Wow thanks for sharing this. I do have a lot of feelings popping up for me and I'll try to reflect with them here. I'm a white mom who chose a coop school for my Kindy kid this year. (Spoiler alert it didn't work out but I'll say more below).
One piece I feel is that I'm just tired as a mother of three without aunties or family around. I just don't have a lot in me to change the whole system of schooling to be less 1950s assembly line and more human. And, I am in an area where I can't shop around for public elementary options. They do a lottery in K and you can choose between language schools and there's a semi Montessori option that starts only at prek3 for 2 hours a day (good luck if you need full days). You can't opt in to any of them later. To me these choices feels like leaving your community school in the same way as private because you aren't building into something that connects you to your neighbors, the schools are county wide lotteries. These schools get funding and then people drop out, move away, and the school gets smaller classes and still more resources. Or the tag school by us has so much more funding than our local elementary school. What is happening?? (There are others but they are even further away so I mention the ones by us.)
My kid is neurodivergent and I think the classroom setting itself is overwhelming to him. I tried a smaller school with more outdoor time. Honestly, looking at my kids' brain has taught me about mine and I do think a lot of my public school experience was really internalized traumatic. I did well... at a cost.
I am my child's advocate in this iteration, and I just don't feel like we're going to get support in a time of cutting funding and focusing only on academic disability (what I'm hearing from the school). My husband wants to try the public school next and I'm really nervous about what it's going to do to our family system through his reactions at home.
And, I’ve been working with the local school PTA for 2 years to build a school garden. You don’t have to be a parent to join the pta, our broader communities could join to build better schools, for those interested!
And, thank you for pushing me on this. There's a big space between in theory and in practice and we need a community to lift the middle.
Oh my gosh KELSEY, your comment has just blown my mind! Thank you so much for the insight that lack of Aunties makes it easier for families to choose and persist in public schools. I have thought deeply about Auntiehood, and deeply about parents' school choices, but it's only with your super insightful and thoughtful comment that I am now connecting these essential dots. I am so grateful! This is definitely going to shape my thinking going forward.
As for your specific school choice situation, I hear you so hard. I know just what you mean about the local public school "specialty options" being both exclusionary and hard to access. Our neighborhood school happens to be a dual language immersion school (with Spanish and Mandarin tracks), and if kids weren't there from the beginning they can't enter later (unless they are heritage Spanish or Mandarin speakers). You're totally right that this means class sizes shrink over the years and there are disproportionately high resources at this school. It's really, really, really not fair.
And then neurodivergence adds such another complex layer to the puzzle. Many, many of our study parents are parents of neurodivergent kids and they just longed to get their kids out of such a cacophanous environment. I myself struggled in public school as a neurodivergent kid (not academically but emotionally, physically, and socially). My niece who's going into 4th grade and is highly neurodivergent is starting in her district's gifted magnet program next year, and although her mom really wrestled with removing her from her neighborhood public elementary, it's a huge relief to contemplate her being able to be in a smaller, quieter environment.
As for your work with the local school PTA, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Stephanie and I recommend in our paper. Given the moral injury piece, we conjecture that a lot of private school parents with strong commitments to the public sphere actually feel like they lose standing to contribute well to the local public school system, and we think this is a huge loss. When private school parents support and advocate for their public schools, that is a really amazing outcome.
I so appreciate your readership and strong ongoing support for this newsletter, Kelsey. I learn so much from you!
Thank you 🥰 I felt a little worried I was over sharing and I'm so grateful for your continued conversation, sharing your research, and this awesome substack 💪🏻!
I chose homeschooling for my oldest - actually, it was supposed to be temporary while we waited for a spot at a public charter. They didn’t get in, but after a few months we didn’t care bc we discovered the secular homeschooling community.
Here in Northern VA - in the wealthiest county in the nation - the public schools are considered excellent. My husband and I are products of them! But as we’ve gotten deeper into home ed, we’ve found a diverse and progressive community of parents who add so much to our own lives, as well as our kids’. It’s been interesting to see how some folks in the home ed community show up for public schools, and how some demonize them. Definitely a mixed bag, even from people who on paper seem like they’d be big champions of public education.
Wow thanks for sharing this. I do have a lot of feelings popping up for me and I'll try to reflect with them here. I'm a white mom who chose a coop school for my Kindy kid this year. (Spoiler alert it didn't work out but I'll say more below).
One piece I feel is that I'm just tired as a mother of three without aunties or family around. I just don't have a lot in me to change the whole system of schooling to be less 1950s assembly line and more human. And, I am in an area where I can't shop around for public elementary options. They do a lottery in K and you can choose between language schools and there's a semi Montessori option that starts only at prek3 for 2 hours a day (good luck if you need full days). You can't opt in to any of them later. To me these choices feels like leaving your community school in the same way as private because you aren't building into something that connects you to your neighbors, the schools are county wide lotteries. These schools get funding and then people drop out, move away, and the school gets smaller classes and still more resources. Or the tag school by us has so much more funding than our local elementary school. What is happening?? (There are others but they are even further away so I mention the ones by us.)
My kid is neurodivergent and I think the classroom setting itself is overwhelming to him. I tried a smaller school with more outdoor time. Honestly, looking at my kids' brain has taught me about mine and I do think a lot of my public school experience was really internalized traumatic. I did well... at a cost.
I am my child's advocate in this iteration, and I just don't feel like we're going to get support in a time of cutting funding and focusing only on academic disability (what I'm hearing from the school). My husband wants to try the public school next and I'm really nervous about what it's going to do to our family system through his reactions at home.
And, I’ve been working with the local school PTA for 2 years to build a school garden. You don’t have to be a parent to join the pta, our broader communities could join to build better schools, for those interested!
And, thank you for pushing me on this. There's a big space between in theory and in practice and we need a community to lift the middle.
Oh my gosh KELSEY, your comment has just blown my mind! Thank you so much for the insight that lack of Aunties makes it easier for families to choose and persist in public schools. I have thought deeply about Auntiehood, and deeply about parents' school choices, but it's only with your super insightful and thoughtful comment that I am now connecting these essential dots. I am so grateful! This is definitely going to shape my thinking going forward.
As for your specific school choice situation, I hear you so hard. I know just what you mean about the local public school "specialty options" being both exclusionary and hard to access. Our neighborhood school happens to be a dual language immersion school (with Spanish and Mandarin tracks), and if kids weren't there from the beginning they can't enter later (unless they are heritage Spanish or Mandarin speakers). You're totally right that this means class sizes shrink over the years and there are disproportionately high resources at this school. It's really, really, really not fair.
And then neurodivergence adds such another complex layer to the puzzle. Many, many of our study parents are parents of neurodivergent kids and they just longed to get their kids out of such a cacophanous environment. I myself struggled in public school as a neurodivergent kid (not academically but emotionally, physically, and socially). My niece who's going into 4th grade and is highly neurodivergent is starting in her district's gifted magnet program next year, and although her mom really wrestled with removing her from her neighborhood public elementary, it's a huge relief to contemplate her being able to be in a smaller, quieter environment.
As for your work with the local school PTA, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Stephanie and I recommend in our paper. Given the moral injury piece, we conjecture that a lot of private school parents with strong commitments to the public sphere actually feel like they lose standing to contribute well to the local public school system, and we think this is a huge loss. When private school parents support and advocate for their public schools, that is a really amazing outcome.
I so appreciate your readership and strong ongoing support for this newsletter, Kelsey. I learn so much from you!
Thank you 🥰 I felt a little worried I was over sharing and I'm so grateful for your continued conversation, sharing your research, and this awesome substack 💪🏻!
Definitely not oversharing!
I chose homeschooling for my oldest - actually, it was supposed to be temporary while we waited for a spot at a public charter. They didn’t get in, but after a few months we didn’t care bc we discovered the secular homeschooling community.
Here in Northern VA - in the wealthiest county in the nation - the public schools are considered excellent. My husband and I are products of them! But as we’ve gotten deeper into home ed, we’ve found a diverse and progressive community of parents who add so much to our own lives, as well as our kids’. It’s been interesting to see how some folks in the home ed community show up for public schools, and how some demonize them. Definitely a mixed bag, even from people who on paper seem like they’d be big champions of public education.
Looking forward to listening!