Having Second Thoughts About My First Choice

So I turned in the school district's application form the other day. I made the deadline with two hours to spare.

I was happy to hear that I wasn't the very last parent to make up her mind. No, there was a pack of us making the decision at the last minute this year. I don't know what excuses the others had, but mine was that I couldn't find a clear first choice.

I listed five public schools that I would be happy to send Alex to. I was supposed to list seven, but I could only come up with five. All five are great schools, though. 

I put His Sister's Old School as our first choice because it's close to our house and his sister received a fine, if overly rigorous, education there.

I put The Hidden Gem in second place. I did this because, while it's a smaller school (a good thing), it's farther from our house (not a good thing). Proximity is always important, but especially so when kids are starting to venture from school to home on their own. I'd like Alex's first forays into solo city navigation to be simple and safe.

But, now...now I think I should have put that darn Hidden Gem in first place! For heaven's sake, Alex and I can deal with a longer commute if it means he'll have a school that better suits his learning style! And Alex learns much better in smaller groups, which The Hidden Gem offers. Dang! What was I thinking?

These second thoughts really intensified when a friend called me after reading my blog. "You raved about The Hidden Gem and then you didn't put it down as your first choice. What's that all about?" she asked silkily. And I didn't have a ready answer.

I comfort myself with the notion that if I'd left it up to Alex, he would have picked His Sister's Old School. But then I torture myself with the notion that he's a kid, his reasons are purely juvenile, I shouldn't leave it up to him anyway. He only wants to go to His Sister's Old School because that's where he thinks his friends are going to go.

Although his social life should not trump his academic needs, his social life is important to his overall success. (This reminds me of the day that we toured His Sister's Old School and one of the touring moms conducted an impromptu interview of the kids waiting for the morning bell. She asked them, "Why did you choose this school?" They answered, "Because our friends were going to go here!" This mom, a middle-school counselor, later told me, "Educators and parents often forget just how important it is that kids are happy socially.")

On one school tour this year I met a wise "parent ambassador" named Sue, who shared with me a lesson she had learned the year before. Sue told me that her daughter had come to her in sixth grade and asked to be transferred out of her school (which, ironically, is the school I've chosen for Alex, His Sister's Old School). Sue said she was surprised at how calm her daughter was about everything. Her daughter "just knew" she would do better in her new school and calmly awaited her reassignment in seventh grade. The moral: if the first choice doesn't turn out to be the best choice, kids can handle switching schools just fine. I've been thinking about this little tale a lot lately.