I am beginning to suspect that the middle school search process is designed to keep out the wrong sort of people.
We are the right sort of people, the sort of parents schools actively recruit; a married couple, one in the arts, the other an executive (a potential volunteer AND a potential donor). We have one child, a half White, half Asian Girl Scout who plays soccer and is on her school’s First Lego League Robotics team. She has a dancer’s physique and takes piano lessons. She said she might like to become a physicist.
Let me rephrase that. My Kid is “the right sort of people”. Myself–not so much.
Her life may be about to be ruined by her mother who has two university degrees that are apparently obsolete because she is stymied by some of the online registration forms required not to apply–but just to take a tour of a public middle school.
For example; The night after the elementary school guidance counselor made her presentation on “Middle School Choice” to the 5th grade parents assembled after upper grade (by which we mean 3rd, 4th and 5th grade at our school also known as 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds) curriculum night, I went on-line, in the middle of the night, which is when I do most of my on-line research. I found the website for a middle school I’d heard other parents talk about. I followed the links to sign up for a tour. Half of the tour dates were already full. The rest linked to a page that said “It looks like the form M___ tour is turned off.
So, I assumed that meant that the administrators of that school had decided they had enough applicants after the October tour dates filled up and decided to cancel the November tour dates. Remember this was the day after the school guidance counselor held her first public meeting of the school year. Right before the meeting, I was told by one of the Alpha Parents that I had just missed the only tour for the most selective middle school in Brooklyn;
“That tour was yesterday. You missed it. I’m pretty sure it was the only one.”
I was primed to believe that a well known selective public middle school had already closed its doors to potential 2011 entering 6th graders by September 30, 2010.
It was only after I talked to another parent later that I tried again.
When I tried again, I saw the small print telling me that the school tour online registration forms were only available between the hours of 9 am and 3 pm Monday through Friday.
Who are these people who fill out online forms about their kids activities during the day? Isn’t everyone at work? Doesn’t everyone do that sort of thing in the middle of night after all the children are asleep? I don’t think we’ve ever gone on the AYSO website while wearing anything but pajamas.
What do the other people do, the ones who have to go to the library for access to a computer? What about people who don’t work in the kinds of offices where they have enough autonomy that they can google random school webpages while at their desks. What if the parents aren’t white collar middle management? How do they get their kids into selective schools that only consider kids who’ve visited the schools and the visits must be reserved online and hurry they fill up quickly. What about the children of construction workers and people who work in retail? What about people who have other children with physical needs or urgent problems that are more compelling in the moment to a caregiver than who will go to which school a year from now? What about their gifted children? How will these schools even know these children exist? They won’t.
There are parents who believe that their children are special and gifted. Some of these parents also believe that all parents believe their children are special and gifted. They believe that if their child is really so special and gifted compared to the other children then the school with tell them and then transfer them into a class for gifted children. Unfortunately, in New York City the gifted classes are completely full of gifted children before the first day of kindergarten so the only children who end up in the gifted programs are the children who were gifted with the kind of parents who navigate the maze to get them there. The gifted children without parents to advocate for them don’t have a chance.
Oh and when I did fill out the form it was tricky like a standardized test.
They asked for the name of the child’s elementary school and then the next blank was for “middle school zip code” like the test makers were setting it up a trick question. If you weren’t a careful reader you might put in the zip code of the elementary school. That’s the wrong answer. Buzzzz. You just failed our hidden IQ test!
Even now, having, according to the computer, successfully registered to take the tour I wonder… Did they really mean for me to go back to the home page and copy down the zip code of the street address of the middle school on whose website I was in the process of asking to visit their school or were they looking for a different answer? I’ll never know.