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Published: January 30th 2006
Bye Bye Bortman Homeschool!
I gotta say I'm not TOO sad about that. It was fun while it lasted but Mom needs a break!Ari’s first day of school is tomorrow (well, today by the time you read this - or maybe even yesterday, last week or last month). We are all very excited. Since his teachers were on strike when we left Yardley, he hasn’t had a real day of school since October 21 (well, there was that one day he went back and visited after Thanksgiving). I think Ari is nervous and excited - although he is being very calm and cool about the whole thing. We will see how he is in the morning. I can’t wait for him to meet some more kids his age and get back into the school routine. I know he will enjoy the school.
We decided to send him to the European School - the school we saw on the second day after we arrived in Costa Rica. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we really liked the school and the principal. It was clear that she ran a tight ship, the school provided a good, well-rounded education and Ari liked what he saw. Of course, we couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
It all started way back in mid-December when we came
Wake up, Ari!!
OK...we were just kidding around and staged this picture. No, really! to look at the apartment we now call home. As we poked around the apartment and chatted with the lady who owns it, we told her that we were planning on sending the kids to the European School. Well, she thought that was not a good idea at all and she certainly let us know (in the sitting around playing Mah-Jhong, "I am right and it doesn’t matter what you say" way only an old lady can muster). Evidently her niece or someone had gone there and when she transferred to another school she was behind in some subjects. She said very matter of factly that if we send Ari there he will fall behind and have trouble when we go back to the states. If he were to stay there through 12th grade and graduate, he would be fine, but for just a short time it would be very bad. She suggested that we go visit another school, Golden Valley, that was just a few blocks away - across from the Auto Mercado.
Since we had nothing better to do and since we felt that visiting another school would be a good point in doing our due diligence,
Sculpture 101
Give these kids some clay and watch them go! Here Ari shows some creativity with a mixed medium sculpture made out of clay, spoons, playing cards, pen and pencils. we headed over to check it out. Well, we really liked it, too. It is much smaller than the European School - both in terms of the number of kids and the size of their grounds. But we met the lady that would be Ari’s teacher and thought she was very good. A big difference between the schools is that at the European School all the classes are in English, and at this school, only about half are. If that was the end of the story, chances are Ari would be going there.
The Golden Valley School, however, is moving. Instead of being just around the corner, they are having a whole new campus built in San Isidro, about ½ an hour away and plan to be there in February when classes start for the spring. In the interest of continuing our due diligence, we headed out there to check it out. Well, it is not really in the middle of San Isidro - it would be generous to say it is on the outskirts of San Isidro. It is more like the middle of nowhere, down a rutted, dirt road into the middle of farming country. As we pulled up to the new school building, it was clear that they would have a beautiful, big new building with nice grounds. It was also clear that it would be a big push to have it by February. Granted this was back in December and there were 2 months until the start of school (that school started Feb 13 whereas the European School starts Jan 30 - hence the first sentence of this blog) and we are no construction experts, but even so, there was a lot of work still to be done.
So we filed the information in the back of our minds and did what we do best - procrastinate. We didn’t make a decision one way or another and headed off to Asis. At Asis, Alvaro put his two cents in (in his well-reasoned, listen to your point of view manner, unlike our land-lady) - he thought the European School was a very good school with an excellent reputation. Also, one of the real estate agents we had talked to - in looking for an apartment, we did talk to 2 real estate agents as well as just looking on our own (and in contrast to how things are done in the US, the two real estate agents showed us 2 of the same apartments - something that Dara and I just tried to smile and nod and play along with but the kids spoiled that) - was an American guy who used to teach in a couple different schools and he also thought highly of the European School.
After our stint at Asis, we met our neighbors. The first day we met Miguel and Laura (Mikey’s parents) and had a little chat, the topic of school naturally came up. As it turns out, Laura is studying to get a degree (we’re not sure if it is Master’s or Phd) in psychology and one of her projects was doing a survey of local schools. Well, she really thought the Golden Valley was not a good school at all. Golden Valley is a Montessori school (much more emphasis on the Montessori method in the pre-school and kindergarten than in the 2nd grade, but even so) and either Laura thinks that the Montessori method is not very good or she doesn’t like the way they practice the Montessori method at that school - we’re not sure which. Either way, she didn’t like the school and she recommended another school, Pasos de la Juventud, which is just a few minutes away in Barva, the next town up the road. It turns out the Laura has grown up here in Heredia and she knows everyone. So she knows the guy that started and runs Pasos de la Juventud.
So we went to check out that school too. It was nice - about the same distance away as the European School (all the schools have private bus/van service, so that really isn’t a problem) with a nice little campus. We met the director (Laura’s friend) and he was very enthusiastic and informative. Compared to either of the other schools it was clear that he was much more willing to take parents’ suggestions and concerns into account when setting the program for the school. So we asked him how many kids would be in Ari’s class. If he could get 5 kids signed up, he would have a second grade class. If not, it would be combined with 3rd grade. No wonder he would be willing to tailor programs based on parents’ ideas.
While we were at it, we decided to stop in at Angel de la Guardia, a little Montessori pre-school around the corner from our house. Although Laura didn’t like this one either (again, not sure if it was just dislike of the Montessori method or the way they implement it) and Dara didn’t get such great vibes from the woman who showed us around, we thought it would be fine for Ellie. They had nice big play areas, lots of toys and trips every other week for classes at a local swimming pool.
Not to go too overboard, we decided to go check out one more school that we had driven by (or, I should say, rode by on the bus), the New Generation School. This one had a very nice campus, complete with a big gymnasium and indoor pool. Although nothing about it really stood out, it probably would have been fine, too. But, dun-dun-dah!, they did give us the name and telephone number of a parent we could talk to - a parent whose child had been at the European School and transferred to this school.
So there we were. - it was early January, school would start in a few weeks and we had 4 options for Ari and 5 for Ellie (every school offered pre-kindergarten on up, but the little Montessori school around the corner only went through kindergarten). The European School had classes all in English (but since almost all the kids that go there are Costa Rican, they all speak Spanish in the halls, etc.) and the other schools for Ari had classes that were all around 1/3 to ½ in English. For Ellie, the European School also would be all English, the others would be between ½ to ¾ English, except for Angel de la Guardia, the school around the corner from us, which would be almost all Spanish. I know this is confusing - maybe I should make a spreadsheet.
Anyway, as part of our due diligence, we called the parents from the New Generation School. Yes, it was true that they moved their kid from the European School, but they still thought very highly of the European School. Reading between the lines, it was pretty clear that it was more of a monetary issue than an educational one (the European school costs about $400 per month, the others range from $100 to $250 per month - I know, we’re getting a lot of sympathy for all you people in the US with kids in private school). We did discuss the “falling behind” issue and it seems that is a valid argument, to a point. In talking to these parents, the people at the European School, and others, it seems that the European School does concentrate strongly on some areas to make the children more well-rounded (emphasis on independence, good decision-making, language arts and public speaking) and maybe they don’t move ahead as quickly in math. But that is hardly to say that if Ari goes there, he’ll have to repeat 2nd grade when we go back to Yardley in the fall. Just to cloud the issue more (and reinforce what a small world it is here), the sister of the parent we talked to is in charge of the bus service for the other school, Golden Valley. So of course we called her, too, and she raved about the Golden Valley School.
Armed with our information, we made a pros/cons chart and weighed our options (yes, don’t forget Dara is an engineer). So we knocked New Generation out of the running because it was nothing great. We knocked Pasos de La Juventud out because, although we thought Ari would get a great education there, the fact that there were so few kids would be a very imposing limit on his ability to make new friends. Golden Valley lost out because it is going to be far away and probably still under construction. We decided to go with the European School because they emphasize things that we like and we think they are things in which Ari needs emphasis (let’s face it, Ari could return to Yardley in the fall and jump right into 3rd grade math without a problem). Plus, all the kids there will speak English fairly well and this will definitely help him make friends. Sure, this will probably slow down his learning Spanish, but hopefully not too much.
As for Ellie, it was much less of a science project. She’s going to the school around the corner. Although we didn’t get the greatest vibes from the woman there, one of the parents we talked to raved about the lady who will be Ellie’s teacher. Plus it is close. It is all in Spanish (except for the daily English lesson) so we won’t be surprised if Ellie leaps ahead in that department.
So, as you all know, Ellie and Ari are sharing a room. It hasn’t been a problem at all - until tonight, of course. After the lights went out, Ellie was tossing and turning. Ari was yelling, “Be quiet! I need my sleep!” which, naturally, led to Ellie tossing and turning more, yelling that she needs the door open, and so on. Oy vey. Not to worry - Dara got them calmed down within just a few minutes so they will be well rested for tomorrow. We’ll let you know how it goes.
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Dman
non-member comment
I knocked out the New Generation school solely on the name.