The Imperfect Community

[Petulant Pixie]

Alex got into the Math and Science Academy! It's way cool, it's a charter school in the state school system (not the district). It goes from 6th-12th grade, and it's open to anyone in the state, but they have a lottery for admission. Siblings of students get preference, but after that, then it's just names out of a hat basically.

It's a total nerd school, which will suit him perfectly. It's very academic (and well, math and science in particular) heavy. The kids there go to the YMCA, which is just down the road a little, for their PE. That's where I first learned about this school--Katie was taking classes at the Y when she was 3-5 and I'd see the math and science kids there doing their thing (some would play ball in the gym, others would run the track, others would do the treadmill or elliptical machines, and others doing the weights). I thought at the time, what a mature way to handle physical education for kids that age--give them a gym to go to and put them in charge of their own exercise. Then I started evesdropping on their conversations, and then started actually talking to them and I decided then that this was the school for Alex.

The biggest benefits I can see are:1) it's free (we're paying tuition at the Catholic school). 2) it takes him through high school (he's been to 5 schools in his 6 years of schooling, due to us moving or the boundaries changing in our district), and 3) I think he'll really find his niche with these kids who are like him. Also, this will get a foot in the door for Katie when she's in 6th grade.

Yay!

[MedeaNJ]

Hey, way to go! You must let us know how it goes.

There is a charter school, which is environmentally - concious, the kids spend at least 25% of their school-day outdoors, rain or shine. However it is about 42 miles away. DH is not keen on the idea, but we are keeping a lookout for similar schools to open up around here.

We are currenly planning on shelling out a shit-load of money to send them to a Waldorf school, but if there is a somewhat similar program that is part of the state, hell yeah I'm taking advantage of it.
Homeschooling is not out of the question for us, either.

[Scout]

Woohoo! That is awesome! I'm a big advocate of the charter school concept. Unfortunately we don't really have any good one locally yet. Well, the ones we have are geared toward extremely low-income, at-risk kids. SO I should say there aren't any that are good options for us.

[DietCokeHead]

That sounds like a great school!

There are no charter schools around here that I know of. The only privates are Catholic schools that you have to practically perform a miracle or know a Bishop to get into.