Another milestone

This morning, I registered The Biscuit for pre-kindergarten! That means she’ll be attending a city school in the fall. Damn! My baby is growing up so fast, I can hardly stand it.

New York City’s “Pre-K for All” program offers free, high-quality education to four-year-olds. The classes run five days per week from September to June and most pre-K options are on a full-day, 6-hour schedule.

When we moved to the city last year, we chose our neighborhood based on her planned attendance at PS 84, also known as the Lillian Weber School for the Arts. Even though we live in the school’s enrollment zone and are only two blocks away, we still had to apply for one of the 36 pre-k spots at this school. We got the letter last week that she had a seat in one of the two classrooms set aside for pre-kindergarteners.

PUBLIC vs PRIVATEAndy and I discussed early on that we didn’t want to send her to private school. For one, going private in this town is crazy expensive. The fancy school just down the block from our apartment costs more than $43,000 PER YEAR. That’s for pre-k (it goes up as the kids get older) and is more than what I paid for my entire education at The University of Georgia!

Outside of the ridiculous expense, I happen to believe in supporting public education. There’s no way public schools in this country can get better if parents put their kids, money and community support into private schools. This article from Slate a couple of years ago sums up my belief:

“Everyone needs to be invested in our public schools in order for them to get better.” Read more here.

Also, I personally believe private school kids grow up in a bubble that doesn’t come close to reflecting what the real world looks like. They are not economically or ethnically diverse and there is a “velvet rope” quality to admissions and the academic community. No, thanks.

I’m not worried about Parker in public school. We’ve got an exceptionally smart kid who will have little trouble being an academic star wherever she goes to school. I’m excited for the this next step for her and our family. Free school = no more money spent on daily childcare.

Finally! This kid is starting to do something other than cost us money. :)