of anxious questions for the Bloom’s principal about the selection and assignment process. At one point, by way of making a point about how the process works, Dr. Bobo referred to the hypothetical scenario in which someone gets a letter inviting them to Bloom Elementary after getting the same letter from Brown.

“I don’t think anyone really gets that letter from Brown,” I quipped.

Ms. Hipster immediately looked even more anxious, if not downright despondent, to hear this. I knew immediately that Brown was their first choice. I probably could have guessed based on Mr. Hipster’s glasses.

So, basically, the way I see it is that over a hundred folks from my zip code are going to ask for Brown, and one or two will get in. The odds may even be worse than that. To me, that’s a wasted spot in my rankings. Plus, I don’t think Simon would thrive in a totally self-directed, unstructured environment. But really, when you get right down to it, I just can’t handle being that much of a Highlands cliché. So Brown is off our list.

Audubon Traditional

Audubon is the second-most popular school on our original list. There are two district-wide Traditional Program elementary school magnets in JCPS. As stated above, the traditional program offers a no-nonsense curriculum and atmosphere that presumably calls back to days of yore.

The school is highly structured, discipline is tight, dress codes are strict, behavior is formal, and test scores are high. For parents fearing that other JCPS schools are hotbeds of uncontrollable and/or un-teachable kids, the traditional program is where it’s at. It’s like parochial school without the tuition or Catholicism.

I was really of two minds on it.

• One the one hand, Simon loves structure.
• On the other hand, this program might cross the line into rigid.
• On the one hand, they excel at the basics.
• On the other hand, they don’t offer an advanced program, which Matt and I rather obnoxiously think Simon will qualify for by fourth grade.
• On the one hand, Simon would thrive in an atmosphere where everyone is well behaved.
• On the other hand, he does not require a heavy hand to be well behaved himself.
• On the one hand, I’m for respecting authority. I do not, for example, like the idea of kids calling teachers by their first names.
• On the other hand, promoting blind respect for authority can and has led to some very bad things in history.
• On the one hand, I am appalled by what a lot of kids wear to school.
• On the other hand, many of the traditional program dress code rules actually anger me. I mean really, it’s 2011 and we’ve still got rules about how long a boy’s hair can be or whether a girl can wear nail polish? And what the heck is wrong with hoodies? And does the no-scarf rule apply to Muslim girls?

I’ve got questions… As it happens, a chat with a woman I met at the physical therapist’s office answered all I needed. She toured Audubon last month. Apparently, she was “greeted” by an office staff member who spent the first 5-10 minutes laying out all the rules about what parents could or could not do on the tour. No-nos included talking in the halls and going into any of the classrooms.

By the end of this chat, my decision was made. I’m too hippy-dippy myself for this program. Simon might not run afoul of the rules, but his parents sure are likely to. So Audubon, my own school from grades 1-3, is out. It’s too structured and old-school for my liking. Or, to put it in language many of my friends would understand, I may not want to be a walking Highlands cliché, but I did live in and love San Francisco for eight years for a reason. This is not the right program for my family.

That leaves Coleridge Taylor and Brandeis, schools I toured and will discuss next.

I’m going to take a few posts to describe the schools, my feelings, and where we’ve ended up (Matt and I are on the same page here), but first I have to describe how the system here works and what makes the whole thing so fraught in the first place. If you live here, skip this. If you don’t, follow me along for a digression into public schools, Jefferson County style. It’s all after the break.

The reason choosing a school makes so many of us anxious and unhappy is down to the district’s Student Assignment Plan. When I was in school, Jefferson County Public Schools were under a court ordered desegregation plan. That plan was intended to address decades of educational inequality within the system. Which is to say that before it was implemented, schools located in largely (or exclusively) white, middle-class and wealthier areas were pretty good and schools in poorer, mostly non-white neighborhoods  were pretty bad.

The wealthier schools had good teachers, low-ish teacher-student ratios, and nice buildings, while the poorer schools enjoyed none of these benefits. What’s more, because of Louisville’s demographics, that meant that many of the failing, understaffed, and undersupplied schools served the city’s African American population. Like so much about race in American history, it was—and continues to be—our city’s shame.

So beginning when I was in first grade, Louisville’s schools were desegregated. Apart from a handful of kids at magnet schools, students went to neighborhood schools for most of their academic career but were bussed to schools in whiter or less white neighborhoods (depending on where they lived) for two years between first grade and high school graduation. Three decades later, this plan was shot down by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that race could not be used in determining student assignments.

At which point Jefferson County went about redesigning their plan with a goal towards preserving diversity without violating the law. To do this, they created a plan that is complicated and hugely unpopular.

Here’s how it works. School neighborhoods are designated as A-cluster or B-cluster. A-cluster neighborhoods have lower than average income levels, lower than average education levels, and higher than average minority composition. B-cluster neighborhoods feature higher income levels, higher levels of educational attainment, and low rates of minority residency.

Each household in Louisville is assigned a “resides school”, or a neighborhood school. That school is then classified A or B and is grouped with 12 to 15 schools as part of a numbered zone. When you apply to a JCPS school, you rank your four top choices within your zone and are assigned one of them. Two of the schools you list must be A-cluster schools, and the student population in each school must derive 15 to 50 percent of its enrollment from A-cluster areas.

Are you still with me? Cause it gets more complicated. There are also district-wide magnet programs, area-wide magnets, and cluster/zone magnets. The district-wide magnets enroll children from the entire district and have no “resides” kids. The area-wide magnets serve children in specific numbered zones. They don’t have neighborhood kids, either; there’s just more than one of them and which one you may apply to is determined by zone. Finally, there are cluster-magnets; mini-magnets of a sort that are set up in mostly A-Cluster schools to attract parents from B-Cluster neighborhoods.

So, putting this all together, when you apply for a school, you may apply to up to two magnet programs and up to four neighborhood schools. Sometimes, the magnet you are interested in is also a neighborhood school and you list it twice. If you apply for a magnet program, you supply a separate application and possibly a school-specific one as well to the magnet office. What happens next is a matter of rumor, speculation, and no small amount of fear-mongering.

Finally, there’s a bit of a gamble to be made when choosing your B-cluster schools. If you live in a B-cluster neighborhood and want a B-cluster school, your odds are best if you choose your resides school. Otherwise, local resides kids and siblings will get first preference, a certain number of A-cluster kids will also get preference, and you may get locked out.

Also, some magnet programs work on a lottery system and others on scored applications. You have a chance at some magnets if you choose it as your second choice, but others will only consider you if you put it first.

Assuming the Kentucky State Supreme Court does not strike this plan down come April, this is the landscape in which Matt and I are choosing a kindergarten for Simon. I’ll introduce the schools and our reactions to them in my next post.