Just Breathe - My Motto The Past Week

First, I just want to say how sad I am to hear the news out of Boston.

When will it end?  Will it ever?  Or is this the new life we have to look forward to in America?

I don't think anyone could have predicted twenty years ago the things that would be making headlines today in our country and in our world.

We continue to pray for those whose lives have been affected.








In light of what transpired yesterday on the east coast, my troubles seem trifling in comparison.










Here's the story. 



We received Grant's admission letter from the public school system last week.  This letter lets us know he has been successfully registered for the upcoming school year.

Yeah.

The letter welcomed him to his new school....Norton Elementary.

Boo.


This town has one of the most arbitrary, laborious, illogical, complicated, impractical assignment plans in the country.  Don't believe me?  Look up the recent Supreme Court case regarding desegregation in public schools.  That's our district.


The short version of the story is that there are five elementary school scattered throughout our city (including the one Grace currently attends) that are in our "cluster".  There are five of these clusters throughout Louisville.  Our kids could be assigned to any one of the five schools in our cluster.  Usually kids are placed in the one closest to where they live, but the kids can be placed in any of the schools in a cluster to optimize the balance of racial, financial and educational backgrounds of the families involved.  Geography takes a very low priority in the decision making process.  Some elementary kids ride a bus for an hour one way each day for the sake of racial diversity.  Stupid, I know.

There are many negatives to Grant's assignment to Norton.  The bus ride to Norton is much longer than to our neighborhood school.  He will leave earlier and return home later than Grace.  He will have to change buses at the bus depot.  Grace has a direct trip to her school.  He has never been in this school.  He knows no one there.  In all likelihood, none of his neighborhood buddies will be there....

You get the idea.

So I have been in a mental funk the past few days trying to work this out mentally.  Do we pull Grace and put her with him at Norton so they are at least in the same building?  Do we have two kids in two different elementary schools?  Do we pull them both and homeschool? (I DO NOT want to do that!)  Private school?  Do we put him in Norton and petition for a hardship transfer the next year? (That would make four different schools in four years if we did that.)

Not one option I could come up with seemed workable without at least one kid being a mental mess.  Trying to sort this out made my brain hurt.  It made my heart hurt a little too to think of what next year might look like.

I did not have enough brain cells to figure out this little mess and blog too.  So blogging has been neglected.

Monday I went in and talked to Grace's principal.  I love this man.  He called the admissions office and got Grant transferred to Bowen for next year.

Problem solved.  Just as simple as that.

Did I mention I love that man??



Now, if only we could fix all of the world's problems that easily.  If only.