Schooling Decisions: Your Gut May Already Have The Answer

With your firstborn child, everything seems like a colossal decision. Parents feel like every step they take is setting a precedent, and what if it’s a mistake? A combination of the lack of experience and the fear of a bad decision can often make every discussion an analysis.

We felt that way in the years leading up to the day when our firstborn would enter kindergarten. The options before us seemed overwhelming. We both had a background of a combination of public and private schooling, and with opposite positive and negative experiences, we both came into the decision with many biases.

Adding to the confusion was that most of our close friends had decided to home school their children. We could see the benefits of home schooling, including two things that appealed to us very much from the standpoint of a family with a breadwinner who travels: flexibility and family time.

Private school was eliminated as a choice pretty quickly. We could not pay for it without me working outside the home or accumulating debt. But the other two options both looked so good that we spent months doing research and talking at length with friends and family who could advise.

When it came down to it, our main reasons for wanting to home school were not lofty. Though we had some higher goals in mind, too, the benefits most tugging us that direction were the ability to join my husband on his business trips and a continuation of the family time we were accustomed to.

Even more basic, I liked the idea of sleeping in and schlepping to the kitchen table for school at around 10 a.m. I know home schooling doesn’t always look like this, but in my house it certainly would.

However, as much as we kept mulling it over, it just wasn’t settling well as we tried to reconcile it with our other goals for our family. We wanted to interact on a daily basis with the people in our community and give our kids the opportunity to learn from the great teachers that are operating in their life’s calling. But really, the main thing was that it just wasn’t feeling like the right thing in our guts.

We decided to try public school. It’s half-day kindergarten, we thought. How bad could it be?

What we didn’t consider, as we started down this road that felt a little lonely in the midst of our friends all seeming to go a different route, is how great it could be.

We have been so impressed with and the administrators and teachers there. Not only have we never witnessed any of the things we feared about public school (our kid being just another kid, disengaged parents), but we have seen many times since my son started there how much each child is valued and how dedicated the teachers are. The PTO is vibrant and active, fronting a huge volunteer force of parents who are engaged and participating.

One day I picked up my son, only to be stopped by a teacher who told me some really encouraging things about him. She wasn’t even his classroom teacher. Another day, I was in his classroom gearing up for a field trip and got to witness Bierbaum’s principals displaying some crazy costumes and antics to promote the . The kids were in stitches, and I thought, “These guys really love kids!”

Bierbaum has more than 630 kids in attendance. It’s not a small school, and yet it feels like one when I’m up there volunteering at an event or checking my son out for a dentist appointment. I remember touring the elementary school with the assistant principal in 2009 and thinking there could not possibly be 600 kids in that building. It was so quiet and orderly.

There is a long line of people ready to spread the word that public schools provide sub-par education or complain about a particular school or teacher. But for those of us who see excellence in the schools, we should be talking about it.

I’m not up for a blind lovefest. I will be the first one to say that it is not worth martyring your child in a bad situation to adhere to a dedication to public schools. We’re not even saying that home schooling is permanently removed from our discussion. But I have witnessed a great school in action, and I am so glad that we went with that gut feeling.