When I Was a Kid, I Walked...

By the time I was in 8th grade, I had gone to six different schools: St. Michael's for kindergarten, Bren Mar for 1st, 2nd and 3rd; Foster Village for 4th; Hickam AFB Elementary for 5th and 6th; Moanalua Junior High for 7th; and Lake Braddock Secondary for 8th.


I told Daughter that the other night as I broke the news to her that her middle school was closing and she would have to go to a different one for 8th grade. Not surprisingly, she really could give a shit how many schools I had to go to; she only cared that her life was in upheaval, that the friends at the school she attends would be dispersed to the other two middle schools in town, that the teachers she adored and hoped to have again next year might be somewhere else.


Mostly, though, she was upset by the fact that nearly all of her friends are planning on going to one school and her "mom is making" her go to the other school. Worse than that, even, is the fact that all those same friends are telling her how awful the school is that she'll be going to, how mean the people are, how bad the test scores are, and so on.


Little fu$%ers. I try to tell her to do her own research on the school, to talk to kids who already go there, and to not listen to little shits who spout what their parents spout. [On the other hand, she should spout precisely what I spout. Ahem.]


The superintendent and school board members came to our closing middle school last night to hear from a room packed with parents. The information they gave did nothing to assuage anyone's anxiety. They're re-drawing the district boundaries, so no one will know for sure which middle school theirs will be until mid-February. Layer on that the fact that one school is in Program Improvement and the district doesn't know if they can reconstitute the whole damn district to have it considered out of white flight PI. [You can read horror stories about white flight PI. Just Google that No Child Left Behind bullshit act.]


And if they can't reconstitute and that one middle school stays in white flight PI, do you know what happens? Each and every parent who requests a transfer to the other school gets that transfer. Our middle school lost 100 kids to white flight PI transfers. The other school in white flight PI lost comparable numbers. So the district can talk all it wants about "equity in demographics and programs and resources" between the two middle schools remaining. But the fact is that won't happen unless white flight PI can be tricked out of the district with the smoke and mirrors of redrawing of boundaries.


That middle school in white flight PI, the one Daughter will likely attend as it is 1.6 miles from our house rather than 3.5, is a good school by urban standards. Of course, we're not in an urban setting, are we? But it's also a decent school by California standards. Of course, as a state, we rank 47th in per-pupil spending, right? But screw the test scores, which are skewed markedly down by a huge influx of English learners, the offspring of, dare I say it, illegal immigrants living in our town. Even with the onus of those kids and their uninvolved parents, the school offers a lot of great classes taught by good teachers and it is really quite nurturing yet tough and, and, and...middle school.


I told Daughter last night, after that meeting where I got fewer answers than I wanted and where I managed to make enough cutting remarks to make it clear what I think of the f#$kers who are closing this school to save a minuscule amount of money, that the principal she loves and a number of the teachers she adores will be going to the same school she'll be slated to attend. I told her that she has friends all over town, ones she's made through dancing and Girl Scouts, and they'll be there, too. I told her those friends of hers who are saying they won't be going are likely dead wrong.


I didn't tell her to "Suck it up, woman. I went to SIX schools by the time I was in 8th grade."


But seriously, Daughter, suck it up. I went to SIX schools by the time I was in 8th grade.