Dear Friend,
Today was the last full day of school for my children. Tomorrow there will be a simple graduation ceremony and then summer vacation begins. As you can imagine, they are quite excited.
Today, at the end of the school day, their school had its annual picnic. The picnic is an opportunity for parents to meet, or to reconnect, and for school staff and families to mingle.
This year, there was also an informal school meeting for the election of a slate of new board members (our school is an independent, non-profit, run by a board that is elected by the current parents).
At the meeting, I was reminded of all that this school could have been, and all that it has not become. I have written on this subject in the past and I will not belabor the matter.
Yet something about this meeting struck me in such a way that I felt I had to take action for my family. I was angry at what had become of the organization, at the incompetence of its leadership, and worst of all, at the passive apathy of the parents.
When your goal as a parent is to live a life of creative discovery with your kids, one of the key elements to your success in achieving that lifestyle is coming up with an educational arrangement for those kids that meets your unique needs.
A small private school can often be significantly influenced by a small group of dedicated parents. It can be made to serve those parent’s unique interests, if those interests are also shared by (or at least are not inconsistent with) the interests of the majority of the other families.
Generally speaking, large educational institutions, whether public or private, cannot be flexible enough to react to your family’s unique needs. However, small, community-run private schools may just fit your bill. The key is to find one with a leadership in place that is visionary enough to take you on. And this can be a difficult task, especially in rural areas or in areas that otherwise have few alternative educational choices.
As I sat in that depressing meeting I was reminded of an aggressive group of parents from a nearby community that had split off of our school and started a new school a few miles away. At that time their efforts were tiny.
When we returned home tonight we decided to check out their progress on the Internet. What we saw astonished us. Their growth had exploded. And this had occurred in a bad economic market when the “experts” at our school advised that such success simply wasn’t possible.
Maybe it is time to make a move?
The bottom line is, our current school lacks leadership, at any level of the organization. And I do not want to personally fill that role. I have other plans for myself and my family. As a parent, living a creative family lifestyle, I need a school that can meet our unique needs.
The families that created and now lead the new, start-up school have proven that when forward thinking people work together to meet the needs of the families involved, a successful educational program can be developed in a very short time. And when kids are involved, time is everything. A five or ten year school development plan simply leaves out anyone who is currently enrolled.
The lesson of all of this? When you are school shopping for your kids, ask questions. Expect to hear the school administrators tell you exactly how they will cater their school program to meet your family’s unique needs. If they tell you that they cannot do what you need, then move on. It can be done. They simply cannot, or will not, do it for you.
Remember. Your family’s lifestyle goals are far too important to sacrifice to the whims of a lazy bureaucrat. Homeschool for a while if you must. But do not compromise your dreams. A unique educational solution for your family is out there. Just keep looking.
Best of luck!
Hugh
