Like the preceding entries, this highly educational discussion dates back to Buffy’s original Blog.com site, which went amuck because no one on the face of the blog.com planet would respond to technical questions. Sooooooo, cheers to Buffy’s very favorite masterpiece, below:

 

Spring break is just around the corner, which means there are two topics filling the adult airspace in my zip code: (i) where families are taking their designer luggage for spring break, and (ii) where their kids are going to school next year.

So I’ll go first. (i) We are going to neither sunny Florida nor the slippery slopes of Colorado. (ii) Peep 1 is settled, and Peep 2 will attend one of two schools because he only applied to two and not 10. Both answers make our family weirder than weird.

Having grown up in a small town that had two elementary schools (one on the north side and one on the east side), a falling-down junior high (eventually rebuilt) and one high school (new and modern), the highly discussed school topic was new to me when I had children in the nation’s fourth-largest city. I realized JUST. HOW. SERIOUS. the business of getting into “the best school” was when mommies and daddies were phoning “the best school” from the birthing table to secure a spot for bouncing baby. Silly us just winged it, and miraculously, the kids were accepted at a nearby preschool when the appropriate time came. I had a second realization: Our family must be weirder than weird.

Things calmed down in elementary school… until fourth grade. Rumor had it, at least then, that if you didn’t apply to “the best school” during your student’s fourth-grade year, well tisk tisk and finger wag. Silly us winged it again because, after all, our kids attended an exemplary-rated public school and were receiving an excellent education just seven blocks away. Miraculously, they both made it to middle school. Whew, because our weirder-than-weird family didn’t chew our nails to the quick waiting for the acceptance letters during our spring break staycations.

Up next? You guessed it: high school. We’ve been there/done that once, and we’re being there/doing that again. With both Peep 1 and Peep 2, we visited a handful of schools, applied to two, asked God to open the door to the right fit, and went about our business as the family that is weirder than weird. Hubs and I agreed that if our kiddos couldn’t get into one of the two schools, we had a bigger issue at hand. But yeah, that’s just us the weird people.

The reality is simple — and this is coming from the simple-minded member of the family that is weird. There are sooooooooooooooo many great public and private schools in H-town, and both parents and students are darn lucky to have sooooooooooooooo many options. No parent takes a child’s education likely, and I have yet to hear anyone say, “I really just want the third best for my child.” Sadly, that’s what you’d be led to think when parents of students at “the best school” blab on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how much better “the best school” is than the crappy alternatives.

And if that’s not enough to make Buffy bitchy, I don’t know what is.

Only Buffy isn’t bitchy because it WILL work out. It always does. And wherever my peeps and your peeps end up, it will truly be “the best school” for each of them.