Choosing a School for Jack

Monday I submitted an application and yesterday I toured a school that I am very much hoping that Jack will be attending this fall.



If you told me two weeks ago that I would be enrolling Jack into a private school, I would have told you that you were crazy!  I don't know where my head has been, though I suspect it has something to do with not realizing how much time is passing and how this last child of mine is growing up.

The four children that I have already raised, all went to Parochial Schools and then Private High Schools.  After years on end of driving to all these different schools, car pooling and what not I was just SO done!

When Jack was born , my plan was not to go that route.  I was going to put him on a bus at the corner and have the easy life, and I guess that's what hit me last week.  I was making important decisions for Jack  based on me not having to drive him to school every day.  I wasn't doing what "I" thought was best for him, I was doing what I thought was best and easiest for me.  It took a conversation with one of my daughter in laws to jostle me out of this fog!

This is one of the hardest things I've found with having another child after having already gone through all of these things.  You have the advantage/disadvantage of hind sight.  You can say to yourself, did this thing I did with my children really matter?  Did it have an effect on who they became and are they better for it?  Of course, you don't really have that answer, since this isn't a movie like "Sliding Doors" where you can see two parallel Universes with different life altering decisions played out side by side.  So I ask questions.   I talked to my daughter who went to a Sacred Heart High School and knows many people who went to this very school I am enrolling Jack in.  I respect her and her thoughts and knowledge on the subject and my talks with her were probably the most influential.

I also talked with a neighbor who's children went to this school, just to get her "hind site" as well.  So decision made.  It's not easy making life altering decisions for my children, but I guess that's my job. I just hope it's a good decision for him.  I still have an interview to do with the Head of School, and then Jack will have a screening on Aug. 4th.  Since he just turned 5 in May, and Missouri's cut of date is July 1, (the earliest in the country) I'm having him screened for Pre-K as this is where I think he should start unless the screening shows otherwise.

Just as a mention...I'm a bit dramatic about these sort of decisions, things other people never give a second thought to. I never want to imply that I think one choice is better than another. The things I write about here are just what's important to me and in no way a blanket view of the world or what I think other people should do. I love the fact that we all do have choices though.

I would like to write more about this school in the future.  The incredible history, the scent of old books and old wood...it takes me back to a simpler time of losing my own self  in an old library as a child.  I wish I had gone to this school....