If you have more than one child, you are given a lot of points for having a child already in one school, but there is no guarantee that your other child will be able to go to that school. So, you could potentially have to go drive to several different schools several times a day!! (Even if you have a school right next to your house!!!)
The school we have nearest to us is a half private half public school that used to be run by nuns for only girls. It has certain advantages, especially in terms of location, and I do like the fact that the school, although no longer run by nuns, does try to teach the children certain values that will supposedly help them be more conscientious people later on in life -or so that's how it was explained to us in a meeting on Monday. The half and half schools do charge a "voluntary" quota each month, but it is a mere 25 euros or so each month, so it's not really a huge deal. There are three half and halfs in Denia, and they are usually the hardest schools to get into because they are famed to give the best education and have the best installations, but with the way things are going economically here in Spain, it seems like in the last year or two, the quota is enough to put a lot of people off from wanting to go to them.
I went to the school to fill out their form to show them that I had an interest in the school. They called me several weeks later to tell me when I could come pick up the package of papers (the school application pack), and told me that there would be a meeting on Monday, for the new, interested parents. It actually ended up being a tour of the school. A lot of parents brought their kids with them, but since I had known about the meeting in advance, I had talked to Mauri's mom, and brought Eric to her house. There were a couple of power point presentations, over a lot of kids screaming and crying, but it really wasn't that big of a deal.
The first power point presentation, though, with the girl who was in charge of the younger kids was actually pretty nice. She talked about their activities: how they Skype with classrooms in the US to practice English, how they pair up with other towns for certain activities...overall she was upbeat and seemed to really enjoy what she does. That, of course, makes a parent happy.
Sadly, though, things took a turn for the worse when we finished the tour of the new building where the older kids have classes. I try not to be too picky, but I wasn't impressed by the power point presentation of the "pedagogue." The formatting was horrible, and there were words floating over the category headings on almost every slide!!! It is something that I would never accept from one of my students, so I don't really expect it from a teacher, especially not one who is trying to attract me to his school. To make things worse, the presentation was all about how important the "voluntary" quota is for the school, and how we all need to be contributing (I don't really need a lecture on that topic. I get it.) That said, the worst part, for me, was when he tried to show off how multi-languaged their school is, and finished the presentation with "Thank you for your atention." (Wow, that was hard to write as my computer automatically wants to change it to "attention," as it should be spelled.) I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that he isn't the person who will be trying to teach poor Eric English!! Despite the schools shortcomings, I figured that none of the other schools were going to be much better. I had liked the girl who seemed to be in charge of the younger kids, and I did like a lot of their ideas.
While I was there, I noticed 3 signs that announced a meeting for the very next day at 5:30PM. One sign was in English, one in Spanish and one in Valencian, and they invited parents to come with any questions that they might have about the school application paperwork.
You see, the paperwork is actually quite complicated, overall the whole application process is. You have to choose the order of the schools that you want, and you have to turn in extra paperwork to prove that you are who you are and that you live where you live. You only have a few days in which you can turn in the paperwork, and, even then, it is during a very limited schedule.
Yesterday, after all, most people had brought their kids. Plus, the meeting couldn't be too formal, since it was targeted equally to people in English and Spanish and Valencian.
Eric and I arrived at the school a few minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. I wanted to ask somebody about it, but the girl at the counter was busy chatting with somebody else. I felt a little out of place, and Eric had a lot of built up energy from school still, and he started running around. I had to run after him, convincing him not to go up the stairs. While running after him, I noticed that everybody started heading towards the small school library.so, I grabbed Eric and followed everybody inside.
I sat Eric down next to me, in one of the seats furthest away from the front of the room, and decided to give him my cell phone to try to keep him in his seat and quiet. The guy who gave the power point presentation the night before started to talk in Valencian, and asked if everybody understood it. While I do understand it, for the most part, I wanted to make sure that I understood the paperwork well, and so I called attention to myself by saying that I preferred the meeting be in Spanish.
No sooner had the meeting begun, than Eric started to turn the volume up on my phone. He was playing a counting game that counts out from 1 to 10 items, and then cheers when finished. Eric started to cheer with it. I quietly told him to turn the volume down, but he started to yell out "Más fort" (louder!) A few people turned to look at us.
Humiliated, I held back the tears, and packed up my stuff. I could hardly believe that I was being thrown out of the meeting that I didn't want to go to in the first place!! Worse, I had been thrown out in front of everybody else.
I mumbled something about having short notice for the meeting, and not being able to find someone to take care of Eric. Then I mumbled something else about having a few questions about the paperwork, to which he said something about coming back at 7 and then, "perhaps," somebody could help me. Of course, we were supposed to be at the dentist at 7, and I didn't have any interest in coming back after what had happened.
I mean, I understand that Eric was disrupting the beginning of the meeting, but this was a school, and nobody made any effort to help me out. Nobody offered Eric toys or something to try to distract him nor did they announce that kids couldn't come to the meeting. In any case, yes, there were a few other kids at the meeting, but they were a bit older, and weren't making noise like Eric. It wasn't so much what had happened, but rather the way that it was handled.
Mauri and Eric went inside, and I waited for them in the car outside. When the other parents started to leave, I ducked my head so they wouldn't see me. I still felt completely ridiculous about what had happened.
The guy who had thrown me out of the meeting seemed surprised that I was upset. He apologized and said that it was all a misunderstanding on my part. He had wanted to help me out later on. Whether or not that was true, I still hated the way it had been handled, but I now had no other choice than to accept the apology. They asked me what my questions were, but I was still so upset about the situation that I could barely think or talk.
So, I just pointed to the second page, saying that I didn't understand it at all. He and Mauri started to talk about it in Valencian, and I was then even more annoyed, but was so flustered from before, that I was barely listening anyway. Somehow we got through it all, and managed to leave the school just about the time that we were supposed to be at the dentist's office.
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| At the farmer's market, I went to a different stand and was sold a bunch of mushy strawberries! The hens didn't seem to mind, though. |
The meeting was awkward, but I got through it as best and as quickly as possible. They checked to make sure that all of my paperwork was complete, and checked the photocopies of our documents with all of the originals. When finished, I was relieved to be able to leave. First, though, I did ask about the uniforms, mentioning how Eric has sensitive, atopic dermatitis, and how we try to keep him in mostly cotton clothing. He told us that we could probably get ahold of the uniform in cotton, but that it would cost more. (That said, I went back a few days later, and it seemed most kids were wearing different pants and shirts. They were all navy pants with a white polo, though.)
In the end, I feel like I no longer really care about where they send Eric, but I'm guessing that, most likely, he will end up at that school. There are 50 openings there this year, 25 in castellano and 25 in Valencian. Most people shouldn't have more points than us because this school is unusual in that it doesn't give an extra points to the kids for their parents having gone to school. So, we aren't at a disadvantage despite Mauri (and I, obviously) having gone to another school. Plus, we have the "advantage" of Mauri having a handicap because of his burn scars from his accident years ago.
We'll just have to wait and see!
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